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Her grin is portentous as she takes the plate and pops one of those divine-looking tartelettes into her mouth. She chews slowly, tauntingly, and only after she finishes another does she flick her fingers and say, “Run along.”

It’s going to be a long night.

Chapter 2

QUILL

The summons arrives at twilight.

There is a task of utmost importance. Come now.

There is only one reason to summon the Mors Soluta: to release death upon the nefarious.

Supreme Mihal’s castle sits as far west as mainland Norica allows, not far from the Cyanic Sea. I contemplate ignoring the summons altogether and tossing myself into the rocky waters so I won’t have to deal with the male I once considered a friend. Back before a thirst for power and a tragic death cleaved us apart for the better part of the last two centuries.

Friendship, it seems, is not as eternal as vampires.

I trudge forward, not letting the past take root in the present.

Drac and Hercule, Mihal’s guards, escort me through the halls without acknowledgment. It’s better this way. Because if they said aloud what their eyes so blatantly convey, I’d tear their heads from their bodies and paint the walls scarlet. They don’t respect me, not after my fallout with Mihal and us ending up on opposing sides of a feud he instigated.

Human servants scuttle about, their pulses slow and steady, without fear or worry. Anger flares within me, sharp and fast like a cattle prod. They should be fearful. They should worry. They’ve been enslaved—compelled—by Mihal to fulfill his every whim. His heinous actions, and those of creatures like him, are precisely why the mortals despise us and wish to see us dead. While it’s not forbidden to treat humans like slaves, it is… frowned upon by a majority of the Seven, the council of creatures elected to govern the Wyldelands where most supernaturals dwell.

For how can we achieve peace with the mortals if we bend them to our will?

Though screams of pleasure and pain drift through the walls, the throne room is devoid of all life as Drac and Hercule usher me inside.

“Supreme Mihal is preoccupied,” says Drac. His accent is as thick and harsh as his severe-looking face and wide body. “He’ll be along shortly.”

My jaw clenches. Utmost importance, my ass.

Hercule sneers. “He expects you to be kneeling when he arrives.”

My fingers twitch toward the wooden stake secured to my thigh. Hercule’s smaller than Drac but just as severe in physical presence. I imagine all the ways I could kill him in ten seconds flat. I’m up to seven before I drawl, “I have never and will never kneel. Unless you intend to force me, I suggest you never request such a thing from me again.”

They exchange a fleeting, uneasy look before backing away.

The minutes tick by one by one until ninety of them have passed. Unable to stand still for a moment longer, I pace before the throne. What could Mihal possibly want from us? What creature has fucked up so badly that the Mors Soluta is needed to put them in the ground? Or is this merely another of Mihal’s vendettas, and we’re the unlucky assassins requested to satisfy his ridiculous impulses? He’s become so predictable that the Assassin’s Guild has begun accurately predicting when his summons will arrive and when they’ll be called upon to unleash his wrath.

I falter a step as a servant opens the velvet curtains lining the wall and exposes several pointed-arched windows. The glow of moonlight pours into the room, and pockets of silver war with the burnished glow of flickering candles.

Black hell. How much longer will he make me wait?

I glance out the window overlooking the sprawling city. Night has completely fallen, and I’m still left waiting. For the hundredth time tonight, I reread the phrase MORS VENIT AD OMNES from where I helped Godrick, my sire, carve it into the darkened stone behind the dais.

Death comes to all.

Sometimes twice, if you’re lucky.

Fortunately, I’m one of those lucky ones, thanks to Godrick.

My sire was unlike anyone I’d ever met. He was cunning yet kind, even as he ruled as the High King of the fae by day. And the fae… as guileful as they are, they hadn’t the slightest inkling of his moonlighting as a vampire. Didn’t bother to wonder why bodies were found drained of blood all around the Fae Isles. They didn’t even question why the High King didn’t need to breathe or eat or sleep. So long as Godrick’s ears were arched and the rowan tree in his realm held all its berries, he would continue to reign.

Then he found me. A half-dead mortal lost in the Fae Isles because I was stupid enough to listen to the rumors that the constellations shimmering above the Isles were different than the stars viewed by the rest of Norica.

Instead of letting me die, he tugged me into his arms and wept tears of blood.

Then he slit his wrist and held it against my mouth just before he bit me.