Page 60

Everyone looks at him. He pulls back his shoulders, looks me straight in the eye and repeats the word, “No.”

I look at him. “What did you say?”

But he does not back down. “I will not stand around and wait to be attacked. I have been in contact with our kind out east and south. There are many of us who want to fight back.”

“Who do you want to fight?” I say, my voice even.“Where is the enemy?”

“The… people, humans, of course!” Layrr says, his temper rising. “They took out Tempesto, didn’t you hear? Flattened his entire home, wiping out not only family but his advisers and councilors.”

“They were corrupt. It was necessary,” my eyes narrow. “Why are you so concerned with his fate? You were not perhaps scheming with him?”

The atmosphere in the room changes and I realize that I inadvertently spoke the truth. Izzy was right. Layrr had been helping Tempesto, undermining me. I didn’t want to see it, but he was working against me, weakening my position.”

I sit down heavily in an armchair, suddenly exhausted. My son’s betrayal is too much to bear.

“What did he promise you?” I ask, staring at Layrr.

“No, Father! I didn’t… I mean… I haven’t!” Layrr protests his innocence.

“Ah, give it up,” Ragnar interjects, coming closer. “You were in on it from the beginning.”

“You too?” I stare at my oldest son, but he shakes his head. “Nah… they wanted to pull me in, but I said no…. They said it was time we made our kind strong again, let everyone see we were superior, enough with vilifying us!”

“But it’s the law,” I said.

“Their law, not ours,” Layrr says now, his eyes wild. “You are so eager to accept their ways, their rules. You’ve gone soft, become old!”

“And Tanata?” I ask. “Why did she have to die?”

Sunil gets up and runs out but Layrr stays, faces me.

“She was going to warn you,” he admits, unable to look me in the eye. “She found out about what was going on. I had to stop her.”

I can’t believe it. My two sons, scheming together with my arch enemy for power and money. I hear the door open and the two of them leaving. Only Ragnar remains.

“Father,” he says, his voice subdued. “Remember after Mother was killed in the club? Sunil wanted revenge but you told him to let the Council handle it?”

“Yes?” I recalled the investigation, which resulted in a hunt for the demon, who was eventually captured and destroyed. But it had been brought into the Citadel somehow, someone had opened the door for them from the spirit world. It was thought to be a wizard from the old world, instructed by someone at the Council. There was talk that MoZa was possibly involved.

“Sunil asked me to find the wizard who orchestrated the attack. He never forgave you for not allowing him to have justice on the killers of Queen Simonis. He believed it was a strategic hit on some senior vampire figures, to keep them from returning to power.”

I thought about that. Simonis had always been a respected figure, her father’s name carried a lot of power. She’d spent years in the Citadel, building her influence and I had let her be. Perhaps, I should have taken a bigger interest.

“Sunil was working with Layrr?” I asked.

Ragnar nodded. “Sunil managed the relationship with Tempesto in the capital. They were convinced that your time was up, that you would be replaced and they wanted to be on the winning side.”

“Why didn’t you tell me!” I demanded to know.

Ragnar shrugged, “You wouldn’t have believed me.

I was stunned. “What do you mean?”

“Sunil was always your favorite and Layrr was the one managing the business, the son you relied on. I was what, the black sheep? The unreliable one? You would have said I was jealous, making up stories.”

Perhaps he was right.

“Let them leave,” Ragnar said. “They won’t succeed. They need to see for themselves that they are wrong, that the world is not what they imagine.”