Page 18 of Brimstone

“At least if you’re this wound up, you’ll be ready for a fight,” Lorreth mused, his dark eyes full of mischief.

A part of me wanted to be angry that they could still be so lighthearted in the face of all of this. It was the same part of me that had been trapped in Malcolm’s maze for over a century and had gradually lost hope. Always running. Always suffering. Being eaten, and being burned, and being haunted by the burning corpses of an entire city thatIhad put to the torch. The same part of me that was still there, running the passageways of that dark nightmare. The part of me that wouldneverbe free of that fucking maze.

But the rest of me was relieved that my friends still had laughter in their souls. They had suffered, too. Their losses also piled high. They’d had to watch our people being brutalized, eaten, and turned every day. And if my friends could still find it in themselves to laugh, then I was glad of it. That meant that maybe there was hope for me, too.

I ducked my head, smiling softly as I looked down at my hands. Itwaspretty funny, when you thought about it.

“Honestly, I think I might be partially responsible,” Lorreth said, turning his attention back to his sword; the metal cast a sustained bright humming sound as he slid the whetstone along its edge. “She asked me about the blood trade back at the tavernnot too long ago. I explained it inasmuch as it felt appropriate. In hindsight, I only gave her half the information she probably needed. But how wasIsupposed to know that she’d find herself turned and in a position to biteyou? I figured you’d explain it all when the time was right, and you wanted to—”

“Please stop talking.” It was entirely unreasonable—the sudden urge I had to wrap my hands around Lorreth’s neck and squeeze until he stopped breathing. But a mated Fae didn’t like another male talking about his mate at the best of times. And I was newly mated. Hearing that he’d spoken to Saeris about the blood trade at all made me want to turn feral and burn down the fucking war tent.

Lorreth chuckled, unfazed by the way I’d snapped at him. He just shook his head, going about his work.Shhhhick. Hummmmmm. Shhhhick. Hummmmmm.Wisely, he changed the subject, though.

“I still haven’t found him,” he said, a seriousness falling over him.

Ren’s smile faded, too. He picked at his nails, staring into the fire as he spoke. “We don’t even know he’s in there.”

I knew who they were talking about, though neither of them said his name. Our friend. Our brother. Foley had been with us when we’d climbed the dragon. Old ’Shacry had shaken him free and sent him hurtling into the dark. The fall had crushed his body, but it was the feeders who had killed him. They’d drunk him dry and left him broken in the snow. It had taken hours to find him. I was free of the dragon’s maw and morning had arrived by the time we discovered him, panting and covered in blood, hiding from the dawn in the mouth of a cave.

He should have become a feeder. Malcolm was the only one of his kind capable of creating other vampires with their personalities and minds intact. At least, that was what we’d believed at the time. We’d thought it was a miracle. Years later,I discovered the truth: that Taladaius had been there that night, overseeing the assault on the mountain.

When asked, he’d said that he had done it as a kindness to me. That he had fed Foley his blood and then drained him, if only so that he might have achoicein whether he lived or died.

Foley had been angry. Confused. We’d stayed with him. Our friend had screamed for hours as he completed his transition. He’d fed before we’d found him and couldn’t stop crying over those he had killed. His horror over what he had become seemed as though it would kill him, though when darkness fell, he left us, fleeing into the night, down the mountain and away.

We heard later that he had fled to Ammontraíeth. There had been many instances over the years when we had reached out to him, but our letters had all gone unanswered.

“He’s there,” I said softly. “He wouldn’t have left. He wouldn’t have trusted himself around the living.”

None of us spoke again for a time.

Shhhhick. Hummmmmm.

Shhhhick. Hummmmmm.

Even though he sat still, gaze lost in the flames, the tension pulsing from Renfis mounted until it became a fourth presence at the fire, hogging all the warmth. “Will you speak, or will you stew?” I asked eventually.

He inhaled sharply, as if waking from a dream. “I have nothing new to say on the matter.”

Lorreth set Avisiéth down at last, leaning back in his chair and resting his cup of ale against the flat of his stomach. “Then say what you’ve said already, and we’ll hear you out again.”

It seemed for a moment that Ren was going to hold his tongue, but then he began. “It’s been hundreds of years. Close to an age. We knew him once, but Foley’s been a vampire longer than he was Fae at this point. Who’s to say he is anything like the person we once fought alongside?”

He was right. So much time had passed. But there was that word again.Faith.Every once in a while, it let me up from the dirt long enough to take a breath. “He was bound to us by blood, as we were to him. He swore to protect our people, along with all the creatures of Yvelia. If you found yourself in his shoes, wouldyoubreak your oath, Ren?”

Renfis hadn’t just stepped in as commander of the Lupo Proelia when I’d been lost to the maze. He’d become general to an army. He had willingly donned a mantle of responsibility that would have crushed most other warriors, as it had almost crushed me. I knew the core of him. He was honest, and true, and good. But still he was foolish enough to shake his fucking head. “I honestly don’t know, brother.”

“Well, I do. There is no way you’d turn your back on your promise. I choose to believe that Foley hasn’t, either.”

I’d spent hours looking for him, once I’d known Saeris was going to be okay. So had Lorreth. Taladaius had refused to tell me where he was, which hadn’t done much to dull the anger thatIstill harbored toward him. But, in a way, I’d understood.

Foley had needed to carve out a new existence for himself at Ammontraíeth. At some point, he must have needed to accept his new life and move forward with it. He hadn’t answered the letters any of us had sent to him, which must have been for a reason. And if Foley didn’t want to speak with us, then it stood to reason that he wouldn’t want toseeany of us, either.

A long time ago, he would have died for me and I for him. I would still have laid down my life for him if it would save him in some way. But the damage was done, and of all people,Talseemed to be the only one who could respect that.

“If he is in there somewhere, who’s to say he has any interest in helping Saeris?” Lorreth said. “He has no connection to her. No reason to show her any loyalty at all.”

“Other than her being my mate?”