Page 48 of Of Fate So Dark

“Rumors in the Order of Berinlian spoke of the cost of crafting such a barrier,” Byron said quietly. “I heard no details beyond the fact that it was so high, so terrible, no sane nation would ever pay it.”

His eyes flitted toward me and away again, a flicker of apology passing over his face at the implication.

“But no one knows how it was made?” Casimir pressed.

The men shook their heads. He turned his curious look upon me.

I gave a small shrug. “Even my stepmother kept the details of her spell for the Warden Wall to herself. For our protection, my father said. Because knowing anything of how she crafted her magic could drive us mad.”

I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my tone as I finished. So many lies, and I’d never once questioned them. I’d simply trusted my father and by extension, my stepmother, and believed Melisandre had our best interests at heart.

How much had my father known of what she did, really? And how much had Melisandre used her magic to keep him complacent and prevent him from pressing for details?

Ones that clearly should have mattered to any king.

“However it was made, the wall around Erenelle isn’t our most pressing concern,” Dex said. “If Lord Thomas isn’t on your side or was swayed by your stepmother before she died?—”

“Potentially died,” Byron murmured. “If the Voidborn are here, she may still be out there too.”

“Before she potentially died,” Dex persisted, “then there is the chance he’ll try to arrest you or put you on trial for your father’s murder. We need to have a backup plan in place to get you away from there, in case he?—”

A screech came from above. Before I could move, blurred figures made of darkness broke from the night sky to dive straight at us.

Vampires.

Ruhl was there in an instant. Leaping high over the fire, he caught one of the amorphous forms of smoke in his fangs and ripped it from the air, landing on all fours and shaking the thing like a rag doll.

But more came after it. I lunged as one of them struck Niko and knocked him away from the flames. The creature shifted to the form of a man in an instant, trying to sink his fangs into Niko’s throat.

I didn’t think. I just struck, tearing him off of my giant and screaming in rage when he tried to fight me, his fangs snapping at me like a mad thing.

He looked familiar.

The shock cost me. Twisting in my grasp, the man tried to shift form and break free. Recovering as fast as I could, I shifted too, shoving him back against the wall again. Taking human form again, he snarled, thrashing. I hung on, pinning him to the rock wall and trying desperately to figure out how the hell I could stop a vampire.

One that I swore I’d seen in my father’s castle, maybe as a servant, though it was hard to be sure when he was writhing and slashing at me with his fangs.

“Duck!”

I felt the order as much as heard it, and I flung myself down only a moment before the blade whistled through the air.

Ozias’s axe cleaved the vampire’s head away from his shoulders. As the man toppled away, the blade slammed into the stone, but only for a moment before the rock wall rippled and released it again.

As Ozias kicked the disintegrating body aside, I shuddered, staring at the fallen vampire for a moment. A cook. That’s who he was. One who’d trained with the chefs of Gentresqua. He’d left in the middle of the night a few years ago, and everyone had assumed he was homesick. I remembered because Father lamented the loss of the Gentresquan delicacies he used to make.

Breathless, I turned, seeking any more attackers. Casimir had one of the vampires pinned to the ground, and I didn’t recognize that one, but he was holding the man fast while Ruhl leapt at the creature to rip it apart. Dex and Lars had another held at bay with their swords—a servant from the laundry, one who’d vanished after being unable to clean a stain from my stepmother’s favorite ballgown—and Clay was helping Byron and Niko stop a third who I swore might’ve once been a gardener on the castle grounds.

Roan stood alone far to the side of the group, a vampire I didn’t recognize in his grasp, and I froze for a whole new reason. The skin of Roan’s hand looked strange. Drained of color and oddly textured somehow, though maybe it was just a trick of the dancing firelight. But hanging from his grip, the creature thrashed, clawing at Roan’s fist as if unable to shift or escape.

Swiftly, Roan braced his other hand on the snarling man’s shoulder and then yanked his grip away. With a sickening sound, he tore the vampire’s throat out before letting the creature fall to the ground.

The remaining vampires shrieked and took off across the field, fleeing Clay and Byron’s blades and the rest of us alike.

“Ruhl,” Casimir snapped.

The wolf didn’t need encouragement. In a blur of high-speed smoke, he sped away after the creatures.

I barely took my eyes from Roan. How had he?—

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