Page 27 of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

He didn’t have those in my vision.

I shivered against a breeze.

He finished writing, and his eyes flicked up to me. “And?”

A single, expectant word. He knew there was more. Nothing that I had described to him would rise to the intensity that would’ve left me twitching in the dirt like I was.

I could tell him that was it. I would maintain another secret card in my hand, but he would know I was lying, and I would have to deal with that mark on my trustworthiness later.

Or I could tell him what I saw and see what his reaction taught me.

“I saw one more thing,” I said.

He waited.

“I saw you.”

Still, no reaction.

“You were younger,” I went on. “You had none of your… physical abnormalities. You were on a mountain, with another soldier.” I thought about the scene again—with the added context of what I knew now. “Another Bloodborn vampire, I think.”

Atrius’s presence had gone very, very stoic. Utterly unreadable, like a wall of steel. It was rare I saw anyone capable of stilling themselves like that.

“The two of you were on a mountain peak,” I said. “And you went before a goddess.”

Nyaxia, I realized now. It had to be Nyaxia.

“Nyaxia,” I corrected myself. “And she?—”

“That’s enough.”

Atrius rose abruptly. The stillness of his presence shattered into cold anger.

“Never do that again,” he said.

Atrius did not raise his voice. But that was only because he was not the type of man who needed to. The quiet carried his threat, and his rage. Enough to shiver up your spine like the tip of a blade.

“Neverdo that again,” he repeated. “Do you understand?”

“What?” I asked. “Seer? You asked me to?—”

“Do not seer about me.”

And this was the stab, sharp and brutal.

“I—” I started, ready to weave my web of sweet apologies, but Atrius shoved his hands into his coat pockets and turned away.

“Erekkus will get you ready to leave,” he snarled as he walked away, leaving me on my knees by the bonfire. “Don’t try to run. I’ll find you. Be back at camp by sunrise.”

CHAPTER TEN

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

Erekkus cast a glance down to my bandaged feet. Atrius had been true to his word—he’d sent Erekkus to me with medicine after I made it back to camp, apparently long after he did. Erekkus had given it to me and then dutifully stepped to the other side of the room while I applied it, apparently to show his self-control in the presence of my blood. I could appreciate that.

The medicine was magic, and it worked well. Still, the wounds were tender and sore, especially since I’d been on my feet immediately the next night, called upon to help alongside everyone else with breaking down the tents. Erekkus worked with me on mine, always calling me back sharply if I wandered too close to the other soldiers.

“Stay in my sight,” he said. “He’ll have my head if one of them gets their hands on you.”

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