“Are you ready?” Ruvan emerges, adjusting one of the worn, velvet coats I’ve seen him in before. The high collars suit him, I decide. As achingly handsome as ever.
“Yes.”
* * *
We’ve been seatedaround one of the tables in the main hall for hours now. A large, slate tablet that almost fills the entire tabletop is covered with the chalky outlines of my clumsy scribbles of Hunter’s Hamlet.
“And what’s this again?” Ventos points to a shaded swath of earth.
I’d be more frustrated at having to explain myself over and over if my drawings weren’t so terrible and this wasn’t so important. “That’s the salted earth. It shouldn’t pose any trouble…but there isn’t anywhere to hide in that stretch so we’ll have to move swiftly to avoid someone seeing us coming from the marshes.”
“Salt will prevent mist stepping across. You’ll have to run to the next cover.” Winny points to one of the square farmhouses. “To here, and then here…”
We repeat a plan, second-guess it, and change our approach. Everything is carefully debated. It’s exhausting, but necessary if we want to succeed in getting a vampir into Hunter’s Hamlet and all the way to the fortress.
“Let’s break, for now,” Ruvan says with a yawn. His eyes have already lost some of their luster. I don’t know if the others have noticed yet, but it’s enough to worry me. “It’s getting late, and we’re still catching up our strength from our venture into the old castle.”
“I thought you’d never suggest it.” Winny stretches her hands over her head, rising to her toes. “Good sleep, everyone. See you in the morning to do this all yet again, I’m sure.” She yawns and promptly heads to her room.
The rest of them trickle out. But Callos remains hunched over the table, long enough that it’s clear he’s waiting for something.
“What is it?” I ask.
A frown crosses Callos’s lips. “I’m not sure…”
“I know that look.” Ruvan places his elbows on the table, careful not to scuff my drawings with his forearms. “You see something.”
“I’m not sure,” Callos repeats, firmer than the last. “But I thinksomethingis familiar. I need to research a few things first.” He rolls his shoulders back, tipping his head from side to side and massaging his neck. He’s been hunched for hours staring at my drawings and hanging on every word with an intensity I’ve never seen someone possess for knowledge before. “I’ll let you know, my lord, whenever—if ever—I find something.”
“Make sure I’m the first to know.” Ruvan squeezes Callos’s forearm and stands. I can’t help but notice that Ruvan has been favoring his unwounded arm more and more.
“I always do.”
“Thank you for all your hard work, dear friend.”
“It’s my pleasure.” Callos’s words are only half true. He does enjoy knowledge and its pursuits. That much I can tell. But the circumstances under which he’s forced to gain the knowledge…it saps any joy he could glean from it. His golden eyes turn to me. “Do you mind if I record everything you’ve written here so we don’t lose it?”
I didn’t realize I had a choice. I look to Ruvan, deferring to the vampir lord.
He gives me a tired smile. “Don’t look at me, he asked you. It’s your knowledge that you’re sharing with us.”
I stare at the map I’ve drawn. Even as bad as my attempts at cartography are…it’s still a detailed rendering of Hunter’s Hamlet—of home. It will be the home of forge maidens, hunters, tanners, farmers, cobblers, and humans standing against the vampir for years to come. I run my fingertips lightly, longingly, over the frame of the slate tablet.
Or, maybe not for years to come. If we succeed, it will be a town like any other.
“You may,” I say softly, surprising myself. I expect Callos to be giddy with this permission, but he’s not. He knows what I’m allowing him to do. Out of everyone…I dare think he understands. Perhaps because he’s the most well-read and he knows the long and bloody history of this conflict. “But I have one request—a condition.”
“Yes?”
“If I ask it of you, you’ll destroy the records.”
He winces at my ultimatum.
But I continue regardless, “I know, or have gathered, you’re not the sort who would want to destroy any kind of history or record. But I have no guarantees, should we fail in breaking the curse, that the next vampir lord or lady would be as understanding to humans as Ruvan has been.”
“If it comes to that, I will leave the next vampir lord word and make it clear all we have accomplished and things will be different. They will try to work with the hamlet after all I will tell them,” Ruvan says, far too optimistically.
“Ifthey heed those words,” I counter gently. “And even if they do…it’s unlikely they’ll find a human to help them further. You only have me on your side with luck that you didn’t kill me and I didn’t end up killing myself. The chances of circumstances aligning for another lord or lady is slim.” And if what Ruvan said earlier is true, those future lords and ladies are likely not to be nearly the same caliber of person Ruvan is.
