Page 47 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)
ARTHIE
Calibore in hand, Arthie waved the vampires through the fortress gates. They weren’t in the best shape. They were pale from being starved—ghastly so, for vampires were already pale from lack of blood to begin with. Most had thinning hair and gangly limbs.
But they were eager for the same vengeance she was, and she was just as eager to give it to them.
Jin and Matteo made quick work of the guards rushing toward them, but Arthie knew it wouldn’t be long before they were overrun.
Once the others passed through the gates and started for the trees, Oliver included, she turned to Shaw. Sora was nowhere to be seen.
She was about to ask for a torch. Shaw had something else instead.
“Take this—it’s a calling card.”
He held out a heavy gold coin, stamped with something she couldn’t make out in the dark. Arthie glanced at him, brow furrowed before she pushed him aside and fired Calibore in the direction of an oncoming guard.
“It’s one of our few possessions we kept safe and out of her sight. From long ago when we first met with the Council to show them our findings. In case we don’t make it off the island, take this to a Horned Guard minister,” Shaw explained, “and it will earn you an audience with them.”
A guaranteed ticket to the Council. Arthie didn’t know such a thing existed.
“Why are you giving this to me and not Jin?” she asked. He didn’t answer, and Arthie didn’t have time to wait. She pocketed it. “You’re making it off the island. We still need you, remember?”
The moonlight flickered in Shaw’s gaze. Appreciation shone in his eyes, for she wasn’t discarding him after what she’d seen, and that meant his son might not either.
Sora joined them with a torch. “Everything is in place.”
“That quickly?”
“Oliver offered to help, as did a few others. Vampires do move fast.”
When Arthie took it from her, it was with a sense of reverence.
It weighed as heavily as the years since she’d fled Ceylan’s shores.
The fort reached for the skies with a cold hand, casting its black shadow over the coast. Inside, guards shouted in Ettenian.
Ceylani were in there too, but they knew the island. They’d escape. They had to.
Arthie raised the torch. For my mother. For my people. For the tyranny that must end. “Now.”
Shaw lit the torch and took a step back.
The flames flickered in his eyes. She held it high, thinking of the trees that had been cut down for Ettenia’s tea plantations, spawning regular landslides.
Thinking of the spices they’d snatched away, the gems they’d scoured the earth to find.
The lives they’d ruined for no reason other than the fact that they could.
The flames crackled in her hand. Are you sure? It seemed to ask. Arthie looked up at the fort one last time. She had never been more certain of anything in her life.
“Stop!” someone shouted from the fort gates. Bloodworth. He was aiming a gun at her. “I will kill you.”
The barrel of his gun looked strangely insignificant after what she’d done. She had come to Ceylan through her dread and fear, she had reunited with her brother and freed scores of vampires. Arthie wasn’t afraid.
“Then bury me shallow, for I will return,” Arthie said, and threw the torch to the damp earth.
It ignited instantly. Bloodworth fired, and Arthie ducked, pulling Shaw and Sora down with her before she heard the overseer’s hasty retreat. So much for killing her. He couldn’t even brave a little fire.
Only it was no little fire. It rose higher and higher, roaring, hissing and moaning in the salt-heavy breeze. Arthie stared into its depths, and in it, she saw Spindrift. She saw Jin’s home.
She saw her parents, her life.
Her guilt that had begun as a child.
And some part of Arthie came to a sharp and startling halt.
Somewhere inside of her, some deep and dark place she’d shut away and tucked beneath all her happenings, from bookkeeping to tracking inventory to keep Spindrift’s doors open, from snarking at the Horned Guard to stoking her vengeance when she read the day’s paper, there was a bowl of guilt.
It had overflowed and turned rancid, hatred leaching into her veins and breeding a version of herself that she refused to accept.
That was why she’d survived on what meager coconut water she could get her hands on. That was why she’d opened the bloodhouse at Spindrift, lying to herself that it was for money and nothing more.
She took that bowl and turned it over, letting the flames eat it away.
“Arthie!” someone shouted. It was her mother, her father, Matteo, Jin, Shaw, Sora.
The voices and faces blurred into one. She looked into the trees, into the darkness, trying to find whoever had called her, but it was too dark to see and she needed to keep the Siwangs safe, the coin in her pocket be damned.
That was when she heard it: a green dart whizzing toward her. No, toward Jin’s parents, silhouetted against the shadows.
“Shaw! Sora!” Arthie shouted, and pushed them out of the way.
And then Arthie was falling. She remembered nothing else.