Page 67

I was crouched on the rooftop of a three-story building across the street from the Tanmount tower in the area of the Commerce Ward called Berrigen Square.

In Berrigen Square, the surrounding buildings worked to keep the Tanmount operating and employed—a small garrison, residential hovels for the overseers of the bank, and slaughterhouses to keep the workers fed with the blood they required.

I stared over the lip of the rooftop railing, gazing at the glittering construct of the Tanmount, which pierced into the sky, up to the clouds.

It was an ominous building of varying colors—one minute a dark green, the next bluish-gray, shifting to red and purple.

The change of hues was courtesy of the magic lamplights hanging from every window of the sheer glass-and-stone tower.

The Gilded Liege, Overliege Liolen Sesk, evidently had a flair for the flamboyant.

The tower was shaped like a spear, completely vertical and circular at its base. Other than the lights, it had few frills and fewer entrances. No balconies we could climb up, no footholds in the smooth surface we could use to sneak our way in. We had to go through the front door.

Four guards stood at the entrance—vampires one and all—with blackened cuirasses of iron that were bulky and sturdy.

As part of Barnabac Wyvox’s Military Ward, they wore cross-guarded helmets denoting their position and allegiance.

Yellow patches, Barnabac’s crest, were stamped onto the shoulders of their armor.

Other guards walked the circular block around the Tanmount in shifts. There were two per team, making leisurely strolls to give the facade of a well-guarded building.

Garro and Skar crouched to my right and left. They wore hooded cloaks, black paint streaked across their faces to shorn any glint from the moonlight above.

The wind whistled through my hair. I pulled my cloak tight around my body, sinking into it as we waited for another three hours.

As the third set of guards perusing the perimeter of the Tanmount marched past the front-door guards and turned the corner, disappearing to continue their route, a massive figure stepped out of the shadows below us on the street.

The four guards went rigid, drawing wicked halberds as tall as Vallan. “Halt,” said one of the guards, his voice carrying up to our perch on the wind. “Turn around and walk away, fullblood. This area is prohibited.”

Vallan put up his hands in a sign of peace, his broad shoulders shrugging his black cloak. “I have an appointment with Overliege Liolen, sir.”

The guards glanced at each other, bemused. One of them opened his mouth to push back—

As the massive fifteen-foot door behind them wheeled open, and the guard quieted. The grated portcullis—an added measure of protection in front of the door—started to lift in unison.

Two new guards popped out from the darkness of the entryway as the portcullis rose. The two rearmost guards switched places with the new ones, heading inside the building, shuffling the guard shift.

With Vallan’s diversion, the portcullis rasping up, the door opening, and the changing of the guard, none of the watchmen noticed the gray rat crawl down from the back of Vallan’s leg and scamper into the building.

I glanced over at Garroway, who was seated. His eyes were closed, roaming beneath his lids.

“He’s in,” Skartovius whispered, using their waning telepathic bond to communicate. “Making his way past the second corridor as instructed. Hard to see through those damned rodent eyes so close to the ground.”

I chuckled.

“What’s this about an appointment?” one of the original guards asked Vallan, suspicion coloring his voice. “The Overliege does not hold appointments here, fool.”

Vallan scratched the back of his neck. “Hm. Perhaps I am mistaken.”

“You surely are.” The watchman leveled his halberd at Vallan, keeping the tall vampire at a distance with his polearm. “Do as I command and vacate this premise, or there will be trouble.”

“Almost to the door,” Skar said, gritting his teeth.

The portcullis began to lower as the new guards took their position behind the front two. The door had creaked shut seconds before, trapping Garroway’s rat familiar inside the structure.

I envisioned what Garro and Skar might see through those rodent eyes—the floor, mostly, as he scurried through the halls.

Then a door, opening as a soldier left the room and entered the hall after seeing the portcullis and door shut.

Garro would keep his tiny, furry body close to the wall, timing his entry.

Before he could enter, a new vampire paced down the hall.

Zefyra swiftly opened the door so Garroway’s charmed animal could scamper inside the room.

Zefyra winked at the rat before leaving, closing the door behind her once he was inside.

And there, Garroway’s pet chewed through a thick rope.

Vallan’s hand twitched on the back of his neck, ruffling through his shaggy hair before inching closer to the handle of his axe across his shoulder.

“Kinsman, I’ve told you for the last time,” the guard scrutinizing him bellowed. He gripped his halberd harder.

The timing had to be perfect.

Garroway would nearly be finished with his rat mission by now.

Skartovius opened his eyes, staring at me with a wicked grin. “Ready, little temptress?” He held his hand out for me to take.

I nodded succinctly. Skar looked past me and noted where Garroway was sitting, hidden from sight beneath the edge of the rooftop railing. More importantly, Garro’s shadow was large and dark behind him from the slant of the moon overhead.

It had taken three weeks for us to pick this evening to run the raid due to obstructive, cloudy autumn skies the Olhavian Peaks had been receiving nightly.

Skar threaded his fingers with mine. He squeezed lightly, running his smooth digits over the inside of my wrist. I shivered with anticipation.

The rat finished chewing through the rope inside the Tanmount gatehouse, which snapped and reversed the counterweight on the ground.

The portcullis began to lift.

Vallan’s hand wrapped around the handle of his hidden war-axe.

Skartovius dragged me to Garroway’s shadow. “Keep your eyes open,” he ordered—

I gasped when Skar stepped into Garro’s shadow and the world went pitch black. A hissing sound fluttered through my ears, in one and out the other, and I felt a wobbling sensation of my senses going awry.

I blinked through the darkness—

And stared into the eyes of the four startled guards in front of us, at eye-level.

Vallan, standing two feet to my side, swept his axe out from his back with a fluid motion and beheaded the speaking guard before the man could react, shearing through the guard’s halberd with the violent lunge.

Black blood sprayed in a geyser from the headless neck, and in the sudden chaos Skar and I stepped out from Vallan’s shadow and drew our swords.

Skar’s silver rapier plunged into the closest guard’s chest before the first one’s head had even plopped to the ground.

The soldier exploded into a ball of fire.

The back two guards—the newer ones—flinched and stabbed at us with their hooked polearms.

I rolled to the side. Skar straightened and let the halberd spear past him.

I took off the ankles of a guard from my roll, and Vallan severed both his arms at the elbows and finished him with a hack into his chest, caving in the iron cuirass.

The night became a ball of orange hissing as Skar’s target smoldered from his silver saber.

The fourth guard turned to flee—

I launched my sword across the air as I stood from my somersault. The blade lodged into his back, bringing him to the ground.

Vallan took one step forward and swept his axe low to separate the guard’s legs from his torso.

He began to scream—

Silenced by Skartovius sticking him in the back, directly in his heart, and the top half of him sizzled and burned.

Our trio waltzed past the bodies amidst an inferno of flames on either side of us.

The portcullis finished lifting. The entire act had taken less than fifteen seconds.

Vallan pushed the heavy door with a grunt as its lock clicked out of place—Garroway’s rat finishing its job.

Skar looked over his shoulder as he strode into the tower with Vallan baring his teeth, keeping the door ajar. “Prepare for ten minutes, hope for an hour, my dear family.”

We streamed through the lowest level of the Tanmount in a sprint. I was worried about leaving Garroway behind but we’d needed his familiar’s eyes and tiny rat teeth to get us in here.

The initial corridor had doors on both sides—three to a side, with a staircase at the far end leading up to the second level.

And so it began.

I skipped the first door—the gatehouse where Garro’s familiar remained—and shouldered my way into the second. Vallan burst into the door past mine, while Skar took the other side of the hall.

My room was a storage closet with brooms, boxes, and supplies. I hurried through the boxes, upending them over the shelves, and left the room in an upheaval when I’d surmised there was nothing special here.

Certainly nothing that screams “Relic.” It must be on the higher levels. “Don’t think we’re gonna find anything on this level, boys!”

“Keep searching.” Skar emerged from the first room on the other side of the hall. Vallan came out next, and we systematically made our way through a study, a kitchen room, and another storage closet.

Oddly, the two guards who had changed their shift with the two flaming corpses outside were nowhere to be seen on this level.

We jumped the stairs three at a time, winding up to the second story.

On this level, the landing opened into a large circular room with closed doors littering the curved wall—eight of them.

I rolled my eyes at the obscene number of doors we had to search through, and spotted the stairs past the circular room leading up to the third.

“Skip it and go up?” I mused.

This was a quiet space, every sound in the Tanmount locked tightly shut to the world outside it, and my voice reverberated and echoed.

“We search everywhere,” Skar scolded. “It’s been less than two minutes.”

Our boots pounded on the steel floor as we split up to take opposing doors. I went to the closest door to the left, Vallan to the far right, and Skar near me.

I kicked the door open—

A sharp whistle as an arrow flew through the air and embedded in my shoulder.

“Fuck!” I hissed, twirling as pain lanced through me.

“Sephania!” Skar shouted.

The door he stood in front of burst open and three vampires streamed out astonishingly fast, taking him to the ground before he could raise his sword, due to his distraction of seeing me get hurt.

Vallan had his axe out. The first vampire that crossed the threshold of his door earned a slash down his front that nearly separated his left shoulder from his torso.

The quiet space filled with shouting and hissing as doors opened and vampires careened into the room.

An ambush.

We’d been had.

More than a dozen bastard bloodsuckers bared their fangs and charged us.

Vallan flipped his massive cloak off his shoulders, spun, and barreled into the nearest group weighing Skartovius down.

Two Buvers emerged from my door, one discarding his bow and drawing a sword. My dominant arm hung limp from the arrow, so I drew my sword with my left, ignoring the pain to try and fight my way to my men.

Skar flipped onto his feet once Vall got the trio of vampires off him. They danced a wicked waltz of death with their saber and war-axe spinning and keeping the vampires at bay.

I wasn’t so lucky. The vampire in front of me avoided my weak sword thrust, ducked low, and wrapped his arms around my hips to tackle me.

I was sturdy, but once the second one joined the first, I had nowhere to go but down.

Vallan roared as he fought his way through bodies. Blood splattered and sprayed on the walls and floor. Bloodsuckers became bright torches as Skar clipped one, two, three of the fuckers with his silver blade.

Soot, ash, and the choking smell of embers filled the room. More vampires funneled into the room.

Reinforcements.

“Trust me!” My shout was muffled by the bodies on top of me.

“I’ve never trusted anyone, temptress!” Skar wailed.

Only Garroway, Vallan . . . and me.

I lifted my head, looking upside down at Skartovius Ashfen as he ducked, stabbed, sidestepped, stabbed, and became surrounded by fire and pure death.

“You must, love,” I choked out.

The smoke and fire was becoming too much. The cloud of gray burned my eyes as the vampires put their weight on me and kept me pinned to the ground.

Everything went hazy and then black.