I was sitting in a vampire stronghold, surrounded by a table full of male vampires, after surrendering my freedom to save my remaining friends from being beheaded by the man on my left.
Yeah, creepiness wasn’t capturing it.
Still, I felt like Odom had the answers to my questions about Savion and what had happened with the others. I needed to speak to him alone.
“Eat, Mistress,” the king said to me, gesturing to the table. “I know you’re hungry. We vampires can stave off a bit of hunger, but since you don’t fill yourself with blood, you need food. I won’t have the Breaker dying on my watch.”
I bit my lip, holding back my tart response, and looked at the feast on the table.
It was meat, more meat, with a side of meat. I glanced around, and there was a plate of cheeses just to my right, as well as what looked like a salad and a few raw vegetables in the bowl next to it.
Choosing those, I filled my plate and put just a small piece of chicken on the side of the dish.
“I see the druids still haven’t changed their eating habits.”
“We don’t need blood, and we are not obligate carnivores,” I answered, gesturing at the massive amount of food on the table.
“But still,” one of the knights boomed, “there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a feast. A little pig, a little goat, a little beef—”
“There is nothinglittleabout this,” I answered.
The king chuckled. “She has a point. Chef! Make sure our guest has her vegetables and grains available for meals!”
Someone in the far back corner bowed.
Savion stabbed into a piece of something on his plate and chewed it a bit. “So, tell me about the Breaking. How much power did it take? Did you know you were the Breaker from birth?”
I picked at the carrots on my plate. “Truthfully, I do not remember much of the Breaking. I was more of an instrument than anything else. I guided the rocks from their places on high to their new places in the Scar.”
“Did you know that the spit of land you created from the breaking is thirty leagues long and twenty leagues wide?” Savion studied me as he offered the numbers.
“I had no idea…”
He snorted. “They don’t tell you much.”
“Sire, I’m the youngest and newest of the temple masters, and I don’t always get all the information as soon as it’s available.”
“Did it take you breaking the Spine for them to put you on the council?”
“No, sire, it did not.”
“One thing right,” he mumbled. He leaned in close to me. “I would have had you installed as the Princess of the Vampire had you been here.”
“I’m a druid, your majesty. I doubt I would make a good vampire princess.”
Savion chuckled. “Fair point. Still, I would have given you the honor due your station.”
“Do you think I don’t receive that now? I am a temple master, and I am accorded honors.”
“Should be more.”
“I’m more humble than that. Attention does not suit my manner. What I am given is too much sometimes.”
“Take what you can, little girl,” he snapped. His eyes flashed red. “Take what you can; take what is due to you. Don’t ever let those rotten druids think you any less than you are. You are the Breaker—you command mountains!” He turned and stabbed his fork in the air at me. “That alone should earn you the druid crown!”
I folded my hands. “I don’t want a crown. I want to serve the people. I started as a school teacher, sire, and I have no grandiose dreams.”
His eyes, flashing green then blue, pinned me in the chair. “A school teacher? The Breaker was a school teacher?” He started laughing, hard.
