“Good, I don’t want a repeat of last time.” That’s Ruvan. I pause, waiting to see if I hear anyone else. There’s a long moment of silence. “Good morning, Riane.” Ruvan’s voice fills the cavernous space. He speaks as though our previous interaction hadn’t happened at all. I doubt it’s a kindness, more like he doesn’t want his other vampire friends to know that I put him on his rear first thing. But I’m content letting the matter be forgotten.
“Isn’t it dusk?” I ask as I descend. I expected they would wake at sunset. All I saw was light bleeding through the curtains.
“Not quite,” Ruvan answers, straightening away from the table to look at me. I pointedly keep my eyes on his face when I notice that the ties on his shirt are mostly undone. I’ve seen a man’s bare chest before—in the fields, or sometimes even in the forge, when it got too hot and the young men Mother and I would hire as strikers to take some of the physical toll off our bodies would strip their shirts. But none of the men in Hunter’s Hamlet can hold a candle to Ruvan’s physique. The man is practically carved marble. My throat is dry. “Afternoon.”
“And you’re awake?” I try and sound casual. “Don’t vampires sleep all day?”
“Vampiresmight. Can’t say I know much about them. Butvampirdo not,” Callos answers. “Though our group does tend to keep odd hours, given our circumstances.”
I can’t figure out how to ask if sunlight burns a living vampire’s skin or not so I give up trying for now. Instead I assess the journals and maps that are laid out across the table. Rooms are carefully sketched out in ink on the yellowed parchment. On fresher looking paper are similar sketches, with accompanying notes.
“What’s all this?”
“The most likely path to get us to the anchor of the curse,” Ruvan says.
“A relief to hear you finally agree with me,” Callos murmurs. Ruvan ignores him.
There are lines and Xs drawn all over the papers, red ink marring the black outlines of rooms and hallways. Individual places mean nothing to me. But on the whole…it’s massive. Far in one corner is a room marked “workshop” and circled in red ink—at least I hope that red is ink and not some kind of vampire blood magic.
“In the workshop there?”
Ruvan nods. “That’s our destination.” It’s clear why we couldn’t just walk there when he first brought up my helping him. The castle looks larger than all of Hunter’s Hamlet.
“With any luck you’ll make it,” Callos says. I wish he sounded more confident.
Ruvan clasps him on the shoulder, almost causing the man to lose his eyeglasses from startling. “If anyone can get us the best path there, it’s you.”
“No one has gone that deep for centuries…” Callos removes his spectacles and cleans them on his shirt. “I’m working with old information pieced together from Jontun’s records with a prayer.”
“Jontun?” I ask.
“He was the royal archivist during the time of the first king—when this workshop was built and the blood lore began. Lord Jontun was the one to preserve our history of the time. Our first king wasn’t much of a writer,” Callos explains.
“Why would a curse anchor be in a workshop in the oldest part of the vampire’s castle behind a door that only a human can open?” None of it makes sense. Surely they have to see that, too.
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Ruvan folds his arms and I notice his biceps straining against the cotton of his simple coat. He would have to be strong to move in all that plate, even with vampiric powers. “Maybe some hunter’s secret passed down?”
“Don’t look at me for answers. I’m just here to open a door.” I shrug and turn back to Callos. I’ll give Ruvan nothing more than I must, lest I say something that might be able to be used against Hunter’s Hamlet. “What type of workshop is it?”
“One of the original blood lore studies,” Callos answers. “There were two, originally, but one was destroyed shortly after the Fade was made. By all records we can find, this is the only one left.”
“Is the original ‘blood lore’ different from the current?”
“Yes, and no. Blood lore is merely the act of drawing out magic from the blood through item and ritual. There are some rituals every vampir can perform and some that are imprinted on our own blood.” Callos flips through the journals. “Others are unique to individual vampir. Innate abilities that come forth over time that allow them to use blood in ways no others can. Blood lore, like any study, has evolved over time for all vampir and for every individual.”
“What kind of innate abilities?” The idea of every vampire having unique powers is disheartening. It means they’re all more dangerous than I thought—than can be tracked or traced.
“It’s different for every person.” He glances up at me. “Take Winny, for example. If her dagger has a drop of her blood on it, she can never miss her mark.”
“I see.” I had been hoping for more concrete information on what I was up against. I had always thought the vampire could use blood lore just to steal faces. But it sounds like they can do almost anything with it on top of these “innate abilities.”
Callos arches his brows at me. “Are you genuinely curious about the blood lore?”
“I’m more trying to make sure you’re not taking me there to break the oath and carve me up,” I retort quickly to hide my genuine curiosity. If I ask too many questions, they might become more suspicious and stop giving me useful information.
“The oath will not be broken until it is fulfilled,” Ruvan says tiredly. “Stop thinking a threat lies around every corner.”
“A threat has lain around every corner my whole life,” I snap. “If anything, it’s stranger to be able to look danger in the eye rather than it lunging at me from the shadows.”
