| |
––––––––
I WAS EXHAUSTED. MY eyelids wanted to flutter and rest closed. The healing effects of the Jehona were wearing off, and I knew I would sleep for at least two days if I could.
But when Leysa—the half-sister of Tanith Taran, which earned a little less credibility to trustworthiness in my mind—revealed that the Kairos’s goal was to usurp the leaders of Sanlow and liberate all humans, I felt a fire flicker to life in my chest.
I remembered the moments before, during, and after I’d beheaded that half-blood. The thrill of it. The joy I felt knowing there was one less monster to prey on humans. If I could do that again to a pureblood vampire...
“I’ll train you how to kill purebloods.”
Leysa’s words rang in my head like toll bells.
I could be trained to kill vampires. And with that training—kill Cirillo Kaladin.
I felt an abrupt, odd kinship with Aspen—finally, someone who wanted revenge and was willing to act on it. For being such a friendly soul who only wanted to read books and go on journeys, his sudden darkness was jarring. Then again, he had a vampire’s bloodlust in his veins. But that didn’t make me fear him. It only made me like him more. He was a powerful ally.
I slammed my hands on the table and stood. “I’ll do it.”
Leysa’s grin widened. I liked the savage look in her eyes. With a look like that, I knew she could be trusted to stir up a fight—against her own kind. “If,” she added wryly, “we exchange some real answers.”
Sloan jerked to her feet, glaring between me and Leysa—not just a leader of Kairos, but a rebellion leader. “There’ll be no training while she’s pregnant. Do you have a Medic here? Any herbs? Maer needs to be taken care of.”
Anger boiled in my veins. “Stop trying to coddle me! I don’t need—”
“We don’t have a healer,” Leysa interrupted, suddenly playing mediator, “but I know of one we can trust. He’ll actually be helpful in—Never mind. I’ll send a messenger for him. He lives a day away. As soon as we get word back, we’ll head to his lodging.”
“You can’t just bring him here?” Sloan demanded. “Traveling an entire day in that blasted carriage isn’t good for—”
“For what?” I interrupted. “The baby?”
I spat the word like it was a curse, and I didn’t expect everyone to gape. It belatedly occurred to me that they didn’t know if the father was human or vampire. Did they assume one or the other? They knew I was running from the father, but I’d never given them a real reason. I told Koen that it wasn’t planned, but did Sloan and Aspen piece that together? Did they guess the horrible truth—that it happened against my will?
“Can I talk to you alone, Maer?” Leysa asked quietly.
I gritted my teeth. I heard Koen whisper my name pleadingly, but I didn’t want to look at him. I was still clinging to the tenderness of our moment at the pool and didn’t want to ruin it by snapping at him.
“I’d like to talk to each of you individually, actually,” Leysa added. “But I’d like to start with Maer.”
It was an obvious cue for Aspen and the Blackwood siblings to make themselves scarce, even if they looked like they wanted to argue.
“Leave it,” I muttered when Koen opened his mouth, likely about to say, Whatever she can hear, so can we.
But he begrudgingly obeyed, looping his arm around his sister’s waist to guide her out after Aspen. I sat back in my chair, stomach aching once more, as Leysa sat across from me, forearms braced on the table as she eyed me with intrigue.
“You don’t like your baby.”
I gritted my teeth tighter. “No.”
“But you like it enough to risk everything to flee Sanlow for a better life for it.” Before I could spit out my answer, she continued as if she could read minds, “You wouldn’t want any innocent left at the mercy of a vampire. Especially not an infant. No, I can’t read minds,” she continued sharply, “but I have the power of inference. I have an uncanny sense of picking up certain tells and then connecting pieces of things together.”
Then Leysa’s voice softened, and she leaned back, losing her intensity. “Which means I know that either this pregnancy wasn’t planned, or it happened by a more nefarious act.”
Unable to help myself, my hand drifted to my neck, where no amount of blood could heal the marks Cirillo’s fangs had left.
Vampires’ fangs were coated in a venom that induced a euphoric high when introduced to a human’s muscles or bloodstream. It also irrevocably scarred the skin and tissue. Vampires themselves were a paradox—they had the power to harm just as much as they had the ability to heal.
Leysa’s gaze didn’t miss the movement. She worked her jaw as if mad on my behalf. “The latter,” she growled. “I promise you that I will give you the skills to take justice.”
I was glad she didn’t press who it was. I wondered if I should. I’d been terrified by Vidar’s threat. I did have a connection to the monster who’d destroyed his coven—which didn’t seem as terrible as the other four, as if Ophir were good—but if Leysa knew it was Cirillo who forced himself on me, would they still want to destroy his spawn, unable to look past that? Or would Leysa take pity, wanting to spare the innocent infant?
But I kept my mouth shut. No need to complicate things.
“It seems none of you except Aspen have grand plans otherwise,” Leysa said, now conversational. “You’re welcome to stay here to train, become part of the Kairos, and join us in the revolution. It’s a safe place to remain until you have your child.”
I mapped out the underground tunnel in my mind’s eye. Remain here for the next several months?
I shook my head. “I’ll go insane stuck down here.”
Leysa hummed thoughtfully. “That’s understandable. But what about training?”
Frustration welled inside me. Ophir was my first and last option. I had nowhere else to go. It was the safest place to solidify my plan to end Cirillo’s life and give birth. It was also the safest place for the spawn. It was half-blood; was there a better place than a safe haven of over two dozen of them? After that, though, I could return to Sanlow, take revenge, and then go wherever I pleased.
Just as quickly as it came, the frustration drained. I was stubborn and acted before I thought anything through, but I still had the ability to stick to common sense.
I sighed. “I’ll stay.”
Leysa beamed. “I’m glad.”
“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” I asked, eyeing her.
“For now. You need to rest before anything else.” She smiled fondly. “If I don’t listen to the spunky healer’s advice soon, I fear she won’t need training to take me down.”
I’d hardly call it spunk, I thought with an internal snort, but then caught myself. As bossy as Sloan was or how much she annoyed me with it, I admitted she was growing on me. Whether she actually liked me or was just following her Medic instincts, she was willing to care for me—care about me. Sloan was also an ally. I couldn’t continue to push her away.
Leysa rose to her feet and offered a hand. I almost swatted it aside but then took it. I couldn’t stop the groan of pain.
“Go back to the pool,” suggested Leysa, ushering me out of the room. “Take Sloan with you. I’ll speak with Koen first.”
I opened my mouth to protest that she still hadn’t addressed any of our questions, but a set of hands gripped my upper arms, and Sloan said, “Wonderful idea. Come along, Whisler.”
Sloan spun me around and steered me away so fast that my vision blurred. Aspen was returning from the main chamber. “Just sent out a messenger,” he said proudly.
Behind us, Koen called, “I’ll catch up to you!”
“Take your time,” Sloan called back, which didn’t sit well with me.
As if Sloan knew her way around already, we went to the women-only pool, which was thankfully empty. It looked almost exactly the same as the shared one. There was another pile of clothes set out.
“You’re going to sit in the water,” Sloan instructed surprisingly softly.
The idea of lowering myself to the ground made me say, “I’d rather be fully in.”
“Luckily for you, there’s a bench.”
She guided me to the far edge of the pool, where a ledge jutting out indeed like a bench was visible under the clear water. Unabashed to strip to my underthings with another woman, I let Sloan help me in. When I was seated, she sat cross-legged on the edge behind me. Before I could wonder why she wasn’t getting in, her fingers gently combed through my damp hair.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
However miffed I was about not knowing how it worked, I was never more thankful for the water’s healing power. I felt all my pain melt away once more. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to relax for the first time in what felt like forever.
But Sloan’s words kept me grounded. “Why?”
“Is it all right if I braid your hair?”
My throat tightened. No one had ever offered to braid my hair before. I’d seen sisters and mothers and daughters braid each other’s hair and always secretly envied it. “Yes,” I whispered.
Sloan worked slowly and carefully not to tug too hard; even though it barely fell to my shoulders, there were quite a few knots she needed to tease out. Tears sprang to my eyes as I suddenly realized how neglected I had always been. No one to pamper me in the way most daughters and sisters were cared for. I didn’t know gentleness. I didn’t know love. Never thought I was worthy of any of it because I wasn’t intended to be born and lived only to battle and bleed for entertainment.
“I’m not usually like this,” Sloan said after a minute or so. “Snappy and argumentative and useless in fights. Koen trained me in sword and knife for years, but I was never ready for real-life situations. I’m a Medic. I’ve taken a vow never to harm. I just...panicked. Fear makes you do stupid things.”
That’s the truth, I thought bitterly.
“And I argue with you because I care about you, Maer,” she murmured. “As an unofficial patient and as a...” Sloan inhaled deeply, as if gathering courage, and then all of a sudden, she was spilling her whole heart: “As a friend—I mean, I want to be your friend. Yes, I hated you at first. Koen is so obsessed with you, and it was getting him in trouble, and I don’t like it when my brother is in danger. He’s all I have. Yes, I’m still mad at you, because we have targets on our backs now with nowhere else to go. I was content with my life, despite its dangers. I had a future. And now I...I don’t know what I have. So I’m...I’m clinging to you because you tie me back to familiarity. I lost my friends. I want another one. In you. If you want.”
Sloan paused for a moment, then whispered, “Just...let us take care of you. Please, because I want to forgive you. Can you begin to forgive me?”
I opened my eyes to stare at the water, my mind racing. That was a lot to take in.
Sloan gave one last tug of my hair. “There. Now you don’t look like you wrestled a hog in the mud.”
The image that was conjured in my mind was so ridiculous that a hysterical laugh burst from my lips. “That’s oddly specific.”
She hummed a laugh. “It’s happened before. There’s... There’s something I have to ask you.”
I did my best to look over my shoulder at her; my stomach only allowed me so far. “Yeah?”
Sloan’s eyes were teary and pleading. “Are you as in love with my brother as he is with you?”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
And that’s when someone screeched, “Intruders!”
