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“Don’t doubt what I feel for you. What you are to me is beyond words. It’s darker, deeper, more consuming than any language could comprehend.” He leans forward, pressing his lips to my forehead.
My breath catches, and my fingers tremble against his chest. I’m unsure of what to say, yet the silence between us isn’t awkward. Instead, it settles around us, comfortable and unhurried, until I finally pull away, turning my attention to the shelves of books.
Kylian reaches past me, his warm body pressing intentionally against my back, and hands me one. The script on the cover isn’t printed, it’s written, each delicate letter shaped by hand.
My eyes shift to his face. “This . . . It’s beautiful.”
Kylian nods. “There are many like it when you are ready, but you should start here.”
***
As King Kylian leads me from the library, with his arms full of books and mine empty, I can’t help but wonder where he was last night. Not once has he mentioned why he never returned to the room or came to bed. It’s unsettling because I rejected him, yet I still crave his presence. I should want nothing to do with him, especially knowing Arlo is here and alive, but I feel more lost when he isn’t close.
Kylian deposits my books on a side table near a window in a corridor by the stairs leading to our bedroom, stacking them neatly with the care of someone who respects what they hold. “These will be sent to our room. I mindlinked the guard to take them for you.”
I nod. “You didn’t come to bed last night . . .” I state, finally broaching the subject that is eating at me.
“I lost track of time.”
“So you aren’t angry?”
“I never said I wasn’t angry,” he adds, and before I can question him further, he changes the subject. “King Zander’s men departed at dawn. The last of them boarded before the sun cleared the mountain.”
“Why does that matter?”
He turns to face me. “Because you no longer need to hide what you are.”
I open my mouth, close it, open it again. The instinct to deny, to deflect, to pretend I don’t know what he’s talking about is so deeply ingrained that my body moves toward the lie instantly. I have spent my entire life hiding what I am. Every day, every hour, every interaction filtered through the constant awareness that discovery could get Sable and me killed.
I don’t say anything. I just nod and follow through the corridors when a familiar metallic smell reaches me—sickness and fever sweat. I recognize it instantly and think of Sable with a jolt of hope, that maybe she was found and brought to me.
Kylian pushes open a set of doors that lead to a ballroom, but seeing the room as it is now stops me mid-step.
Makeshift beds cover the floor in rows, each one a simple frame with a mattress and blankets. Children huddle beneath them, small shapes curled on their sides or sitting upright with hollow eyes that watch me enter. Families sit close together on the floor between beds, mothers holding infants against their chests, fathers with their arms around older children. The persistent rattle of coughing comes from too many directions to count.
Vampires move among them.
That is what makes my feet refuse to carry me forward. Vampires, actual vampires, walking through the rows of beds with bowls of broth in their hands, bending to place food in front of small children, adjusting blankets that have slipped, speaking in low voices to mothers who flinch at their approach but accept the bowls anyway.
Real hunger doesn’t care who feeds it.
A vampire woman kneels by an old man, applying a compress to his brow as he coughs into his palms; her expression evokes a humanity I’ve rarely witnessed in our world, but never among monsters.
I can’t move. My body has become something foreign, rooted to the floor by the impossibility of what I’m seeing. This doesn’t fit inside the shape I’ve built for him in my head, the form that makes it easier to hate him and simpler to justify every wall I’ve put between us. This man on his knees, spoon feeding a sick child, doesn’t belong in that image.
“Why are they here?” I ask, and my voice comes out smaller than I want it to.
“Because the infirmary was full. The orphanage in the lower quarter lost several children while I was away. Pneumonia and exposure. The heating failed, and the runners we use for communication were dispatched to a different emergency.” He pauses. “I ordered every child from the orphanage moved into the castle last night, as well as many other families who were sick or without basic necessities. The castle has its own heating, its own water supply, and walls thick enough to keep out the cold. It was the only place that could hold them while we try to fix the electricity.”
I walk between rows of beds, and the faces that turn to watch me pass are the same faces I’ve seen in every cage and every market.
A boy of maybe eight watches me from his bed, his arms wrapped around a younger child who sleeps pressed against his chest. A woman nearby nurses an infant, her eyes tracking me with the sharp protectiveness of a scared new mother. An old man sits on the edge of his mattress with his hands hanging between his knees, staring at the floor.
“Do you have herbs?” I ask. “Onion, garlic, rosemary. Any of them. A poultice for the chest will draw the congestion. Onions can purify the air and are good for congestion. And if you have honey—”
Something crosses Kylian’s face. The corner of his mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but close enough that it throws me.
“Honey,” he repeats. “The last hive on this island died six years ago. Whatever honey exists in this part of the world comes from the mainland, and it costs more per jar than most rations do for a month.” He stands, setting the bowl aside, and his full height makes me remember exactly how small I am in the presence of him.
