Page 70 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)
H erlinde and Myrddin refused Lilac’s offer to accompany her upstairs, quietly citing the limits of the illusion outside that was her horse and carriage.
The real carriage and Giles were still at The Fenfoss Inn, and Myrddin informed her before they strode into earshot of the foyer guards that her coachman would dutifully return by the next morning, fed and bathed.
Herlinde promised she’d return with her assistant later in the week with her gown—impressively, even for an enchantress clothier, no measurements needed.
This quelled Lilac’s quiet concern over her ball-turned-wedding dress, but by now that was a distant worry compared to everything else that piled upon it. France. Meeting the emissary and hearing Maximilian’s offer. Garin, and what they’d done at the brothel. Kestrel’s deal, and their Accords.
The Guài chest at the inn, yet to be delivered to Cinderfell.
Silently she watched, suddenly feeling very alone as the guards opened the gate. Myrddin climbed into the driver’s box, Herlinde carrying her kitting project into the carriage, and they rolled forward, past the bailey gate and onto the path until they were swallowed by the treeline.
He’d disband the illusion and teleport them once out of eyesight .
There were many burning questions she’d wished to ask them—how had Herlinde known so much, and how was she related to Lorietta? The tavern owner had never mentioned other family in the area. What was the plan for Garin when Myrddin returned to the inn tonight?
But there were guards flanking the door, and so the witch and warlock had only answered Lilac’s curious gaze with a parting smile before leaving.
Upstairs, she found her chamber door ajar, tub filled and steaming, the doors to her balcony propped open to a pleasant night—or early morning—with one of her book stacks.
Yanna and Isabel were still nowhere to be found, and must have retired to bed—she hoped. Lilac hesitated in the doorway, glimpsing her lady-in-waiting pacing the length of the room, with half the mind to check the shared second-floor handmaidens’ quarters next to the library.
“Well?” Piper demanded, pacing away. “Where is he?”
Lilac stepped into the room and watched Piper stomp past her. She shut and locked the door.
The vampire, besides her healthy glow of pink and full cheeks that no longer showed her bones since the last time Lilac had seen her, didn’t look like a vampire much at all.
Now that she could focus past dolling out lie after lie, Lilac noticed the olive shift Piper wore was familiar.
As the vampire paced between the vanity and the balcony doors, growling profanities under her breath, she also noticed a pair of her own shoes upon her feet.
“Thanks for drawing my bath.” Careful to stay out of her way, Lilac made her way to the tub, watching Piper’s nostrils flare.
“Where is that coward?”
“It’s nice to see you, too.”
Piper slowed her pacing, much like Garin did when he was upset. Maybe it was something to do with a vampire-type of restlessness.
Lilac wasted no time undoing the lace at her front; she would have waited for Piper to settle down, but couldn’t stand the feeling of crusted blood on her skin and soaked through her clothes another minute.
“Did he do that to you?” Piper asked quietly. She was facing the vanity, surveying Lilac’s reflection in the mirror.
“He did,” Lilac replied hoarsely. She added, “but I did it back to him,” when Piper’s eyes flicked dangerously up to her .
“Good.” Once Lilac had loosened her corset and clutched the dress to her body, Piper faced her again. “We must scrub that stench off of you.”
“I know.” Lilac grimaced. “Sorry. If I smell like corpses, it’s because I was in a room of them.”
“Corpses? All I smell is—is Garin .” Piper tossed an arm her way, nose wrinkling. “You?—”
“Reek of him?” Lilac lifted her arm and inhaled, gagging on the aroma of her own sweat, blood, and flesh. “I think Garin smells like bluebells and a crackling hearth. Trust me, there is none of that here.”
Piper’s laugh was sharp. “Just before he killed me, he stunk of pond water and death.”
They’d been sloshing in the Argent River with the Morgen before reaching the Sanguine Mine, where Bastion had egged Garin on enough to make him snap Piper’s neck in a decision of pity.
He’d slipped Piper some of his blood off his thumb just before—and that, according to Garin, was what had facilitated her transformation.
“And do I smell of pond water and death to you now?” Lilac asked.
The vampire made a face, contemplating, nostrils flaring. She opened her mouth and inhaled, as if tasting the air.
“Stop that,” she said, unsettled.
“It is no single aroma,” Piper replied decidedly.
“His blood and yours—as you are no doubt covered in it—but there is something more. An aura. His. The scent is pure possession, and I know—I just do—that it is him.” Her voice shook, tapering off at the last of her words.
She gazed at the fire, reluctance and hatred burning through the moisture in her eyes. “He is my… my?—”
“Garin is your sire,” Lilac offered softly.
“Yes. That. And in that way, I will always be connected to him. In my worst moments, when I was lost and afraid to go to the town, I thought of finding him. Not for council or his help, but because I knew I’d likely find you there.
I refrained, afraid I’d meet his unruly brother if I didn’t stay hidden.
My urge to seek you has been far greater, so I came here. ”
Lilac absorbed Piper’s fury and was met with deep guilt; Piper had been a vampire for less than a month, but she’d been wandering the wilderness with no one to guide her.
It must’ve felt like forever. She’d confirmed what Casmir had said, and if he could tell Lilac was somehow tied to Garin before she’d entered that room, Piper could definitely sense it now.
She couldn’t have known what a thrall was.
“Well, Your Majesty?” Piper was sliding both sides of the curtains further open, poking her head outside the balcony doors and inhaling into the night. “If you’ve nothing to say and if he’s not here, then where is Garin?”
Lilac slipped down her loosened corset and kirtle, wincing as she peeled off the parts where the material clung to her skin. “He’s at a Daemon tavern in Brocéliande, less than an hour east. That’s where he lives.”
“A tavern? He hasn’t moved into that underground prison he’s now in charge of?”
“No.” Lilac stuck a toe into the tub, testing the water before stepping all the way in. “He may oversee the coven at the Sanguine Mine, but he’s still residing and working at the tavern. The Fenfoss Inn. Witch-owned,” she added, at Piper’s glare.
“Fine. Not that it matters.” The vampire strode to the middle of the room, cradling her face with her hands and gazing at the floor.
“Piper,” Lilac said, suddenly grateful for the water she’d splashed on her face as she used a small cloth to scrub the blood off. The tub water quickly turned the color of rust, smelling strongly of iron, and her stomach churned. She forced herself to look up. “Why don’t you remove your shoes?”
“They’re yours.” Piper’s face was instantly tearful. “I’ve stolen them.”
“You haven’t. They’re yours,” Lilac said sternly, blinking back the moisture in her eyes. “Do remove them, though, and make yourself at home. You make me anxious with your pacing. Take them off, and stay a while. Unless you plan on escaping into Brocéliande anytime soon.”
Piper made a noise of contempt. “I prefer to be anywhere Garin is not. With you, I’m not sure that can be helped, though.”
Lilac chose her words carefully. Honestly. “It cannot. But he’s far away from us tonight. Either way, you will speak, think, act candidly. You are under my protection.”
“Whether he’s at the Sanguine Mine or not, I’m not going back.” Piper slid one shoe off, then the other, and pressed her heels into the edge of the fox fur rug beneath her.
“You won’t. I promise. ”
Piper’s eyes narrowed at her consolation.
“How do I know that when you’ve been with him?
” Lilac’s chest constricted as her friend’s mouth opened, framing two long fangs on her upper row of teeth.
Everything she must’ve been holding back at the Grand Hall flowed out.
“How could you? How could you leave me behind? Leave with him? Be with someone like him, and h-his brother, who had imprisoned all of us for years?”
“They had no choice. Feeding ethically was even a risk that would get them hunted. And Garin was trying to help you.” Lilac looked down, her face on fire as she gripped the tub. The words had slipped out without thought.
Piper angled her chin at Lilac, her gaze glassy.
What was wrong with her? How easily this strange protectiveness had crept up on Lilac, as if it were her second nature to jump to not only Garin’s defense, but his entire coven—even when Lilac in fact agreed with Piper’s fury.
Lilac pried her fingers off the lip of the tub.
Chips of wood plinked to the floor and into the water, not unlike the night in the Trevelyan farmhouse, when Garin had gripped the back of the chair and demolished it.
She hadn’t exactly pulverized the rim but small pieces still came away, the wood planks cracked down to the center.
“Help me?” Piper’s forehead creased as she surveyed the damage and Lilac’s trembling hands, which she sank beneath the water in shame. “Is that what he did to you too?” Piper strode to the tub as Lilac shook her head—and gripped her face. The pressure of her fingers forced Lilac’s mouth open.
“Ow, unhand me,” Lilac snapped, but she stilled as Piper examined her blunt canines.
Piper’s nostrils flared as she searched her face. She smeared a hand over Lilac’s cheek, then stuck a finger into her mouth and scrubbed at her teeth vigorously before Lilac swatted her hand and jerked away, tearing herself from the vampire’s grip.
“I am not a vampire,” Lilac snarled.