Page 107

“Stay with her,” Kylian says. “Make sure she has what she needs.”

Eagan dips his head. “Yes, my king.”

Kylian’s gaze returns to me, and for a moment, he just stares. Then he turns and walks away, his footsteps fading down the corridor.

Moving to the bed, I fall backward on it, the dark velvet drapes swaying gently. The bed is softer than anything I’ve ever laid on, and I hate it for that, because comfort feels like a trick when you know the person offering it has fangs.

For a moment, I just lie here and try to convince my body that it’s safe enough to stop vibrating with tension, but how can I enjoy this extravagant bed while Arlo is bleeding and broken in a cold cage somewhere?

I roll onto my side and find Eagan exactly where I expected him, stationed by the door with his back straight and his hands clasped behind him. Staring at the opposite wall with the patient stillness that creeps me out.

“You don’t have to guard me like a prisoner,” I say. “There’s nowhere for me to go. There’s no point in both of us being miserable and bored.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, and when he glances at me, there’s something almost warm in those watchful red eyes. “I don’t find you boring at all, Alessia.”

I blink at that, surprised by the sincerity in it, and for a moment the heaviness in my chest loosens just enough that I can take a full breath. Eagan has a way of doing that, of slipping small kindnesses into impossible situations.

“Well, I find standing in doorways boring,” I mutter, pulling a pillow against my stomach. “You can sit down. I promise I won’t tell the king.”

He considers this for a moment, then moves to the chair by the fireplace with careful grace. Settling into it as though he’s done this a thousand times. The firelight deepens the shadows beneath his cheekbones.

“What would you normally be doing at this hour?” he asks, and the question is so ordinary, so human, that it catches me off guard. “Back on Purgatory?” he asks.

“Sleeping,” I answer honestly. “We’d be up before dawn to work on the fields. You sleep when the sun goes down because the work begins when it rises and doesn’t stop until your body gives out or the light does, whichever comes first.”

He nods slowly, as if he forgot I’m not usually nocturnal. “Life here runs differently,” he says. “But the king doesn’t live purely at night, despite what the stories say. He avoids direct sunlight, stays indoors during the brightest hours. But the kingdom operates day and night.” He pauses. “You won’t be trapped in darkness, if that’s what you’re afraid of. You’ll feel the sun on your face again.”

“It’s not the night I’m worried about,” I say, staring at the fire as it pops and shifts. “It’s the walls. I’ve spent my whole life outside, even when it was miserable. The farm was awful, and the work was backbreaking, but at least there was a sky above me. Soil under my feet. Things that grew.”

I swallow around a sudden tightness in my throat because thinking about growing things makes me think of my mother and all she taught me about coaxing life from the earth without using my powers.

“I miss green things.” I add quietly. “The feeling of dirt between my fingers, the open air, and plants. I guess that sounds foolish to you.”

Eagan is quiet for long enough that I look up, and his expression is strange. Not pity or amusement, something heavier.

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” he says carefully.

“But you should know something about Sangremere.”

The shift in his tone draws me fully upright. His hands rest on his knees, and his gaze has moved to the fire, watching the flames.

“Nothing grows here,” he says.

“What do you mean, nothing grows?” I ask.

“I mean exactly that. It’s been decaying slowly. The soil won’t hold seed. The water that flows through the kingdom kills whatever tries to take root. The trees that were here when the castle was built still stand, but they haven’t produced leaves in years. The animals were hunted to extinction years ago by vampires who didn’t see the point in preserving prey.” He exhales through his nose, a sound that might be frustration or exhaustion. “Everything the kingdom needs has to be imported from the mainland or traded for with the other kingdoms. Food, livestock, timber, all of it. It’s one of the reasons the human supply lines matter so much.”

My fingers curl into the sheets beneath me. “The Arcanum maintained balance,” I whisper, more to myself than to Eagan. “I know the version of our history the kings want us to believe.” I meet his gaze with intention. “The one that blamed the mages for everything. The one that said genocide was justice.”

He looks at me then, and his gaze is steady. “The mages who served the kingdoms were tied to the land itself. Their magic was woven into the soil, the water, the air. When they were killed, the magic died with them. Without it, the land decayed, along with its rulers.” He pauses, something tight passing through his expression. “In some kingdoms, it’s happening slowly. Here, the decay has spread fast. Kylian believes it’s connected to his curse. That whatever the mages did to him when they cursed his bloodline also cursed his land. He can’t prove it. But nothing has grown on Sangremere soil since he took the throne.”

I stare at him, the weight of what he’s saying settling over me. A kingdom without resources to feed itself. A king cursed to kill everything he feeds on. Land that refuses to produce life. It’s all tangled together in the same ugly knot that the purge left behind when the world’s leaders decided that killing the people who kept everything alive was a solution rather than a death sentence.

“So everything here is dying,” I whisper.

Eagan meets my gaze, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he doesn’t look like a guard or an advisor. He looks like a grieving man who still remembers what it was like when their first kingdom fell.

“Yes. Everything here is dying,” he says quietly.