Page 28 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

With Stasia untying the ribbons at the back of the wrinkled dress I’d worn for nearly two days, I slipped free of it .

In the tub, the warm water enveloped me, easing every aching muscle with delicious, steamy comfort.

Stasia picked the weave of my braids apart and then soaked my hair beneath the water. Cupping my head in her hands, she allowed me to fully relax, where I could give my body to the water. As I melted into the warmth, sweat and oil washing away, my mind cleared.

Baths in Skaldir were rarely this soothing. Warm water didn’t stay that way long enough to soak.

Fully immersed with my head under the surface, the world around me melted away. Something about the protective water stripped away my senses and swiped away every worry.

Until Stasia lifted my head. My sharp intake of breath after sitting up in the chilled air was too loud, too sudden after having suspended in the quiet beneath the surface.

I peeled my eyes open and sat up. Droplets streamed from my hair down into the rivulets of my ears. I shook my head and twisted to meet Stasia’s eyes.

“So the Draugr?” I didn’t even form a full sentence because with Stasia’s casual way of speaking, our conversation felt as familiar as if I were joking with Ragna about Rolf’s balls.

“Vampire,” she said.

“What?”

“Draugr is a witch’s term. Vampire is their chosen title.”

I opened my mouth but didn’t have a response among my scattered thoughts. Clearly, Stasia knew more about them than I did. My heart lifted and every bit of energy that’d been stolen from me slowly buzzed back into my veins.

I straightened and squeezed the water from my hair.

“Tell me, do these vampires eat human flesh to survive? Or do they just get life from the entertainment of brutality?”

She smirked. “Ah, the speculations are wilder and wilder every time I hear them. But I guess I wouldn’t say they’re wrong. ”

“So, they’re true?”

She shrugged and tucked her hair behind her ear before helping me out of the tub.

The smooth stone was as slippery when wet as it was relentlessly cold.

“Most of the courtiers prefer a cleaner way of eating. They simply draw the blood from your veins until they’ve had their fill.

But I won’t say some don’t get messy with their food. ”

“How can you talk so casually about it?”

Tapping her skull, she forced an odd smile. “Sanity, remember? Plus, I’ve served here for seven years, since I was fifteen. It's part of my everyday life. For now.”

“How many of them are there?”

“In Mara’s Keep? One hundred and nine vampires.”

My chest sank and breath caught in my throat. I tried to swallow but my mouth was too dry. Speaking through it felt like my tongue had transformed into cotton. “So every courtier…”

“Is a vampire.” She nodded. “Hey, look at you, New Queen is getting it all pieced together. You’re observant.

It takes some of the newer servants years.

Though most of them are fed on and you forget things when you’re missing so much blood, you know.

Plus, vampires have a way of making their vessels confused so they don’t talk about it.

Nobody beyond Mara’s Keep knows, unless they’re vampires or part of the Grimward.

Vessels eventually waste away, but before that they’re too…

” she paused and snapped her fingers. “What’s the word for feeling lost but like you were just hit over the head with a wooden spoon? ”

“Dazed?”

“That’s it! Enchanted, dazed, in a trance.”

I frowned. Was Embla a vessel? Her pale face and gaped mouth suggested the worst. Who fed on her?

If it was King Drakkar, I could both save her and get access to the runestones when I found him in his moment of vulnerability.

But he’d shown obvious interest in the servant who always filled his goblets.

“Does every vampire drink from… a specific vessel?” I asked. The word tasted bitter. Calling a human a vessel felt akin to Astrid’s threat of making me a lifeless husk. The servant he’d claimed I was jealous of had a name. Thora was more than a vessel.

Tilting her head side-to-side, Stasia’s spiral tendrils danced over her face.

“More or less. Most vampires have their favorites, but if they get hungry enough they’ll feed on almost anyone nearby.

They have to let their vessels recover, or eventually they’ll run out of options, and vampires like their options.

Kind of like us, we don’t want to eat the same food for every breakfast, midday, and supper. ”

“Have you been fed on?”

She nodded as she retrieved the new dress. The magenta silk puddled on the floor when she dipped it low enough for me to step into. Pulling the sleeves up, she draped them just below my shoulders.

The combination of silk and lace made for an odd but extravagant look.

Black lace sleeves hung off my shoulders, baring all of my collarbone and an expanse of my chest. When Stasia slipped behind me to tighten the ribbons of the corset, my breasts lifted, but were still gratefully covered.

The more skin I showed, the more it felt these vampires would want to bite into me.

I didn’t know if I would get used to this style of clothing.

Animal bones kept the corset’s shape and the ribbons were pulled so tightly, I barely breathed.

The people of Vylheim had no use for such inefficient and uncomfortable dressings, but the courtiers all wore it, so as a part of Mara’s Keep now, I had no choice.

Stasia finished off the ribbons with a small bow at the top of the corset .

“So you’ve been fed on, but you’re not in a daze, why?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too rude.

“I’m not a vessel anymore.”

“At the risk of sounding like a child,” I said. “Why?”

She laughed and shook her head. “It’s complicated. Let’s just say, if the fish you dined on could become a human if you enjoyed it a little too much, then you’d probably stop eating from it.”

At that, words escaped me.

I let her chatter away about the food that’d be at the engagement celebration.

Roast duck, milky eggs, dates wrapped in charred pig, cinnamon apples, cinnamon pears, and cinnamon almonds.

She gushed over the selection of drinks as well, honeyed mead, ale, spiced wine, and mint tea, and as she claimed, it did lift my spirits to focus on the food.

“Do the servants eat as well as the guests?”

She snorted. “Yep. Vampires hardly eat at all, only for taste occasionally, and they want their vessels healthy. Ylva has even said humans have flavor based on what we eat the most. So I like to imagine I taste like bread soaked in melted butter and dusted with cinnamon. Obviously, the cinnamon-everything was my genius idea. Before you arrived, I was a cook, and when you’re sleeping your life away, I go back to irritating the current cooks.

I’m going to miss it.” A little laugh escaped her.

Stasia’s enjoyment spread like a contagion, and for the first time since coming to Mara’s Keep, I smiled. Smelling of rosemary soap instead of sweat helped. I suddenly couldn’t wait for the party, the food, and to track King Drakkar.

Now I knew exactly where the blood came from—his vessel.

All I had to do was find Thora. I’d follow him to wherever he fed on her, then I’d demand to know where he kept the lost history. Though they were all vampires, monsters, and would surely deny it, I still refused to be discouraged .

Freya said these trials would spare the witches, and that was all I needed to know.

That and exactly what she wanted me to do. Follow the damn blood. I’d repeated this to myself enough times that it should become a reality now. And it would, soon.

Once I received a visit from Freya’s cats, the first trial would be over and I’d be closer to saving my mother. To sparing Ragna and the other exiled witches from death at sea.