We had to walk through the capital with Shadow leading the way.
Everyone has seen Lanlin unconscious.
Is this court like Aurelius’? Is their king allowed to look anything but the most powerful person without the risk of another faction angling to take over?
Somehow, my wolfie senses sayno.
Did our procession with Lanlin slumped over his lion make it look like the Shadow Vampire King had allowed a fae and wolf to defeat and capture him as a trophy, rather than the other way around?
This isn’t going to go well for any of us.
My jaw tightens.
My skin is itchy with dust, sand, and ash.
I’ve never been so desperate to wash myself.
“So, is this the royal blood nest, Shadow Sin’s private chambers?” Daire asks. “You’re a good guide, Shadow. I’ll book you again.”
Shadow comes as close to rolling her eyes as a lion can, padding further into the warm, perfumed room, which smells of sweet lotus oil and honeyed resin, which is burning on bronze bowls in the corners.
She curls up with a shake of her mane, which sends up clouds of dust that make me choke, in a giant horse sized bed to the side of the room. The bed is covered in linen cushions and blankets, which are dyed pomegranate red.
Daire whistles, stumbling over a low table like he didn’t see it.
He carefully rights the table, before stroking over the decorative gold gilt; he sniffs. “Not bad, aye? Incense and lotus oil. These Bloods were rebels but pulled off having more than leaves to sleep on at night, unlike me. They like their decadent luxury. I wonder if they’d survive without it?”
It’s strange, but I feel like I have been here before.
The black draped room, which has several archways leading off it, is familiar andrightin a way that it shouldn’t be, when this is the first time that I have seen this chamber.
I study the room.
The walls are smooth and whitewashed. They are painted with pretty frescoes of bats, rats, and moths. Yet it doesn’t feel like they’re painted to intimidate, unlike the battle scenes of dragons in Draca.
It’s as if the animals have been drawn to keep Lanlin company.
Lonely, Aurelius called Lanlin.
Wraith repeated to me in the Spy Guild that the vampire’s weakness would be how alone he was apart from his animals.
Lanlin’s bats were wiped out in the battle, weren’t they?
How painful will it be for him to be surrounded by these painted bats?
The room is windowless. I guess that it’s an essential feature for where vampires sleep.
The only light is the golden, flickering lamps, which are set in niches along the walls.
Devil stalks further into the room, and I follow her, trying to imagine the cold, fearsome Blood from either the court room or the battlefield living here.
It’s hard.
My footsteps sound too loud on the polished sandstone floor.
I brush my hand across a small table as I pass. It is overspilling with trinkets and makeup: perfumed oil, a mirror of polished bronze, gold and turquoise beads that rest in a shallow tray.
For the first time since the horror of the ambush, my nerves settle.
