WHILE I DESPERATELY TRIED NOT TO throw up again, Roran laughed and shook his head.
“Six, your highness? You couldn’t just stop at the five overlords?”
“Of course not. Why would I? The person who betrayed me had to die too, don’t you think? And she makes such a lovely addition to those faces…”
He looked up and actually admired his work.
“Did you have to hang them up?” Carolee asked.
“Naturally.”
This guy was sick.
Leaning back in the throne again, he smiled at the general standing there. “Odom, thank you. You may lower the curtains.” He grinned, his fangs showing this time. “I find that as long as I don’t expose them to too much light, they need less care. You wouldn’t believe how messy they were when we finally switched from torch to light bulb.”
He steepled his fingers. “My restorer at the time couldn’t guarantee he could save them. Odom, where is Margulies?”
“Third floor, your majesty. Almost ready for his first dunking.” Odom’s voice was emotionless.
Dunking? Oh, gods…
“So, back to my offer. The Breaker or your deaths.”
I swallowed, staring straight ahead. I saw all three of the other masters wagging their hands at their sides to say nothing.
“The Breaker isn’t here,” Vitas said. “It’s too dangerous to take her out of West S’Kir.”
“Mmm.” He picked at the arm of the chair. “Shame. I’ll have to kill you then.”
He flipped his hand at the guard to the right. The vampire pulled out his sword and moved it into a strike position, eyeballing the three closest people—including Roran.
I simply wasn’t fast enough.
The guard sliced down, but not in the direction that I had expected at all.
That any of us expected.
His sword flipped mid-slice, and aimed for one of the soldiers, and cleaved his head from his shoulders
“NO!” There was no way to tell who screamed it.
The sword, though, didn’t stop. He continued the arc and sliced through another neck.
The shock on Carolee’s face was the last emotion she would feel.
Vitas screamed and leapt for her, catching both her body and her head before they hit the floor. He kept screaming, tears crowding out of his eyes.
“Stop screaming!” the king yelled. “Stop!”
Vitas didn’t even hear him. I barely heard the words. My own tears were for Carolee and the pain on Vitas’s face.
I glanced up at Roran. His face was wet, but his countenance was dark, angry, vengeful.
“Shut him up!” the king screamed again. “Shut. Him. Up!”
The soldier with the sword came at Roran.
I threw myself in front of him. “NO! Stop! Stop. I’m the Breaker.”
“Kimber!” Roran barked.
“No one else is going to die because of me!” I turned back to the king and stepped forward. “I am Kimber Raven, Mistress of the Temple of the Lost God and Breaker of the Spine.”
Odom, next to the dais, visibly jerked.
He stood and walked forward. “Welcome, Mistress Breaker. You have spared the others’ lives.” He looked beyond me to where Vitas was still wailing. “Put her in the fountain.”
“No,” I begged. I tossed a look over my shoulder. “Let them go, let them take her home. I will stay.”
“Kimber!” Roran growled this time.
“Of your own accord?” The king walked toward me.
“Don’t do this, Kimber,” Roran hissed in my ear.
“Carolee just died because I didn’t act fast enough.” I spun back to the king who was now almost directly in front of me. “Let them go. Turn their weapons back over to them. Let them take her home. Drop them at the Chasm. I will stay.”
He clapped once. “Delightful! Delightful!” Pointing to two guards, he motioned to Carolee and Vitas. “Drain her into the fountain. Let them take the husk back if it means that much, General Odom.”
The man in the gray sprang forward. “Sire.”
“Take them to the Crossing. Make sure they have their weapons back there. Let them go. Get them out of my sight.”
“Sire.”
He snapped off a salute.
I had only seconds.
“Roran.”
He leaned in and kissed me hard. “You stupid, impulsive, wonderful woman. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m scared.”
“Stay alive. We’ll be back for you. I swear.”
“I know.”
He kissed me again, and this time, his voice didn’t carry beyond my hearing. “Do not let your power dwindle.”
Before we could say anything else, he was yanked away from me, and dragged bodily out of the throne room, the doors slamming shut behind them, cutting them out of my view.
I was positively fucking terrified.
I wasn’t even sure that this man wouldn’t kill them on the other side of the door.
“Lord Aiko, please unshackle our guest.”
The dark-haired lord motioned to the guard with the keys, and a moment later, I was freed.
“You are assigned to be her guide while she—”
“What do you want with me?” I sliced my way right through his words.
He laughed. “You’re rude. I like that.”
I folded my arms, grateful to have the manacles off. “What do you want with me?”
“Just to talk. To make you see that your power belongs here with the vampires.”
So, to use me against the druids. We were going to start this bullshit already.
He wasn’t going to let me go. Ever.
“Lord Aiko. Take Mistress Breaker to her rooms. Make sure she has provisions for clothes and bring her to dinner promptly. She’s your responsibility. Make sure she understands the rules.”
Lord Aiko bowed at the waist and took my elbow.
“There will be a Blood Rite celebration for the Breaker in four days’ time. And, Aiko, make sure you take her by the fountain so she understands the rules here. I will call on you, Mistress Breaker, and we will talk.”
I said nothing.
“Go,” he said and waved us away.
“Yes, sire,” Lord Aiko said and ushered me out of the audience chamber.
Without preamble, the lord knight drew me along the corridors. We rose and rose in the building until he stopped me in front of a door.
Drawing out a key, he unlocked it and opened it. He motioned me in.
Wrapping my arms about myself, I walked to the center of the room. “What is this fountain the king reminded you of?”
“I will take you there later,” Aiko said. “You need time to mourn. Your friend and the loss of freedom.”
“I’d be an idiot to think that door is going to be unguarded.”
He remained in the door. “I wouldn’t say idiot, but perhaps it’s a wise assumption.”
Staring at him, I blinked a few times. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“His Majesty King Savion wants you sane and to choose to remain with him.” He grabbed the doorknob and started to pull it shut. “Sadly, Savion does not know what sane is anymore. I will return for you for dinner this evening. Please be dressed.” He tossed a chin at the wardrobe and backed out of the room, the door closing with a quiet click.
I dropped to the floor where I was. There was no stopping my tears.
* * *
Staring out the one window in the room, I still choked on my sobs hours later. I would finally calm, then the image of the shock on Carolee’s face would surface in my mind, and the tears would come again.
The sound of Vitas’s wails pierced my memory, as well. I hadn’t known Carolee well—well enough to call her a friend—but Vitas had a special place with me. A true friend, so my heart broke for him. The cry, the rending scream of loss…
I smeared more tears away. Lord Aiko would be there shortly to escort me through the castle.
Quickly, I discovered the locks of the stronghold were made with lead.
All of them.
I had tried the main door and found that the closet and the bathroom had locks made the same way. The window locks were made with it. The window was made with it, as well—even though I could see through it.
After I flipped through the wardrobe with all sorts of clothes in it, I went to sit by the window. Between my bout of sobbing and grief, I managed to get a good look at the surrounding area.
The hot, empty land of rocks and lichen stretched out to the south, just at the edge of my view. I could see the grasslands beyond the city that hugged the stronghold, and there was a hint of forest to the north.
I could see that the stronghold I sat in—it wasn’t a palace at all—but it was a massive, dominating building created to do nothing but inspire fear. The city around it was cold, square, gray, and crumbling. Even from above, the amount of disrepair was shocking.
I had to show for dinner. I had to work with this situation, and that meant making an appearance where and when Savion demanded it.
Stay alive.
I had to. Roran, Rilen, and Dorian would be there.
Striding into the closet, I picked out a black outfit that had a split skirt and what only appeared to be a whimsical shirt with ruffles and lace. It was tight fitting on the sleeves and would allow me to move my arms easily.
I wondered where my sword was. I suspected wherever they did have it, there was lead involved in the lock.
Savion trusted no one.
That was obvious.
Where I stood in the room, I heard the high thin scream of a woman vibrating through the walls. It was a cry like no other one I had ever heard—anguish, despair, anger, hatred, power, and loneliness all wrapped into the same sound.
I put a hand on the wall and just listened for a moment. I wondered what that was, where it was coming from. Was she trapped here with Savion? What had he done to make her wail like that?
Just as I pulled the last of my clothes on, there was a sharp rap on the door, and it was pushed open.
Lord Aiko stepped in, leaving two guards behind in the hall.
“Mistress Breaker, I am here to escort you to dinner.”
Staring for just a moment, I considered him. “They weren’t going to let my friends go, were they? They were going to take them to Chasm—Crossing and kill them in plain sight of the rest of the temple masters.”
“I do not know what the general’s orders were, Mistress Breaker. I only know my own.”
I folded my arms. “Self-preservation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You only know exactly what Savion asks of you. So he doesn’t take your head off like he did my friend’s.”
He didn’t say a thing.
“Fine. Whatever. Take me to dinner. If there isn’t normal food for normal beings, there’s going to be trouble. I don’t drink blood.”
“We very much enjoy good cuisine.” He motioned me to the door and followed behind me. The door was closed and locked behind us. “His majesty bade me show you the castle before. We’ll do that now, so if he should ask you questions at dinner, you’ll be able to answer them.”
Lord Aiko was being nice to me.
That was…unexpected.
I nodded. “Let’s go.”
Marching forward, he led me, followed by the guards, down several cavernous, winding staircases that finally opened to a huge entrance hall.
Two enormous doors were located at the front of the hall, across from the walkway where we stood. There were two windows, standing three stories tall, and each held a figure. One was red and black, and one was white and gold. They faced each other holding swords, the red one point down, the white one point up.
Just above that were two more windows, only half a story tall. One held a blood drop above the red figure and the other, a starburst above the white.
Finally, at the very top, was a single window straddling those. Framed there was a gate—not the gate at the end of the Scar, though.
Then, I made the mistake of looking down.
A fountain, two stories tall, sat in the middle of the room. It has several dozen different tiers and dishes and cascades down to the main pool.
Filled with blood.
All of it filled with blood.
It trickled down the sides of the bowls and vertical walls, dripping into the catch basins and pool below, and more flowed in from the two small waterfalls—no, they were blood falls.
“Oh…gods…” I whispered.
One of the guards poked me in the back with his long gun, because Aiko had moved. I tripped over my own feet when I finally started moving.
“It is all blood,” he said. “The blood of the guilty and the innocent. The dead are drained in here, and the punished are rejuvenated with a dunking so their sentences may continue.”
I gasped. “The man in the cage…”
“Disobeyed the king fifty years ago and has been dunked once. He is coming up on his second. He has three more cycles to go. Another seventy-five years.”
“What did he do?”
“He did not listen to the king’s directive to be on time for dinner––for the third time.”
Being late for dinner could earn you one hundred twenty-five years in a cage being drained of blood.
How had I ever thought that these people were our allies and friends?
At the bottom of the stairs, we walked around the fountain where there were goblets of every sort lined along the bottom of the pool.
“Do you drink this?”
“Of course.”
“But blood sours outside the body!”
“Unless it is kept cool,” he said. “This blood is kept circulating through our fountain quickly, and is cooled through refrigeration as it travels the pipes.”
“Re-what?” I’d never heard that word before.
“Refrigeration. A cooling system—you really are behind us in technology.” The lord knight stared at me. “We have a large system of pipes that can cool blood to just above freezing and preserve it for weeks. We can also freeze it and preserve it for years.”
“And you dunk people into the same blood you drink?”
“No. That’s foul, and the blood is weak. There,” Lord Aiko pointed to the corner. “That’s where we dunk the offenders. It’s older blood, close to fouling.”
I twisted my lip. “You’ve dunked in spoiled blood, haven’t you?”
“Again, not my purview. I am part of the king’s council. Not his guards and not his constabulary.”
How many lost their blood into the fountain?
The cold copper stink of blood in the air was making me dizzy. I hadn’t eaten in who knew how long, but my body threatened to heave what it could up my gullet.
The lord knight quickly strode through the room to the back doors, only two stories tall after the monstrosities at the front, and into a grand hall.
I whipped around, hearing that same scream trembling through the air.
Before I could think on it further, Aiko grabbed my arm and pulled me forward into the hall.
Another grand hall.
This one had two doors on each wall, and Lord Aiko strode directly across to the open ones at the back.
Yet another oversized hall with oversized windows, an oversized fireplace, and an oversized table. Lights hung from the ceiling, spotlighting the center of the table covered in dishes and bowls and plates of food.
It smelled divine.
My traitorous stomach growled.
Lord Aiko smirked. “It has been too many hours since you ate, Mistress Breaker. The king bids you join him at the head of the table.”
There was an empty chair next to the blond-haired, now-green-eyed King of the Vampires.
He clapped like an over-stimulated child when he saw me in the doorway. “Come, come! Mistress Breaker, come, sit, eat! Let us talk!”
I swallowed. Hard. I wasn’t ready for this. Not any of this. I wasn’t a diplomat. I had years of training to go before I would be. I was good with my sword, not my mouth. Not in conversation.
Holding my head up, and trying not to shake like a leaf, I put one foot in front of the other to make my way to the chair.
Savion’s chair sat taller than everyone else’s did. His seat was actually higher than the rest, and when I sat, even my tall frame didn’t come to his shoulders.
He wanted to intimidate everyone.
Clanging his knife on the metal goblet, it brought all eyes around to himself.
“Gentlemen, ladies, I would like you all to meet Kimber Raven, the Breaker of the Spine. She has graciously given up her freedom for the lives of her friends.”
The whole table chuckled.
My stomach heaved. I needed to find out what really happened to everyone who had been with me.
Savion didn’t break stride in his little show.
“Mistress Breaker, these are my Lord Knights, the most loyal of the loyal vampires.” He pointed around the table, and each inclined his head. “Dargo, Emil, Guilliame, and Aiko you know, Nillaston, Georgios, Vasily, Piotr, Billan, Robero, Corlos, and Kane. Also, Generals Odom, Tatano, and Illian.”
Odom was staring at me hard again. Studying me. It seemed almost as if he were trying to tell me something or get me to tell him something.
On top of everything else going on, I didn’t need this creepiness.
Creepiness.
I was sitting in a vampire stronghold, surrounded by a table full of male vampires, after surrendering my freedom to save my remaining friends from being beheaded by the man on my left.
Yeah, creepiness wasn’t capturing it.
Still, I felt like Odom had the answers to my questions about Savion and what had happened with the others. I needed to speak to him alone.
“Eat, Mistress,” the king said to me, gesturing to the table. “I know you’re hungry. We vampires can stave off a bit of hunger, but since you don’t fill yourself with blood, you need food. I won’t have the Breaker dying on my watch.”
I bit my lip, holding back my tart response, and looked at the feast on the table.
It was meat, more meat, with a side of meat. I glanced around, and there was a plate of cheeses just to my right, as well as what looked like a salad and a few raw vegetables in the bowl next to it.
Choosing those, I filled my plate and put just a small piece of chicken on the side of the dish.
“I see the druids still haven’t changed their eating habits.”
“We don’t need blood, and we are not obligate carnivores,” I answered, gesturing at the massive amount of food on the table.
“But still,” one of the knights boomed, “there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a feast. A little pig, a little goat, a little beef—”
“There is nothing little about this,” I answered.
The king chuckled. “She has a point. Chef! Make sure our guest has her vegetables and grains available for meals!”
Someone in the far back corner bowed.
Savion stabbed into a piece of something on his plate and chewed it a bit. “So, tell me about the Breaking. How much power did it take? Did you know you were the Breaker from birth?”
I picked at the carrots on my plate. “Truthfully, I do not remember much of the Breaking. I was more of an instrument than anything else. I guided the rocks from their places on high to their new places in the Scar.”
“Did you know that the spit of land you created from the breaking is thirty leagues long and twenty leagues wide?” Savion studied me as he offered the numbers.
“I had no idea…”
He snorted. “They don’t tell you much.”
“Sire, I’m the youngest and newest of the temple masters, and I don’t always get all the information as soon as it’s available.”
“Did it take you breaking the Spine for them to put you on the council?”
“No, sire, it did not.”
“One thing right,” he mumbled. He leaned in close to me. “I would have had you installed as the Princess of the Vampire had you been here.”
“I’m a druid, your majesty. I doubt I would make a good vampire princess.”
Savion chuckled. “Fair point. Still, I would have given you the honor due your station.”
“Do you think I don’t receive that now? I am a temple master, and I am accorded honors.”
“Should be more.”
“I’m more humble than that. Attention does not suit my manner. What I am given is too much sometimes.”
“Take what you can, little girl,” he snapped. His eyes flashed red. “Take what you can; take what is due to you. Don’t ever let those rotten druids think you any less than you are. You are the Breaker—you command mountains!” He turned and stabbed his fork in the air at me. “That alone should earn you the druid crown!”
I folded my hands. “I don’t want a crown. I want to serve the people. I started as a school teacher, sire, and I have no grandiose dreams.”
His eyes, flashing green then blue, pinned me in the chair. “A school teacher? The Breaker was a school teacher?” He started laughing, hard.
A moment later, the rest of the table joined him, and I flushed red, embarrassed.
I grabbed the napkin on my lap and threw it on the table, standing. “I’ll take my meals alone, thank you.”
Shoving the chair back, I walked away from the banquet and back to the door.
Savion was in front of me.
Vampire speed.
“You will sit back down, and you will finish your meal. You are alive at my pleasure, and it would serve you well to remember that.”
“I cannot change who I am, and I won’t be mocked for it.” I folded my arms, not moving.
His eyes flashed red, and his fangs dropped instantly. A primal hiss issued from him, and I desperately wanted to run.
I held my ground.
“Get back to the table, child. You will take your meals with my knights and me.”
Staring at him, I unfolded my arms. “If you mock me again, I’ll take my chances with your teeth and sword, sire.”
Marching back to the table, I sat. I put the napkin back on my lap and picked up my fork to stab a carrot, and chew it carefully. Savion walked back slowly and sat.
“So, shall we discuss our usual business? Lord Knight Vasily, how are your crops doing?”
I tuned out. I didn’t care about crops.
I didn’t care about a thing in this whole blood-drenched kingdom.
I needed to talk to Odom, and I didn’t know how to do that.