She falls into step beside me. Close. The shimmer in the air around her presses against my skin, and up close, it has texture. Warm and dry.
“I have to admit, I’m fascinated.” She tilts her head. The dark red hair catches the ambient light. “A vampire from the mortal realm who carries modifications no Fae scholar has ever documented. Who walks in daylight. Whose heartbeat syncs with a powerful vampire lord.”
She smiles.
“You are a marvel. A vampire who is not quite a vampire. I wonder what else you are not quite.”
There it is. The probe, dressed in admiration. What did Konstantin put in my blood. What can the bond do. What it can’t. The bet is that I’ll answer while I’m flattered by her attention.
“I’m exactly what I look like,” I say.
“Nobody is exactly what they look like. Especially not in Thessivane.”
“Then you should feel right at home.”
Her smile pauses. Recalibrates. The banked-coal eyes sharpen behind the warmth.
“The alliance Lanthar is proposing benefits your lord considerably,” she says. “Court of Stone military support. Intelligence sharing. The full force of Thessivane’s resources against a single vampire elder.” She tilts her head. “But what does Thessivane gain? We’ve survived without involving ourselves in mortal conflicts. Your war with Konstantin is exactly that. Yours.”
“If Konstantin’s contamination reaches a concentration that triggers mass feral conversion, the exposure risk crosses the Veil. Fae living in the mortal world become visible. Your wanderers. Your diplomats. Everyone who crosses to the other side.”
“An argument for border security, not alliance.”
“An argument for stopping it at the source instead of building a higher wall.”
I stop walking. Face her.
“You’re not opposed to the alliance because you think it’s strategically unsound. You’re opposed because Lanthar proposed it, and anything that strengthens his position weakens yours.”
The heat in the corridor spikes. Brief. One degree. Then controlled.
“I see Lanthar chose his guests carefully,” she says. The warmth hasn’t left her voice, but the texture has changed. “A vampire who reads a room like a fighter reads an opponent.”
“That’s because I am one.”
She studies me. The smile is gone.
“Celeste.” She says it simply. “I want you to understand that my opposition to this alliance is not personal. It is structural.”
She pauses. The shimmer around her contracts.
“Lanthar has allowed his attachment to the mortal world to compromise his judgment before. His daughter is evidence of that. A half-Fae witch leading a coven in Germany, carrying a bloodline that should have been protected by the full force of the throne and wasn’t.” Her eyes hold mine. “Sentiment made him careless once. I am concerned it will do so again.”
“Concern noted,” I say.
She dips her chin. The shimmer reassembles. She turns down a corridor that wasn’t there a second ago, and the heat trail fades behind her.
I stand in the passage and let my pulse settle.
She’s going to be a problem.
I continue down the passageway. The air moves differently here. Currents pulling at my hair, carrying sounds from rooms I can’t see.
Ithara steps into my path. She’s smaller than she appeared from across the great hall. Delicate without being fragile.
“Two,” she says.
What the hell?
