Page 60 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

He gave me a look as if he wasn’t so sure anymore. Then his face changed, hardened like lakes at winter’s frost. Wrapping a hand around my nape, he brought my forehead to his. “No matter what happens to me, don’t let them see you cry. Don’t gift them your despair. Keep your head high, Lady Aventine.”

The words felt like a prophecy. It reminded me of the first time I visited the Academy’s temple, when the high priestess touched her warm fingers to my forehead and called me a seer. A surrender-to-fate feeling.

Before I could utter the myriad of pleas and protests that flooded my mouth, Hector turned from me and flung the Castle’s door open.

The night outside was unlike any other. Moonless. Starless. A vast expanse of dark sky draping over the sloping mass of the mountains. The Valkhars in their all-black livery were mere faces floating in the air, their bodies inseparable from the gloom.

Sybella and Kaladin were just as I remembered them. She was cool and slim as a river fairy, her hair, long and fair, curling around her forehead. Her eyes were the color of moss, narrow and intelligent. She did not appear to be a day older than twenty, but I knew she was as old as the curse itself. He was no younger, but his face revealed his ancientness more generously. He had a shiny, greyish complexion that made him look more like a spirit than a vampire, a soul stuck in-between realms.

But Dain? Dain looked nothing like the boy from my childhood memories. His eyes were still his mother’s, calm and green, and his hair was the same jumble of dark locks that caught upon his long lashes. And although he’d always been big-boned and severe-looking, now he was enormous, as tall as Hector but double his size. His shoulders were as broad as a ship’s deck, his arms and thighs roped with muscles. I could see the unmatched power in them, for he was clad in skin-tight leather armor.He has come prepared, I realized, my breath trapped in the siphon of my throat.

As they stepped inside the Castle, I found myself retreating. I’d heard stories of mortals who’d been visited by gods. I felt the same awestruck dread now.

Kaladin’s dark eyes crawled over us, assessing us from the arch of our brows to the gold bands around our wrists. I could not read his face. It was carved in granite, the statue of an indifferent immortal.

When his calculating gaze flickered far behind us, I followed it nervously. The Ravenors had gathered on the landing of the staircase. Tieran stood like a beacon among them, sticky red smudges marring the noble lines of his face. I wondered if theValkhars could smell the blood from this distance, if they knew exactly who it belonged to.

The door shut with a tremendous, reverberatingthud. A beat passed—nervous and rapid like the flutter of a dragonfly.

Then Kaladin thundered, “What has happened here?” I had never heard such a voice. Vast and persevering, it was the night itself.

As Hector failed to respond, Kaladin’s eyes darted to Espen again. This time, his question held the sharpness of a threat: “Where is Camilla?”

“Dead,” Espen announced with a vengeful gleam in his eyes, knowing well the kind of fire he’d just lit.

I noticed the way Dain clutched his mother’s hand as if to keep her from reacting. But Sybella did not react. Her face was written in a different language, one of clear, smooth waters. In the cold terror of it all, I could not understand why Dain felt the need to console her first, considering Kaladin’s severer reaction.

His eyes had grown huge with shock, his fists clenching at his sides. The backs of his hands were gnawed with veins and had a pearlescent sheen around the knuckles. I remembered them from my vision. I remembered them curling into Hector’s shirt, dangerously close to his neck.

I shuddered, fresh horror washing over me. Hector, as though he sensed my fear, broke his solid stance to thread his fingers through mine.

“Is this a joke?” Kaladin snarled.

Sybella put a hand on the back of his shoulder. The light from the sconces streamed directly into her face, and the gold glimmer blended into her hair, giving her a spine-chilling glow. Her voice was death-cold and cutting. “Kaladin, let’s not—”

“Is this a fucking joke?” seethed Kaladin, his face so contorted with rage he looked more monster than creature now.

I’d known exactly what was going to happen, and yet I heard myself scream all the same as Kaladin pierced the distance and grabbed Hector by the collar of his shirt. They staggered through the air and came crashing against the wall, their fangs jutting from their snarling mouths.

I barely felt myself move. In a blink, I was on Kaladin, screaming and clawing at his back. I doubted he even felt the drag of my nails on the leather of his vest. But I did not stop, not until Arawn came and forced me off him. In a sick panic, my eyes flew to Roan, quietly beseeching, and within seconds he and Alexandria rushed to split Hector and Kaladin apart.

“We don’t know that he did it,” Roan panted, holding Kaladin back with an arm across his collarbone.

“Of course we do!” roared Kaladin. “We all know human treachery has no bounds. And there aretwoof them here.”

Hector pushed past Alexandria and faced Kaladin with his unwavering self-command. “If you didn’t come here to give me your oath, then you are no longer welcome in this Castle.”

“My oath?” spat Kaladin. “I came here to challenge you.”

The words were a hollow clang in the room.

For a solid minute, no one moved; no one even dared to breathe in anticipation of the Castle’s reaction. But the Castle was just a cemetery of beautiful things. Paintings and rugs and crystals and gold, inanimate vanities that had no real meaning or value without the Castle’s pulse and star-bright energy.

Inwardly, I prayed to it as if it were a god and I a priestess fallen out of its favor.Please, please, please do something. Throw them all out. Can’t you see? Hector is too proud to give the command.

Nothing happened, andKaladin, reassured by the Castle’s lack of intervention, sauntered around the room. In the echoey silence, his heavy steps were like peals of thunder, his voice like a judge’s verdict: “When, a century ago, we vowed to followthe woman who ruled this sacred place, we did it proudly and in trust. No one is denying that Esperida Aventine was a great leader. But I think we can all agree her greatness was marred the moment she refused to turn her human companion. Now here we are, in a time of great uncertainty, having to rely on a human to defendourinterests,ourwelfare. We are expected to give our oath to thisboy, knowing that our loyalty will be mistreated and misused in order to further the human agenda—”

“There is no human agenda,” said Hector through clenched teeth. “We all want to live in peace.”

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