“I don’t know if I would ever be able to pull off the colorful plumage you adorn yourself with,” Caemorn said still quietly, “but if I ever had a mind to try, no one would say a word with you around, would they?”
“They wouldn’t even remember if you didn’t want them to! In fact, I could make them think you were still wearing black. Or make them think anything. At all. Well, you get the idea,” Balthazar assured him.
A faint smile appeared on Caemorn’s lips. “Then perhaps if I am feeling in the mood, we might do something foolish one day. You and I.”
“Oh?” Balthazar’s lips twitched.
“Yes. And you will make sure no one remembers except for us. It will be our… secret,” Caemorn said.
Balthazar nodded. “We’ll have to think of something good.”
“Indeed. For all that trouble, it must be something very foolish and… and perhaps fun. Definitely fun,” Caemorn suggested. He had tugged at the top of his collar as if nervous. “We need bookstores. Clothing stores. And several coffee shops.”
“Wait? What? Are those yourfoolishideas because they sound good!”
“They are not. These are things I think we need in Nightvallen.” Caemorn again smiled. “Bars, restaurants, and cafes, too. Places where Vampires and humans can meet.”
With every word, Balthazar’s eyebrows had lifted a little. “You’ve been thinking about this.”
“I was trying to decide which way we should go. Should we make the academy solemn and serious where the students must meditate on what it means to choose a Second Life that is eternal after they shed their first one? Or should we remind them how good the Second Life could be?” Caemorn wondered out loud.
“A little bit of both,” Balthazar suggested.
A nod. “But mostly the second. Because, as you have said often enough, we mustsellthe humans on the wonder of us.”
Balthazar tried not to preen at the fact that Caemorn remembered what he’d said. Even if he’d said it “often enough.” He found himself relishing Caemorn’s good opinion, sometimes as much as Daemon’s. He tried not to think of himself as a puppy frisking around them, being adorable to get their attention, but there was an aspect of that. Roan had really done a number on him. His parents in this life hadn’t been much better. And the truth was, if he ever peered into his deeper past, he remembered being just as insecure, but hiding it far more. Yet this way, his insecurity was going away slowly but surely as he revealed it.
“I know after the Order exercise that you are keennotto encourage a false narrative,” Balthazar said. “But I like to think of this more ascuratingthe Vampire experience. Those who join us will know the truth. But the wider public will alreadyhave enough wrong, dangerous ideas about us to fill their heads that we shouldn’t put more out there. Nuance is not a thing for groups. For individuals, yes, but not the masses.”
Caemorn nodded. “I used to think that you didn’t care about the truth, Balthazar, but I know now that it means very much to you.”
Balthazar shrugged. “We need to know the truth so that the lies we tell are more effective.”
“An Eyros must have a desire to know the truth that is bone deep,” Caemorn said.
“In some ways, you’re quite right. We cannot stop ourselves from trying to know,” Balthazar agreed. “Even if it burns us to ash in the end.”
That was the danger of being an Eyros. Onecouldknow everything people were thinking. It often didn’t lead to good places. The millions or more little lies people told to keep society sufficiently oiled were useless with the Eyros. They knew and most counted every single one. And no one was totally honest, even if they tried to be. Yet he had seen many Eyros throw themselves into the search for truth with the zest of a zealot.
“I have always thought that Kaly Vampires want to delve into the mystery of what comes after to either assure themselves that they made the right decision in staying here. Or that even if there is something better after, that they would never get there anyways,” Caemorn mused.
He nodded and let out a sigh because Caemorn’s words caused him to remember an unfortunate fact. “There has been an uptick in suicides since our reveal.”
Caemorn nodded back. “To be expected. Especially when it was revealed what the Kaly can do and, of course, the religious fears that we are sent by the Devil to tempt them to leave the light.”
“I’m keeping Elgar busy Whispering. But it’s like putting a finger in the dike,” Balthazar admitted. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen as we get deeper into this.”
Caemorn surprised him yet again by briefly putting a hand on his shoulder. “That is why you are right that we need to make the Ever Dark come alive for the humans. For ourselves, too. I know you do not remember, but Nightvallen used to sparkle with life.”
“Sparkle?” Balthazar grinned at this rather romantic description. “Well, then, Caemorn, we must make itsparkleagain.”
Having left the bustling–andsparkling–Nightvallen above to the silence and drear of the dungeon, Balthazar knew that he and Caemorn had been right about how to proceed with the humans. What the Sect of Dawn offered–fear and alleged “freedom”--amounted nothing more than chaos and death.
Legion shuffled to the bars. Their mind was an open sewer. They were thinking constantly of their kills. The bloodier the better. The slap of organs as they slipped from cracked open chests. The final beat of a heart that they took a bite out of and blood gushing down their chin. Their victim’s screams were like music to their ears and got them hard. There was more of that. Lots more. Legion was practically pushing those thoughts at him.
Not “practically.” They are.
“Did that work with Roan?” Balthazar asked.
