“She was an acolyte of Acaeja, too.”
I didn’t know why I was so eager to say that—to demonstrate that I knew something about her.
“Yes. It was her idea, actually. We were both young, growing up here, in the human districts of Vartana. And this life is a hard one, for humans in Obitraes. Vartana isn’t as bad as Sivrinaj or Salinae, but there are limits to what a human can do with their lives in this kingdom. Alana never accepted that, though. She was ambitious. A dangerous quality for someone in her position. She was blessed with a touch for magic, and rather than pursuing the arts of Nyaxia, knowing she could never be more than passable at it, she decided to go in a different direction.”
“Acaeja,” I said, and Alya nodded.
“Yes. The only other god that would allow their gifts to be used by someone in Obitraes, even a human. But it was about more than that for Alana. She liked that Acaeja was the Goddess of Lost Things. She felt like we were all lost. Needed someone to guide us back. Eventually, I came to believe it, too, and studied alongside her.”
Without meaning to, I’d started leaning across the bed, as if to get close enough to absorb the words into my skin. With each one, I painted color into that old ink portrait of my mother.
“So my mother was… a healer?” I asked.
“No, I was always the better healer. She didn’t have the patience for it. Besides, I think it was too small for her. She wanted something big. Something grand. She experimented with sorcery, with seering.” Alya laughed a little. “I always used to be after her for choosing the most useless skills to focus on. She told me they’d be useful one day, just wait.”
Then the smile went cold. “I suppose that turned out to be true. When word got around that Vincent was looking for seers.”
She said Vincent’s name like a curse, something dirty to be expelled.
My eagerness snuffed out like a candle, leaving behind only dread.
So many things I needed to know.
So many things I did not want to hear.
“No one could stop her,” Alya went on. “She wanted something more than this place, this life. So she went to Sivrinaj and offered herself up to him. She told us this was her chance at becoming something important. Money. Safety. Not just for her, she said, but for all of us.” She shook her head. “I begged her not to go,” she murmured. “But there was no reasoning with her.”
I clasped my hands together, knuckles white. My body had gone rigid, like I was bracing for a blow. Maybe Raihn sensed this, because he put his hand on my back, and Mother, I was so grateful for that single steadying touch.
I had cursed Vincent in my own head countless times. Screamed into my pillow in rage and hurt over the things he had done to me, the lies he had told me.
And yet, he was still my father. I loved him. I missed him. I treasured what little pieces of goodness I had left in my memories of him. I didn’t want to sacrifice them to what Alya was about to tell me.
But I wanted the truth more.
“What happened?” I whispered.
Alya laughed softly. “What happened? She fell in love. That’s what happened. She was a pretty young woman with big dreams who had grown up in poverty. He was a handsome vampire king who made her feel—” She hesitated here, looking for the right word. “He gave her something she’d never had before. He gave her a purpose. Of course she fell in love with him. How could she not?”
I let out a shaky breath.
“What did he want her for?” I asked. “What were they working on together?”
“I didn’t know at the time. I only got pieces, sometimes, when she would write to me for advice. I gathered she was trying to restore something that had been lost, or perhaps create something new. Something very powerful. But she was extremely secretive.” Alya’s eyes flicked to Raihn. “But now, after hearing about Vincent’s supposed experimentations… I suspect she was helping him harness this god blood.”
I blinked in surprise, then glanced at Raihn, who shrugged.
“We got to talking,” he said. “While you were out.”
“I didn’t pry too much about it at the time,” Alya said. “I didn’t care about the machinations of a vampire king. I cared about my sister. She lived with him for years. And at first… she seemed happy. That was all that mattered to me. She came here with him, once.”
My brows leapt.
Now that—that was beyond the wildest bounds of my imagination. Vincent, here? In a shack in the human district of a little town that barely made it onto maps?