Chapter Forty-Seven
“Are you ready?” Camilla asked, her eyes steady on Thalia’s.
Thalia nodded, holding her hand out.
The shifter carefully sliced along her heart line with a sharpened blade. Cassius tensed beside her, and she resisted the urge to glare at him.
The shifter allowed the blood to well, then slowly tipped her hand over the jar of teeth.
As soon as Thalia’s blood hit the poisoned teeth, they began to bubble. They popped and hissed, burning away until there was nothing but a pile of ash.
“I think your blood is the cure.” Camilla looked up, eyes wide.
Thalia turned to the others around the table. They’d all gathered back in Perden. The Mages had managed to put out the fire in Chaménos, but most of it was lost. Over half of their sacred forest had gone up until nothing remained but crisp, charred earth.
“Do you think it’s because Thalia’s mother made it?” Keegan asked, the golden-eyed Vampyr watching with his ever-calculating eye.
“It would seem the most likely cause,” Lady Decima said, her curly hair catching the light.
“But how is that possible?” Thalia asked, after Camilla had bound her hand. She directed her question at Larellia, who sat opposite her.
Larellia’s lips pursed, her silver eyes flashing. “I admit what happened was strange, something I still don’t understand. Your mother told you that her father was a Mage?” Thalia nodded in confirmation. “As far as I know, there is no magic in the human realm, no pockets for your mother to have pulled from. That is why our forest is so sacred. It protects the magic from the mundane. It acts as a barrier to keep the wild magic from running loose.”
“Are you sure there aren’t pockets of magic there?” Thalia pushed.
Larellia shook her head. “No. But seeing as none of this should happen, seeing as your blood is the cure we’ve all been praying for, anything is possible. At least with your mother now dead, we have no fear of more creatures spawning and creating havoc.”
Silence fell, until Thalia asked quietly, “And the Vampyr courts?”
Cassius stiffened once more beside her.
Since coming back from the brink of madness and death, he hadn’t left her side. Not that she’d been inclined to leave him either. At night his unseeing eyes would flash in her mind, and he was driven out of sleep as much as she was.
She didn’t know what sort of nightmares terrorized him, but she’d hold him closer. Let the steadiness of their breaths anchor them until they both drifted back to sleep.
“Lord Adrian has slunk back to House Gallinus now that the cure for the sickness has been revealed,” Cassius finally said.
“He is being watched,” Camilla added, settling into her seat. Indeed, the shifter had taken it upon herself to fly back and forth to ensure that he stayed there.
“And the prince?” Thalia asked. Everyone glanced at each other. “What have the courts been told?”
“They were told that the prince perished slaying the creature,” Larellia said. “He, at least, is now seen as the savior to his people. A tale is already being spun about how he’s spent months trying so desperately to slay it.”
“Has that stopped the unrest?” Thalia pushed. The issues of the Vampyr courts all linked back to the sickness and the missing prince. But the prince was dead now.
“The unrest has paused, especially with Lord Adrian no longer whispering in the other Houses’ ears,” the head Mage started. “But I do fear that, once the relief of the creature being dead and a cure being found has passed, the unrest will resurface.”
“Why?” Thalia asked.
“Because a human princess now rules the Vampyr kingdom.” Larellia met her stare.
Thalia straightened at that. “Would they even accept me as ruler, considering the marriage between the prince and me was never finalized? We never consummated anything. Does it even count when he was turned into … that?”
Cassius cleared his throat. “The law of the Vampyrs is black and white. Marriage is recognized during an agreement, when a ceremony is performed and vows are taken, including blood sharing, even by proxy.”
“That’s the real reason Lord Damien wanted me to take your blood in Agripa when we were first bound,” Thalia breathed. “Because it would have solidified the line of rule right then and there.”
Cassius nodded. “Yes. Blood is stronger than ink. ”
