Axe pulls me to his side, hands sliding up my arms. “Vessa. Look at me.”
Slowly, I raise my chin. Sapphire eyes widen with astonishment. He cups the back of my head. “Do you feel any different?”
All I feel is icy rage, swirling within my chest. In my periphery, the entire panel of councilmen reel in shock. Some jaws hang open; others have risen out of their seats.
“Mother help us,” one of the eldest councilmen murmurs.
Cecily barrels down the steps. She stops two feet from where Axe and I stand, careful not to make any attempt to come between us. I glance down at my arms. My skin has drastically lightened, casting a shimmering, milky glow.
Impossible.
“Your eyes,” Axe breathes, his voice merely a whisper. “Vessa, your eyes are white as death.”
Epilogue
MAURLEEN
Lyndi warned me this would happen. That the lies would eventually catch up to me. Guide and protect—that was all I had to do. But how could I continue to sit back idly, watching my sisters slaughtered like sheep? How many more of us need to die to keep the gates of Somnium shut tight?
Picking the lock to the capital’s sealed archives was a cakewalk. As I suspected, most of the tomes on the lore of the Sponsa Noctis were filed as “presumed missing,” believed to have been destroyed in the blaze that engulfed Bleeding Sun twenty years ago. All except the Servus grimoire. The one artefact Rose Skornokovy knew better than to hold onto.
I recited every locator spell I know. But it wasn’t there. And I’d run out of options. I had no choice but to raise my hands above my head when the guard turned the corner into the library’s enclosed room.
Following Axe and Vessa’s sentencing, Naomi and her hounds hammered away at me in her chambers, trying to pry their way into my mind for any indication that He is coming. How much time they have to prepare. There was nothing I could give them. Because what I foresaw the night we fled Bleeding Sun, what I thought would surely transpire . . . didn’t.
She was trapped in Kiersten’s grasp with a gun to her temple. He was dressed as one of the guards as he wrestled the lycan to the ground, slitting her throat. Together, he and Vessa escaped into the forest. But he wasn’t there to save her. Once they had run far enough, he pressed her up against a tree and sunk his teeth into her collar, devouring her blood. Only to collapse and be consumed by a fiery demise.
Instead, he sent others in his place. But why?
He must know. Gods, he must’ve fished it out of Lyndi’s mind after all. Our silver bullet. Our one and only advantage.
In the dungeons beneath the capital, blood seeps down my split lip. It won't be long before I succumb to dehydration. I can make peace with that, knowing my daughter is safe. For once, I have no idea where they are going. I can only hope it's as far from the impending battleground as Wyatt can manage.
Ratted curls hang between my scraped legs as the door to my cell swings open. Strange. I didn't notice any footsteps approach. Nor did I feel any breeze. It reeks of decay down here. Rotting souls. Like death is flirting with me down in this decrepit place. If there was a way to spit in its face, I'd do it.
When I finally raise my blurry eyes, my heart stops dead in my chest. Veiled by shadow, a helmeted figure appears. A smile widens at the sight of my despair, framed by red pincers.
All my darkest visions resurface as he removes the disguise. Black hair brushes his shoulders, squared off by a floor-length trench coat. A beard peppers his refined jaw. It ages his features, even though time hasn't managed to laden him with a single wrinkle. Yellow eyes intensify as the sound of rapid footsteps draws closer. Someone sprinting down the stairs. Councilwoman Cecily.
Her breath catches as he pounces forth, snatching her neck. Pinning her against the stone wall, he regards her as a cat would a plump mouse, instantly stilling her with compulsion.
I scramble to my feet, willing myself to back away as far as I can. The councilwoman is helpless as the vampire plunges his teeth into her neck. Her hands twitch just before he severs it at the base. The head topples first. Then, the spurting body drops to the ground with a stark thud.
I can't look away from his elongated yellow fangs. The fresh blood that coats the needle-sharp points. He doesn’t need to lay a hand on me to stun me still. He’s simply that terrifying to behold.
But it’s his voice that disturbs me most, always one’s greatest fear personified. He takes away my ability to scream as a serpent worms itself into my mind. "You’re a slippery one, little witch. Far more cunning than the others."
He squats down to brush my cheek with a bloody finger. Black nails.Remick.
"My dear, I believe you have something that I want."
