“I want to heal him,” one woman shouted.
“Well, so do I,” cried a second.
“The healing power oftrue loveisn’t a thing, Laura,” mocked a third. “Unless, wait—is it?”
More yelling erupted from four of them, arguing whether or not there was any kind of arcane power behind love, romantic or otherwise.
Ivory giggled. “Shall we join them?”
There was a scuffle then as the central woman stood suddenly, brandishing an actual dagger that she plunged into the center of the table. “Who makes the rules?”
The others fell silent until the one called Marisha finally sighed. “You do, Ash.” The others begrudgingly agreed.
Amma’s heart was beating very hard at the sudden show of violence, and she leaned back from the room’s entry.
Asphodel clicked her tongue. “She’s too frightened.”
Ivory pouted, reaching into the cleavage of her top and pulling a vial of something out, but tucked it back away when Asphodel glared at her. Instead, she was led away, and all of the archways were left behind as they reached the hall’s end and it emptied out into a room as large as the main sitting space, only this one was filled with plants.
Without sunlight, they were nothing like Amma imagined plants to be, instead sprouting ghostly, white petals and silky, black leaves, but the underground garden pulled the breath and the nerves all out of her. Amma slipped out of the grasp of the two, feet taking her forward as she marveled at the sprawling tendrils, the climbing vines, the twisted trunks of spindly trees that grew right out of the rocky ground.
“We’ve found a winner.” Ivory caught up to her, and Asphodel was at her other side again with one, silent move. The air was heavy and humid, but the mist was cool, and even the long, placid stares of others strolling by didn’t upset Amma from her joyous meander through the pathways between the plants.
She didn’t recognize a single thing, and both Asphodel and Ivory admitted to knowing very little horticulturally, but were happy enough to indulge her. When Amma ran a finger over the slick surface of a flat leaf covered in naturally-occurring holes, there was a quiet voice in the back of her mind that said a word that sounded quite a bit likeDead. Though nothing there looked dried out and expired, she suddenly thought about the undead kalsephrus trees outside of the Ebon Sanctum Mallor, the ones that kept growing thanks to arcana, and she tucked the thought away for later.
However much time had gone by, Amma didn’t know, but eventually her stomach panged loud enough for the women to hear. Ivory gasped in her overly dramatic way, apologized profusely for not feeding her, and Amma was whisked off yet again down a much narrower hallway to a room significantly smaller than any of the others. There, the ceiling was a normal height, though it felt comparatively low, and there was only one long table and a set of benches at which the three sat, a not terribly impressive dining hall considering how immaculate the rest of the place was.
Asphodel whistled long and low into the air, and a woman appeared at a small door at the back of the room. “A meal,” she said, and the woman disappeared again. Staring at her with kind smiles, neither spoke, but their eyes did flick to one another momentarily.
The woman they’d ordered away returned. She was also comparatively plain, a servant by the looks of her clothing, clean but nowhere near as ornate or fine as the others, and there were circles under her eyes and an exhausted pallor to her face. She set a plate in front of Amma, a portion of red meat, a bed of dark, leafy greens, and a deeply brown, nutty smelling grain.
Ivory urged Amma to eat, leaning forward and folding her hands under her chin. Amma hesitated, but it seemed there was no expectation that the other two would dine with her. She cut into the meat, red juices flowing out, and popped a piece into her mouth. “Holy Osurehm,” she said, mouth full, then slapped a hand over her face. “Sorry,” she squeaked out from behind fingers.
Asphodel shook her head, still grinning. “No apologies necessary. We insist on the highest quality, and it’s nice to hear about it every once in a while.”
“Drinks,” Ivory ordered, and the servant fetched full wine glasses for the two of them. She waited a step back from the table in case anything else was requested, features drawn tranquilly if detached.
Amma was so invested in her food, it took her a moment to notice she’d been given a light-colored ale rather than the red wine the others had, but perhaps it simply paired better this way. “Aren’t you two going to eat?”
Asphodel took a sip. “I’m not terribly hungry, though you do make it look appealing.”
Amma slowed in chewing her next bite, careful to swallow fully and then apologized for what she assumed was how barbarous she looked when eating, explaining meekly that days on the road could do that.
“Oh, no, did we do it again?” Asphodel shook her head, her smile fading slightly. “Sometimes we’re not sure how to sound sincere, but we do mean it when we say we’re so happy to have you here.”
The concern in her voice felt genuine enough even as her golden eyes sparkled eerily. It was unfair, perhaps, for Amma to have judged them so early on. They were actually quite likable, but their intense beauty had simply blinded Amma, not least of all with jealousy.
“You’re right—we’re not being very accommodating.” Ivory had just finished off her wine. “You know what? I think I will join you.” She gestured to the servant, and the tired woman came to stand just beside her.
It happened so fast Amma didn’t even stop chewing until there was a spray of blood across what was left on her plate. Ivory had the servant bent at the waist, her teeth were sunk into the woman’s neck, and she took a long, slurpy drink from her throat. The hand clutching onto the servant had changed, fingers transformed into claws with bony, thickened knuckles, and blue veins pulsed up her arm.
When she wrenched the servant’s form back to stand upright, blood ran down the woman’s neck to pool at her collar, and the same slick crimson stained Ivory’s chin.
Amma had seen a lot of blood in her life; she was a woman, after all, and it was especially unavoidable when following a blood mage all over Eiren—but it wasn’t really the blood that made Amma’s vision tunnel so much as the grin Ivory was sporting afterwards, canines elongated and dripping.
I suppose you’ve never seen a vampire, so those must not exist either, echoed Damien’s voice in the back of her mind, and then the room went dark.
CHAPTER 13
