Ruvan doesn’t move. He stands there in silent awe long enough that I shift to face him.
“Is everything all right?” I ask.
“Ever since the discovery of this door in Jontun’s records by the awoken Lady two thousand years ago, it has been a mystery. And every clue any lord or lady has ever found since points to this place as being one of the best possible locations for the anchor of the curse. It’s one of the original blood lore workshops; it was sealed off, a perpetual mystery… Now we’re here. And—” A rumbling from up the hall interrupts him.
“That’s not good.” My words sink with my stomach.
“Get inside.” Ruvan grabs my shoulder and pushes me within, following just behind. He positions himself by the door. Holding it from the inside, ready to push it shut. He narrows his eyes at the darkness behind us. I stay close to him, hand on my sickle.
“I don’t know what the point of this is!” Winny’s high voice cuts over the growing cacophony. “We’re about to run into a dead end.”
“Close that door!” Lavenzia shouts back. The sound of splintering wood echoes down to us. There’s a grunt. Followed by a screech. “Get off him!”
“We’re here,” Ruvan shouts up the hall. “Keep running!”
Winny is the first to emerge from the thick shadow and into my realm of perception. Her eyes widen as they meet mine. She calls back over her shoulder, “Lavenzia, Ventos, you owe me three of your vials. She is the real hunter deal.”They did suspect me. I wonder if Winny will resent me when she realizes that I’m going to make her lose those vials.
Lavenzia comes next, helping an ailing Ventos down the hall. “Now is not the time for gloating, Winny!”
There’s a thundering behind them. I step to the other side of the door, opposite Ruvan, sickle drawn and ready.
Winny breezes past me first. Lavenzia is slowed by Ventos’s weight as she supports him. A horde of Succumbed are hot on their tail. One swipes for them; Lavenzia lets out a cry, grits her teeth, and presses on.
I launch into action. Sprinting to meet them, I dart around and bring up my sickle. I catch three with the motion. Their blood oozes around my blade. The monsters fall and fill me with the same satisfaction as yesterday. I might not be a hunter, but I’m learning to love the hunt. Especially when I’m fighting for a cause.
We’re working backward to the door. I’m fending off as many as I can, Winny’s daggerswhizzingby my head. Lavenzia and Ventos clear the door frame.
“Floriane!” Ruvan shouts. I tumble back into the room, dodging a swipe of one of the beast’s claws. With Winny’s help, Ruvan shuts the door. Lavenzia jabs the few who would try and make it through.
For a second, no one speaks. Our ragged breaths fill the workshop. The screaming of monsters falls silent on the opposite side of the door as they slam into the silver with enough force that the embellishments break their skin. Whatever that silver alloy is, it’s still enough pure silver to kill a vampir—or, at least a Succumbed.
Laughter fills the room. It comes in the form of deep wheezing from the ground where Ventos lies. The sound devolves into groaning.
“They got me good.” He curses.
“Let me see.” Ruvan is at his side.
“You don’t need to fret over me.” Ventos tries to shoo him away.
“And you don’t need to pretend like you don’t need help sometimes.” Ruvan shakes his head and brings his hand to his lips.
I know what he’s about to do and my mouth waters; I want him for myself. I want to taste him again. To feel that rush of power. To have him in my arms. If I opened my mouth right now I couldn’t stop myself from begging for it. The need is so mighty it frightens me some, but I refuse to deny it; I’ve spent my life denying myself things and here I’m no longer forced to.
“Here, drink.”
“My lord, I couldn’t—”
“It’s only a little and I have strength to spare. Drink.” Ruvan brings his palm to Ventos’s mouth.
The energies within me shift, pulled like tides to the moon as the magic changes in Ruvan. Power leaves Ruvan’s body and flows into his vassal’s, like a part of me vanishing.
I wonder if Ventos can sense the difference my presence makes in Ruvan. Then a different thought strikes me—if blood is empowered by experience, are Ventos and I connected now in a way that we weren’t before? I fight a grimace.
“How do you feel?” Ruvan asks Ventos, helping him up.
“Better than I should, given what we’ve been through to get here,” Ventos says.
“Are you two all right?” Ruvan turns to the other members of his covenant.
