Fyrestar sits at my right hand. Rim sits at my left. Sol warms my feet, because this place is bloody cold and awful. Sol’s neck healed, but the severed feathers are a blunt reminder of how close she came to death. Her unmarked skin is another reminder—of how, for the moment, magic endures in Ellonrift. I’ve kept most of Rannigan’s sorcerers on hand, and I’m even starting to rely on some. He had a legion of magic users, many of them as skilled and powerful as any at Drayke Mountain.
There were a few rotten apples among the sorcerers. Their heads had to go on spikes, but mostly, they were just terrified humans doing their best to survive in the bloodiest court in Ellonrift.
It’s still bloody, but not for the same reasons.
I had the new edicts read in every town and village across the east, from the border with Torridaig to the wild, windblown edge of the continent where I saw the thrashing sea for the first time. I go back sometimes and turn my face into the hard wind and salt air. It feels cleansing somehow.
Bloodwold has a new ruler and new laws.
Blood feeding without consent will be punishable by death.
I had to execute four thousand six hundred and ninety-two of my own barbaric people before they decided I was serious.
All blood hosts are to be freed and allowed to go where they wish.
I’m still working on that, combing the kingdom from household to household with the help of Rexton Hale and the combined Bloodwold and Fanghaven armies under our command. We’re finding fewer people chained in basements now that dissenters realize I’ll personally grind Stuart’s torque into their fangs and make it so they can never feed directly from a vein again.
Sybil and Stuart came to visit almost immediately after I left Torridaig. They brought my torque and all my belongings. I threw out the rugs Bale gave me, but it made me sick to my stomach. While they were here, they switched from day dwellers to night walkers so we could be together. They didn’t like the heads on spikes. Sybil called it unsanitary, and I’m sure it is. Effective, though.
Don’t fuck with me.
Stuart enchanted several golden rings with the same fang-disintegrating magic. I gave them to Rexton and our army commanders. Our zero-tolerance, kingdom-wide campaign is steering even the most recalcitrant Bloodwold vampires toward a consensual blood commerce like in Fanghaven.
Surprisingly—or maybe not—people from all over Ellonrift have been flooding into Bloodwold, looking to make their fortune selling blood. Ruthinock is in a drought, both magical and agricultural. Humans need a new source of income. And not everyone in Torridaig is satisfied with their lives and fortunes. This new opportunity tempts more people than I would’ve guessed.
The fae have been making their own game plan for survival as the Star of Ellonrift fades—an exchange. Caravans of them are crossing northern Torridaig now. They bring the sweet blood coursing through their veins to Bloodwold, and vampires want a taste of it enough to trade years off their extended lifespans. Everyone leaves satisfied. Some even stay. Vampire and fae couples can feed off each other for centuries.
There used to be no one in this kingdom except Bloodwold vampires and those who were coerced and enslaved. Now there’s a bit of everyone. I wouldn’t be surprised if midway trading establishments start cropping up in Torridaig, but I guess that’s Bale’s decision.
Pain lances my chest. I wish my heart didn’t feel scored by razor-sharp talons every time I think about him.
And I think about him too much. Sometimes with utter, betrayed hatred that burns in my veins and sometimes with heartbroken, anguished adoration that slingshots right back to me every word, every kiss, every touch we ever shared.
But even in my most somber, violent moments—my perfect memory more of a curse than ever now—the person I used to be isn’t really gone. I still love my birds more than anything, and their love keeps my broken heart beating strong.
We fly at night now. I don’t have the expansive views of green mountains and wildflower moors or sunshine on my face, but I have freedom from my heavy throne and all the heads on spikes. My birds and I have the dark, open sky, and we streak across it like shooting stars.
Fyrestar is my rock. I feel like we’re the same being sometimes, so linked I could have his burning wings and he could have my starborn blood. Rim matured too quickly after that last night at Drayke Mountain. He never complains and finds ways to help, but he’s sad he won’t get to fight alongside the Elite Wing and the other warbirds again. It was his dream since rebirth. Sol is my tender happiness, the one I need to snuggle during daytime sleep and who burrows right into me instead of using the roosting wall I had built. She doesn’t fly as fast or as joyously anymore. I know she misses Dad.
Just like any vampire, I exclusively drink blood now, and it satisfies my hunger and my body in a way that food never could. I never drink from a vein. Rannigan’s was my first and only bite. I drink from goblets filled by humans who I know are treated well and live comfortably at Blackrock Keep. I don’t want dragon-shifter blood. Someone handed it to me once, and I could smell the difference. The old, fire-dry scent, the strength and power. Woodsmoke and wind. I threw the cup across the room, both craving Bale and hating him so much that I shook for an hour. No one offered me dragon-shifter blood again.
Except for when I fly with my birds, the only times I’m even close to happy are when the team shows up. They must know I need them, because they start coming around so regularly that I quickly set aside permanent rooms for them. They don’t usually arrive all at once, but everyone except Kellan comes and goes. I don’t think his absence has anything to do with hard feelings. Maia told me he took Grambolt and Featherspear and went west to Tanturriff to be Marissa Turin’s bodyguard. I knew the Fae Queen had enchanted him. She looked harmless enough, but I’ll bet her little claws sink deep and that Kellan won’t live as long as the rest of us.
My phoenixes are always ecstatic to see the other warbirds. We’re all sad when they leave, and Blackrock Keep goes back to being cold and dark and lonely.
I write to Rita and Gerard sometimes. They haven’t answered yet. I still daydream about retiring to Glarraden House one day with my birds and sitting in the rose garden with a hundred chairs if I want to. But you can’t really see a garden at night, and queens don’t retire, do they?
I’m stuck in Bloodwold. This place needs an economy that’s not based on blood trafficking. There’s work to do. I invited gildenfae in to look at the now safe-for-them land, and they quickly struck gold in northern Bloodwold. The mines are still new and a work in progress, but even with the gildenfae taking their generous cut to do with as they please, I’m starting to gather enough funds to finance bigger projects.
Maia and Danica arrive one day and tell me Bale disbanded the Elite Wing. It’s the first time I’ve seen tears in Maia’s eyes. They don’t know what to do with themselves. I’m hollowed out and devastated to see a past I loved die, even though I hide it better than they do. I guess I’m doing such a good job of putting heads on spikes that Torridaig is safe in the east, and more of the regular forces have been moved north to block werebeast incursions.
I learn from them that Bale invited everyone to continue living inside Drayke Mountain with their warbirds. He even keeps paying them, even though the battle horn never blows, and the team doesn’t fly out to fight for the kingdom. Kellan’s gone, and Maia, Arran, Danica, and Wade are restless and unhappy, but they don’t know what to do. They don’t want to leave Bale alone, even though he rarely seeks out their company and never trains with them anymore.
Learning all this sends me into a dark spiral, and I slip into my chambers and cry into my pillow. I miss my old room with the roosting wall and all the empty space so my friends could see me. I miss the leap into the void below with Fyrestar. I miss dinners with the team, and Sybil knocking on my door. I miss Bale, even though I hate him.
But when they say he’s miserable, devastated, lonely, my tears dry and anger rebirths just like my phoenixes once did. Bale had two hundred and twenty-six years to tell me the truth, to give me my history, my story, my place. Instead, he made me love him and then ripped my heart from my chest.
Maia and Danica cautiously remind me of the same things the night air tells me when I fly out with my birds. Bale gave me a home, taught me to fight, protected me, and cultivated my mind as a leader. Would I be ready for this awful throne without what he gave me?
