Page 217 of Golden Eagle

Liam grimaced, and his gaze drifted toward the fire where it rippled and cracked in the grate. “I didn’t know he was resistant to that trick,” he admitted.

“In my experience, Vlad is resistant to every trick.”Except for mine, he thought with a mild pulse of panic. He wanted to wrap Vlad’s love for him up tight and lock it away, hide it from view.I’m his weakness, and I always have been. A thrill, a curse. “He’s a rare creature, my brother.”

Liam sighed, and leaned his shoulder subtly into his wife’s side. Her arm slipped all the way around his neck, fingertips pressed to his collarbone. They looked like a painting, like the room’s second mural: all red, and green, and cream bathed in firelight, lovely and overwrought and terrible.

Faintly, tiredly, Liam said, “Why are you here, your grace?”

Val eased his astral projection down onto the old steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. “What you told Vlad about needing three Romans – three emperors to represent the three Romes.”

Liam perked up, turning his head to face him.

“Is that just nonsense, or do you believe it?”

He stared at Val a moment, blue eyes wide, face slack – and open. No artifice in his expression. Nothing cutting or calculating. He looked almost hopeful, but afraid to be so. “I believe it.” He sat up straighter. “It’s a theory, I admit,” he added, hurrying, like he was desperate to get the words out. “Your brother is skeptical, I know, but we as immortals know that not everything real is tangible.” He gestured to Val. “You sitting there, for instance. I could put a fire poker right through you, but you’re here. I’m not hallucinating. There is power in this world that makes its own kind of sense, and I think it’s no coincidence that our enemy is the founder of Rome – that the triumvirate is a Roman legacy – that the triumvirate exists still in the balance between vampire, and mage, and wolf – and that history tells us there were three Romes. Ancient Rome’s downfall was internal – as was the fall of Constantinople–”

“I’mintimatelyfamiliar with what happened to Constantinople,” Val said tightly.

“Yes, I know, apologies, but my point is this: a strong, financially secure Constantinople, united in religion, could have repelled that siege. The city was crumbling from the inside long before Mehmet turned his guns on the walls. Just like the monarchy in Russia was toppled by its own enraged citizenry. Think of it.” He scooted forward on the sofa, lifting his hands to gesture, gaze sparking with excitement. “Three Romes felled from the inside out. One Roman enemy –theRoman enemy. It’s time the sons of Rome turned on their own father. So to speak.”

“It does sound logical,” Val agreed, outwardly calm, his heart pounding. “And yes, there is strength in numbers. I can see that it would take a large and powerful force to subdue my uncle for good. Or, as Vlad plans, he can just dig him up, and hack him into bits and burn the bones.”

Liam made a face.

“Or do you think there’s something magic and prophetic about a triumvirate of emperors?”

“I’m a mage. Of course I believe in magic–”

“No,” Val said, realization dawning. “No, no. Why not try the simplest method first? There’s something you’re holding back. Something you know.”

Liam shot to his feet, unsteady. Lily grabbed for his hand but he paced toward the fire, rested a forearm on the mantelpiece and tried, unsuccessfully, to look composed.

“Mr. Price,” Val said. “Tell me now, or I’ll go back to Vlad and have him break the rest of your bones.”

Liam blanched, the bags under his eyes black as bruises. He looked like a redhaired skull, the torso silhouetted through the white shirt unhealthily thin. “You wouldn’t. You aren’t the cruel brother.”

“I’m as cruel as I need to be. Tell me now, or wait for Vlad. Your choice.”

“Liam,” Lily said.

He let out an explosive breath. “God, I hate vampires,” he muttered. “Fine.Fine. Romulus is awake. I know because his Familiar told me.”

“I’m sorry. It sounded like you said ‘his Familiar.’”

“I did.”

“He’sawake?”

Liam deflated again, slumping back against the mantle. His pants leg was dangerously close to the fire, but Val supposed that wasn’t really a problem for him. “I assume he’s awake, at least. There was a mage.” He shuddered, and the motion looked helpless, automatic. “Bound, he told us, and incredibly, terrifyingly powerful. He made what I do look like parlor tricks.”

Now Val wanted to shudder.

“But all mages have refractory periods, even this one. He courted us – friendly-like, talked of an alliance, of sharing our knowledge with one another. He was lonely, he said.” Liam’s gaze turned inward as he remembered, his voice hushed. “He’d been locked up for a very long time, he said, kept imprisoned by fearful mortals. He’d been looking for his master, he said, and he wanted to enlist our help in finding him.”

“And of course, you being the picture of helpfulness, agreed,” Val said.

“We didn’t know he was searching out Romulus. It wasn’t until we got to Hungary, headed for Wallachia, that I realized we weren’t hunting just any vampire.”

Val lifted his brows. “You thought he was afterVlad?”

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