Page 95 of His Realm

“The draugr, I surmise, from the look on your face.”

I smiled at her. “Yes.”

“He is blessed to have you, and I thank you for your lie to protect me, but know that I will take your words to heart and be yours when we return to the palace. I will be your most trusted courtier,” she announced.

“You’ll be my second, but you’re in good company with Dae-Jung,” I told her.

Her hand went instantly to her heart. “Oh, my consort, I know Dae-Jung. What a great honor you bestow to place me in his good company. I will be forever loyal.”

“I don’t have any doubt,” I replied, grinning at her. “But first, we hafta get out of here.”

“We will. The prince is coming for his prize,” she stated flatly. “And once he’s here, he’ll bring his justice to bear.”

“I agree. You know, with how exciting your life has been, you might find being in my service quite boring.”

She watched Ødger run at the barrier again, but this time he wasn’t thrown far. I’d noticed that the barrier matched the energy exerted. As he tired and his attack weakened, so did the response. “I think not,” she told me. “Somehow I doubt anything about you is at all boring.”

TEN

Finally, after what felt like hours, Ødger dropped like a stone in the middle of the floor.

“Oh, thank God,” Cirillo groaned, as tired as the rest of us to see him hurt his already wasted body.

As soon as Ødger passed out, the slow, agonizing change began, back to the vampyr he was. Several minutes passed, and while I couldn’t say for certain that it was painful, listening to the cracking of bones and seeing the open wounds on his body when he was again Lord Maedoc, my guess was that he was in agony.

“I can help the pain,” Keres called over to Balon when he slowly approached his brother, clearly frightened that Ødger would rise again. “I promise you, I won’t kill him, even though I could.”

When Balon nodded, I rose with the others and started toward the fallen man.

“My consort needs a new coat or some kind of heavy garment,” Carice informed Balon as the four of us reached him, and I saw others start moving from all corners of the throne room, coming out of hiding. “Your brother shredded the only vestments my consort had to keep him warm. He’s human, after all, and he’ll freeze if you don’t clothe him.”

“Of course,” Balon agreed, then looked at me. “And I thank you for wanting to help.”

In Ødger’s quarters, he was about to be placed by the servants in an enormous bed, when I saw the blood-stained sheets.

“These need to be changed,” I informed Balon. “And you should have him bathed.”

Keres agreed with me, and the two of us supervised the cleaning of his room, the drawing of his bath, and the placement of the man in an oversize marble tub that my new courtier sprinkled various herbs into that she brought from her room. Apparently, she’d thought she’d been summoned to Ophir, along with Carice, and the courtesan did not correct her. No one had informed Keres that it was a one-way trip. But when she and Carice arrived and both were locked in their rooms, everything had become clear.

Balon started out wary of us, but once his brother was bathed, and both his skin and color looked better afterward, the open wounds having closed only because of whatever was sprinkled in the water, I saw him calm.

“We have been a horror to you and still you would help,” he said to me, watching as I used the clean water from the basin the servants brought, along with the soap, to wash myself, making certain to get the pits, my face, and my wound, which Keres told me already looked much better. She covered it in a salve of her own making that smelled like cinnamon and clove.

I held it in my hand and regarded her. “Could this help if we slathered it on his face?”

She shook her head. “What ails Ødger is, as you probably surmised, working from the inside out, not the other way around.”

I moved to stand close to her, out of Balon’s earshot. “You know what this is?”

“Of course,” she said as though it were obvious. “As will your prince the moment he arrives. As would any who know better.”

I didn’t want to ask any more questions until we were alone.

“How long will he sleep?” I asked Balon moments later as the four of us were walking out of the room with him and his guards, Carice leaning heavily on Cirillo.

“He will not rise until tomorrow evening.”

“Good,” I said.