Chapter One
“There hasn’t been a new lead in six months. Not since you gutted that Vampyr in Cardin,” Reina whispered.
Thalia turned, peeling her eyes from the carnage. The shadows covering the captain’s dark face did little to hide her revulsion. Her armor glittered in the moonlight, although the muted gold seemed garish against the field of corpses.
“It’s him,” Thalia said. Her gaze roamed over the bodies peppering the land like lumps of coal—bodies that had been ripped apart and propped back together like some sort of macabre chessboard. The crops had been razed to the ground, destroyed as if some feral beast had been set loose upon them.
Reina made a face, scrubbing a hand over her short-cropped dark hair. “And you’re sure it’s him?”
Him.
It would have been better if it were some feral beast, not the Vampyr she sought.
Thalia clenched her jaw, ignoring the emotions rising hot in her gut. “This death reeks of him.”
Reina studied her a moment longer, brown eyes flashing. “We need to head back to Corithian.”
Thalia wiped the sweat from her brow. Even with night in full swing, the heat of summer worked its way down the back of her spine, itching like a pesky bug. “Why?”
“Your mother sent word.”
“I’m not done here. You’ve seen the fields—these townsfolk won’t last the next few months without their crops. They are as good as dead out here.”
Reina sighed, shifting slightly. “She’s the queen; her word is law even for her daughter. She’s changed her mind about you going off and doing this.”
“This?” Thalia’s voice dropped, although they were far enough away from the ramshackle town that no one would hear them. Far enough away that no one would notice the Queen of Agripa’s inner circle was in their midst. “You mean doing my duty in ensuring the townsfolk of Agripa are safe? Ensuring that they are provided enough resources that they won’t starve come winter? Ensuring thathedoesn’t take any more innocent lives?”
“Listen, Princess.” Reina added the last bit with enough bite that Thalia stiffened. “I do what I’m told. She said you’ve had your fun.”
Thalia snorted, toying with the end of her light-blonde braid, ignoring the stench of decaying flesh brushing against her nose. “Fun? My duty is to the people of Agripa. I was assigned this role, and she gave me leave for this mission. To fixmymistake.” Her mistake of allowinghimto still breathe.
Reina leaned closer, keeping her voice soft. “I know. And I know what it means for you to do this. But your mother wasn’t pleased about that stint in Cardin.”
Thalia had found one of those bloodsuckers about to set fire to a granary, and she’d shoved an iron stake through its skull. But it wasn’t the Vampyr she hunted. The one who kept leaving what the townsfolk were calling “the Scarecrows.”
Thalia pulled her attention back, hazel eyes narrowing. “Why? It’s the first lead I had since Darein. She should have been pleased I’m making headway.”
Until that led to a dead end. Then another, and another.
Every city and town Thalia had traveled to had sent her on a wild-goose chase. Never close to what—to whom—she sought.
But Thalia could practically feel it, something humming through her veins, a deep sense of urgency whispering in her ear.
She was close to it. So very close tohim.
“The Vampyr you killed was supposedly an important leader from one of the courts, did you know that?” Reina cocked her head.
“How the hell would I have known that? It’s not as though the Vampyr courts have been in contact with us, not since—” Thalia choked, the image of unseeing eyes staring at hers flashing in her mind. The phantom weight of blood coated her fingers as she tried to put her sister’s head back on her body after a Vampyr had ripped it off.
Maybe the Vampyr Thalia had killed belonged to the same monstrous family who’d taken her sister and father. If that was the case, important leader or not, a stake through its skull was a mercy compared to what she could have done to appease the ever-growing ache in her chest.
That thought sent the anger boiling in Thalia’s bloodstream into white-hot rage. “Good. I hope it’s burning in hell. I hope they all are.”
Something flashed in Reina’s eyes, but she quickly masked it. “Your mother needs you home.”
“Tell her I’m close. That I need more time.”
“To do what? You aren’t going to find him.”
