Emillie wove between the small pyres built for the vampires that fought beneath Azriel’s banner. Rusans and Caersans were lined up beside one another, and no priority was given to one over the other. Only two stood out from those made for vampire soldiers.
The first took Emillie by surprise. After catching sight of her sister demanding something greater for one particular soldier, she made her way to where Ariadne stood, adjusting the handsof a Caersan man. Beside her, Revelie adjusted the man’s brown hair, her regal face taut with disbelief.
Only when Emillie stopped at the foot of the pyre and took in the crimson shirt did everything snap into place. “Nikolai?”
Ariadne looked up from Loren’s best friend and nodded, her expression grim and brimming with emotions. “He was found armorless beneath a Valenul soldier.”
“And we are honoring him?”
It was Jakhov who opened and closed his mouth several times from a handful of paces behind Revelie as he searched for the correct common tongue words. “Nikolai kill…with us.”
“There are dhemons who report that he was escorted out of the Hub and shoved into the fray with no armor and no weapons,” Revelie explained after giving Jakhov an approving smile. The small praise had him standing a little straighter with his chest out, same as any peacocking man in the Society that her friend would criticize, given normal circumstances. Jakhov’s adjustment to his stance, however, only elicited a small shake of Revelie’s head, her lips curling with amusement. When she refocused on Emillie, she continued, “Nikolai was never the same after he returned from Algorath.”
“He saved me from Loren after the wedding,” Ariadne reminded her, returning to her small preening of the soldier. “And I have a feeling Loren discovered his allegiance was not unconditional.”
Emillie’s heart sank, wondering just how different the events could have been between Loren and her father if Nikolai had been there to temper his friend. Would her father still be alive? Could they have avoided all of this pain? Doubtful. The events would have unfolded with or without Nikolai, surely, even if they occurred in a different order.
But Emillie had witnessed firsthand just how abrupt and cruel Loren could be. Murdering her father, erecting a throne wherethere never should have been one, ordering the death of her half-brother, then her husband. He was brash and did not do well with stopping to calculate the potential fallout of his actions.
“Why would Loren not just kill him outright?” Emillie asked with a frown. She closed in on the pyre and fixed the angle of Nikolai’s boot on his calf.
“After naming himself King,” Revelie said, “I believe he began to relish the pain he could cause.”
Ariadne’s eyebrows flew high as she nodded in agreement before pulling a shroud from a pile that was being used to cover the dead vampires. “I think he relished it before that, but once he held power, no one could stop him.”
Perhaps Alek and her father had parted from the world in a far kinder state. Images of the sword punching through her father’s chest merged with the very similar death of her husband, and her stomach churned. Grief that she had hoped had been put to rest gripped her throat as she helped her sister and Revelie cover Nikolai’s body.
“I wish we could ask him,” Emillie said as they tucked the Caersan man in on all sides.
“There must be someone else who would know.” Revelie stepped back to survey their work.
With a nod, Ariadne said, “Azriel and I are certain of it. He is having the Valenul soldiers and officers interrogated.”
It was not often that Emillie saw a dhemon pale quite as much as Jakhov did the moment the words were translated in his mind. His red eyes snapped to Ariadne, and he squinted as he scrambled for the correct terms to use. Finally, he settled on a simple, “Alright,Yvhaltrinja?”
Ariadne smiled, though the tense curve of her lips held a weight that Emillie did not fully comprehend. “Yes, Jakhov, thank you. I asked for it to be done while I was not around.”
A long silence passed between them. Despite Ariadne’s words, Jakhov did not look convinced. His gaze traveled between the three Caersan women before him, then around the camp until he found another dhemon. After calling the man’s attention, they exchanged words in the dhemon tongue with Jakhov gesturing to Ariadne.
Emillie and Revelie exchanged a glance before focusing on her sister.
“What is it?” Revelie asked after gaping at her mate. “He is…distressed.”
Color flooded Ariadne’s cheeks. She shook her head, then waved off the dhemons and Jakhov before saying, “That is a tale for another time. Azriel learned his lesson, and something tells me that darling Jakhov was given some strict instructions from Kall before he passed.”
Before either of them could question Ariadne further, her sister nodded behind them. “They will be lighting the pyres soon. Let us go back to…”
Camilla.
The name never passed Ariadne’s lips, her voice cracking on the few words.
Pain resonated through Emillie at the same moment she saw it reflected in her sister’s and friend’s eyes. They each cast their attention elsewhere as they let the fresh wave of grief envelope them. The sensation was, horrifically, not new to Emillie, and she hated how familiar she had become with the twisting knot in her gut.
It had not been the same when she looked over Nikolai. The man had not been a friend or even a savior, as he had been for Ariadne. It had not even been the same when Alek,hersavior, had been killed or when her father, her guardian, had been murdered.
Camilla was in a category of her own entirely.
As different as the feelings occurred for every person she lost, her body reacted the same for each. A hollow space yawned open inside her belly, swallowing her up from the inside. Her breath hitched, and her throat burned from all the unspoken words she could never exchange with one of her best friends.
