He was blatant in his affection, dropping his mouth to the crook of my neck, where he kissed and nipped at my skin.
“Adrian.” I whispered his name fiercely. It was more a reprimand than encouragement, but a dreadful scream tore us apart.
Sixteen
Isolde
The sound sent my heart racing, and I looked toward Killian as he rose to his feet and came to my side. Violeta and Vesna also huddled close. Half the crowd was distressed, voices rising in fear. The other half looked on, curious, as we tried to locate the source of the screaming and the reason.
There was another wail, and then someone shouted.
“It’s the blood plague! The blood plague has come to Cel Ceredi!”
No longer curious, the crowd began to disperse. Some were frantic to retreat indoors, while others tried to get a closer look at what was happening. Adrian and I pushed through the chaos to find a woman bent over a man who lay on his back in the snow.
“Please! I beg you,” she moaned, rocking back and forth. “Someone help me take him to the king!”
“What has happened?” Adrian asked. He stepped forward despite how hard I held him. If this was the blood plague, we did not know enough about how it spread to take chances.
It had killed two vampires, and yet Adrian still approached.
“My king! My king, please help! My husband is ill!”
Even as she spoke, the man on the ground before her began to convulse and blood leaked from his eyes, nose, and mouth. The woman shrieked, her shaking hands hovering over his body, as if she wanted to touch him but was too afraid.
Then he stopped moving altogether, and I looked on in horror as she began to scream his name. It seemed like the villagers drew nearer too.
“Efram?” she called, distressed and desperate. “Efram? No, please! Please wake up.”
She took the hem of her dress and began to dab at the blood on his face. Killian approached, dragging her away from the corpse, and sat, holding her in his arms on the cold ground.
Though I admired his impulse to comfort her, I worried that he may become infected.
“Perhaps I can help,” Solaris said, coming forward.
“He’s dead,” Adrian said. “You’re too late.”
The witch-hunter offered a cold gaze. “Are you saying I cannot try?”
Adrian did not speak, just gestured to the body.
Solaris knelt, taking the glove off his withered hand and holding it over the body—which took a deep breath.
The crowd who had gathered to watch gasped. I felt both shocked and sick. Adrian looked furious.
The man, Efram, who had died moments ago, began to choke. Solaris helped him roll to his side, and blood sprayed from his mouth onto the snow. Then he began to cough and spit mouthfuls of blood until he could produce nothing but clear saliva.
“Efram!” His wife had freed herself from Killian’s grasp and crawled toward her husband while a steady rumble of voices began to rise behind me.
“It is a miracle.”
“He is our savior.”
“He has been sent by the goddess herself.”
I clenched my fists against those words and stared at Adrian. I was not certain, but I thought for a moment that he might strike and murder the man Solaris had resurrected.
“Come, on your feet,” said Solaris, rising.
Once they were standing, his wife threw her arms around Efram, but he did not return the hug, nor did he bear any expression, and I thought he seemed more like a revenant than a man returned to life.
If his wife noticed, she did not seem to care, because she turned to Solaris and exclaimed, “You are a god!”
Those nearby began to cheer as the man who had risen from the dead made his way through the streets of Cel Ceredi with Solaris by his side.
“They should be more afraid,” I said, but the mist, the aufhockers, and the plague had all made them too desperate for a savior, and they had chosen Solaris the moment he had promised to rid the world of Ravena.
I had no doubt they would regret their decision, but it would be a hard lesson.
“Are you just going to let them go?” I asked, looking at Adrian, who still stood near where Efram had lain, marked by his blood.
“What would you have me do when the people of Cel Ceredi think he is a god?”
“Exercise your rule as king,” I said. “Bring Efram and Solaris to the castle, have them spend the night in the dungeon for observation.”
I didn’t know if he heard what I said. He seemed so focused on the villagers’ retreat, but after a moment, he gave a sharp whistle, summoning Shadow.
“We should head back to the castle,” he said.
I did not disagree, though I did so with dread, knowing no good could come from what had transpired here. Resurrection was the only part of necromancy, the magic of speaking with the dead, that High Coven never touched.
It was for the goddesses, we used to say, but I was not so certain it was for anyone. Even the goddesses brought people back wrong. The monsters we lived among were testament enough.
***
Adrian was in a foul mood.
I sat in bed, worrying over him, watching him.
He was across the room from me, his arm propped on the table, hand covering his mouth, silent. He had been like that since we had returned from Cel Ceredi.
We both knew the consequences of what Solaris had done. Our people would start to look to Solaris for protection and not their king. He had been smart to hide his abilities, to reveal them strategically, though I worried over that too. Who else would Solaris attempt to resurrect before we knew the consequences?
“We should have never let him stay,” I said.
Adrian’s jaw ticked. “Do you intend to lecture me?”
“It is too late for that, don’t you think?”
He slammed his hand down on the table and stood.
“Fuck!”
He began to pace, predatory in the way he moved.
“I will have to make him into a noblesse,” he said.
I sat up straighter. “Why would you do that?”
“He has left me little choice in the matter,” Adrian said. “At least if he is a noblesse, he is seen as part of my circle. If he remains separate, he is a threat.”
“I thought we agreed that you would not take on noblesse based only on their usefulness.”
“We agreed to nothing,” he said. “You gave your opinion.”
“Which you clearly did not value enough to consider.”
“Value has nothing to do with it,” he said. “This is political, Isolde. Solaris has publicly petitioned to become a noblesse, he has already created division, and tonight he illustrated an ability that goes beyond any power I possess. Our people will not understand why I would deny him.”
“Your decision to turn him would be rash,” I said. “We do not know who Solaris truly is or what he wants. He may claim to have powers granted by Dis, but there are always consequences to resurrecting the dead. If you wait, Solaris will destroy himself.”
“And what do we do until then?” he snapped, standing. “Let our people follow like sheep to the slaughter?”
“You have had no problem waiting when it comes to my people,” I said. “I suppose it only matters when your reign is being threatened by a man who has more power than you.”
Adrian turned toward me fully, and the force of his anger took my breath away.