“Only sometimes,” he said.
He was deep in thought, sword still hanging at his side—staring at me hard, like he was trying to take me apart.
I chanced taking a step closer. Tipped my chin, cocked my head. I had no big beautiful eyes to bat at him, but I knew the body language—curious, innocent, submissive.
“If you want to know more about this—this prophecy, I could Threadwalk again and—”
“No.”
Just as swiftly as he’d drawn his sword, he sheathed it. The tension broke. He turned away. It was as if he’d never considered killing me at all.
“Go find Erekkus,” he said. “He’ll give you orders. We have plenty of work to do.”
Atrius did not rest before cementing his hold on Alka. He ordered a sweep of the towers, eliminating the last of Aaves’s men, who hid in the shadows, foolishly throwing themselves at Atrius’s warriors wielding frying pans or dinner knives. They were easy to root out.
I wasn’t sure what I expected Atrius to do once that was done—strip the capital for resources, perhaps, or set up his men in the civilian homes—but it wasn’t what he did.
I was with Erekkus, dragging away bodies from the first floor of the tower, when Atrius appeared on the balcony that overlooked the crumbling homes of Alka’s people. Everyone stopped their work, necks craning. Erekkus was pulled away by another soldier who said something in Obitraen to him.
“What’s going on?” I asked Erekkus, when he nodded and returned to our work.
“Atrius is addressing the people. They’re going to get everyone out of their houses to listen.”
Addressing the people? I couldn’t quite name why this was unbelievable to me—maybe it was because the idea of Atrius making a speech seemed absurd, or maybe it was shocking to me that the vampires considered the citizens of Alka people worth addressing at all.
“They’re going to terrify people. Everyone’s going to think they’re about to get rounded up and slaughtered.”
Erekkus shrugged. “Maybe. But they’re not.”
“Why not?”
He chuckled. “You’re not the first one to ask that question,” he muttered.
“Atrius doesn’t kill the civilians of the cities he conquers.”
I couldn’t quite tell if there was a question mark at the end of that or not.
“No. He doesn’t. Not one of them, if he can help it.”
I thought about Raeth.
If he can help it.
We hoisted another body over the edge of the ravine, to be burned in the pit below. It made a series of very unpleasant cracking noises on the way down.
“You’re surprised,” Erekkus said.
“He didn’t strike me as the forgiving type.”
Erekkus laughed, like I’d said something legitimately hilarious, the sound punctuated with a grunt of exertion.
CRACK, as another one of the bodies fell against the rocks.
“Why is that funny?” I asked. Despite myself, I was panting. These bastards were heavy. I supposed decades of a life of sickening luxury built on the backs of your populace would do that to a waistline.
“Atrius has an interesting moral code.”
“I’m just surprised, given—”
“Given that we eat humans. Last one?”
He pointed to one final body, a silk-drenched old man with a clearly broken neck, and we crossed the room to drag it over.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ll be honest, Sister, a lot of us do think we should be eating a whole lot better on this trip than we are. But—” Another grunt, as we hauled the body over the edge. CRACK. “—Everyone respects Atrius. And Atrius believes he can’t rule this kingdom while also eating its subjects, which, I begrudgingly have to say, does make sense.”
I stopped mid movement. My brows rose without my permission.
“Rule,” I repeated.
“Yes, rule,” he muttered. “There’s more to go. Let’s get down there.”
Somehow, it had never occurred to me that Atrius’s ultimate intention was to rule Glaea—as in, actually govern it, its people included. I didn’t know why he wanted this kingdom, but it had never even crossed my mind that being a decent ruler to the humans that lived here was a possibility. I knew what life was like for humans in Obitraes—to say that humans were second-class was putting it kindly, despite some minimal protections. I imagined his intentions for the humans of Glaea were likely more of the same, at best. Anything otherwise was… confusing.