Brimstone (Fae & Alchemy #2)

KINGFISHER

A wolf was a versatile creature.

Adaptable.

Within a pack, it was part of something larger than itself. It had a role to play, a place in the order of things. There was safety in a pack.

But a wolf could survive alone, too.

In the dead of a midnight forest, surrounded by predators on all sides, a wolf could slip like a shadow through the trees. It could take refuge in darkened corners, stalking prey of its own.

It could wait out its enemies, and bite back when they struck...

Especially when it held a god sword in its hands.

I was ready for the vampire when he came. He had been trailing me like a wraith through the echoing halls of Ammontraíeth ever since I'd left Saeris's chambers. I'd felt him out there, simmering. Waiting.

Reading the living required little skill. There were those who had spent centuries honing their abilities to control their emotions.

It paid to keep your thoughts and feelings private as a member of the Fae.

But no matter how practiced a person was at hiding their feelings, their bodies always gave them away in the end. It was unavoidable.

Emotions painted the blood. Happiness.

Anger.

Sorrow.

Lust.

Each gave off its own energy. A vibration, if you will. In the same vein, each had its own scent. The Fae betrayed subtle indicators of their moods, no matter how skilled they were at masking them.

The scents humans gave off could be overwhelming at times. Humans were not good at taming their feelings. They felt everything so openly, right out in the open, with no awareness of how their reactions might affect those with finer senses.

The dead were different. Without a beating heart, their blood was barren black slurry in their veins.

The only time a member of the Sanasrothian Court gave off any scent at all was after they had fed, when the spark of life that lingered in their victim's blood still echoed with the emotions they had felt as they died.

Like the faintest trace of perfume that lingered after a hug.

An hour ago, my head had been full of petrichor as I'd sat next to my mate, listening to the lilt of her voice as she bombarded Tal with questions about the Blood Court.

Ever since she'd woken, she'd been relentless, trying to understand, to prepare, to ready herself for what was to come.

The foundations of our plan were laid, and Saeris understood the part she had to play in carrying them out.

...but she was nervous. Considering that she had been human only days ago, she was already far more accomplished at tamping down her feelings than she had been, but my nose was sharper than most. I'd sensed her hesitation.

It was like the scent of hot stone after rain.

I'd been breathing her in, drowning in her, when I'd detected the other smell.

The vampire must have fed on a prodigious amount of blood before taking up his hiding place, crouched in the dark outside Saeris's chambers.

I'd excused myself, headed out into the hall, and gone looking for the rot.

Two floors down, heading into the bowels of the Black Palace, I found it with the point of my blade.

The vampire was beautiful. He possessed a face that might have been ordinary in life, the kind of skin that might eventually have turned dull and sagged.

But in death, he had been preserved. Perfect.

High cheekbones. A regal, aquiline nose.

His eyes had probably been blue once, but now they flashed like ghostly opals.

His lips peeled back, exposing canines bone-white and vicious.

His mouth formed a surprised O before he could make a sound.

He looked down, stunned to find Nimerelle buried to the hilt in his chest.

"You've... ruined the velvet," he croaked.

It was true; the god sword's blade had rent a three-inch-long hole in his black velvet waistcoat. I gave him an apologetic shrug.

"Annoying by-product of killing," I said with a sigh. "Your opponent's clothes often don't survive the process, either. You know all about that, though, don't you?"

A death flower bloomed across the front of his shirt, black as ink. The bastard had the audacity to look affronted as he glanced up at me.

"I am... familiar with that problem, yes," he rasped.

"You won't have to worry about it anymore," I told him.

I'd known, even before he'd come streaking out of the shadows, that he hadn't come looking for a fight.

With the rest of the Black Palace still sleeping, he shouldn't have even been awake.

This vampire, in his finery, with his belly full of innocent blood, had come seeking something he did not deserve. Something only I could give him.

He scrambled for balance, trying to hold on to me, but his hands were already turning to ash. When he spoke, his words were dry as a desert wind.

"I'm sorry. I just couldn't... face..."

The sun?

Fire?

Fire wasn't such an easy thing to come by in this place.

A vampire would go up like a pile of dry kindling if it encountered flame.

The hearths burned with evenlight in Ammontraíeth.

The torches in the walls, too. This piteous bastard probably wouldn't have even been able to find a match here.

And who would have wanted such a final death, anyway?

It wasn't an easy way to go. So painful. So dramatic.

The ash was better.

It was a mercy.

"You have saved me from what... I have... become," he wheezed. There was gratitude in his eyes. Relief.

I leaned in as he desiccated, making sure he heard each word as he sank into his final death.

"I don't do it for you. I do it for those you have feasted on. Enjoy hell, you tick."

Whatever hope of salvation he thought he might find with me faded from his eyes.

"They're going to... destroy her, you know? It has already... been seen. This court will... fall... with her inside it." His lips twisted, either a grin of relief or a sneer of contempt—I couldn't tell.

"Saeris is safe," I snapped. "I won't let anything happen to her."

But the vampire just laughed. Rasping, hacking barks of laughter. His chin ashed. His cheeks went next. His voice splintered and cracked as his throat went. By the time his canines came loose from his skull and fell from his mouth, he wasn't laughing anymore.

The vampire collapsed, a vampire no more. His teeth hit the floor—plink, plink!—and bounced away, down the stairs that led farther into the bowels of Ammontraíeth.

Plink...

Plink...

Plink...

The Black Palace was immense. I'd lost count of how many high bloods I'd dispatched since I'd been here.

At first, there had been at least one or two of Malcolm's children lying in wait for me down each dark obsidian corridor, drawn by the heat of my blood.

However, the members of the Blood Court had soon realized they were no match for the god sword or the male who was wielding it.

They were sleeping now, but soon they would wake.

And then, they would hide if they knew what was good for them.

"Ahh! There... you are!"

The redheaded figure stood at the bottom of the stairs, panting and out of breath. He glanced down, cocking an eyebrow at the teeth that had come to a stop at his feet, though he didn't mention them. He turned his attention to me.

"You need... to come. Quickly."

"You shouldn't be outside of your quarters, Carrion."

Sound traveled strangely here. The air was thick.

It hummed with an inaudible tone that buzzed against the skin.

My words were blunted, but they carried well enough for the smuggler to hear.

He let out an exasperated gasp, running up the steps, but I was already walking away, back the way I had come.

"I would... love to be tucked away in my rooms right now, but... dusk's falling. The palace is waking up."

"Exactly."

"Will you stop already? Listen. I was just looking out... my window, and... I saw something—"

"It's called a sunset, Swift. If you want to live to see more of them, I can always escort you back to Cahlish. You can appreciate the sunrise and the sunset from there."

I could live in hope. I'd offered repeatedly to take the smuggler away from Ammontraíeth—away from Irrín, too—but the male was growing increasingly stubborn.

"An enticing offer, but I'm good, thanks." He had sprinted up the steps to reach me and was now on my heels, keeping pace.

"Dare I ask, once again, why you insist on hanging around Ammontraíeth like a bad smell?" I clipped out. "This place is a nightmare."

Carrion answered distractedly, "Oh, y'know. I have my reasons."

And he could have his reasons, so long as none of them involved him harboring any sort of hope that Saeris was going to confess her undying love for him. That wasn't happening.

"Fisher, gods alive! Just fucking slow down, will you? This is important!"

I huffed out a tortured breath, turning to face him. "Is it actually important, or do you just think it is?" Carrion thought all kinds of ridiculous things mattered when they did not.

His eyebrows hiked up as he scowled at me. "I don't know. Do you consider your mate's happiness important?"

I glared at him flatly. "Speak. Quickly."

He shook his head. "We need... a window."

When sunlight could kill, a window could be a death sentence; they weren't so easy to come across. We found one on the next floor up, just a foot wide and a foot tall, the glass smoked to keep out some of the sun's rays.

The view it afforded could easily have been too narrow to display the source of Swift's anxiety, but mercifully that wasn't the case. I scanned the narrow field of the horizon, searching the scorched land that stretched out between Ammontraíeth and the river, not finding—

Oh, gods.

"I thought it was a patch of snow at first," Swift said.

My heart stalled.

"Then I saw that it was moving. Running. Fast," Carrion panted.