Page 119 of The Star's Sword

At the side of the court, the elder vampires were silently watching. There were no cheers, because no one on my side was happy about what had been done.

We’d been right about Vasara. Much of her support had just died seeing that. But hundreds more still waited to make this hard for me tomorrow.

I could see in their hard eyes that this hadn’t changed anything for many of them. They were going to stubbornly hold on to the end.

Simon moved over to the crystal cage holding Samael and extended his claws, cutting a large panel on the front for Sam to come through.

Sam just cracked his neck back and forth and then ran over to me, swinging me in his arms and holding me close. “You did amazing, Cleo. Amazing.” He looked at Simon. “That trial was really something.”

Simon just grinned. “Hopefully we’ve put a dent in her support. Some doubt for at least the smarter elder vampires,” Simon said, looking over at the group, who was still glaring at the dead bodies beneath the rock.

“I think we should get out of here,” Mor said. “Give the vampires time to deal with this. They’re going to be pissed, and blame Cleo as usual, so we should make ourselves scarce until tomorrow.” She grinned. “We should go to a nearby inn. celebrate.”

“Revelry!” Simon said, excitedly. “I’ll tell Mark. Perfect timing.”

I looked at Samael, but he just nodded.

“Let’s go have fun,” he said, taking my hands in his. “You’re all mine, Morningstar. Forever. But every bond we make—”

“Makes us stronger,” I said. “I felt that in the trial.”

Sam nodded. “I’ll try to hold back my jealousy.”

“I’m only agreeing to go drink and celebrate,” I said, as my friends ushered me out of the arena and past the vampires coming in to clean up.

I didn’t see Vasara anywhere, but it didn’t surprise me that she hadn’t even stayed to see the consequences of her actions.

I was definitely feeling better about tomorrow.

“Mor, portal us back to Ara’s place,” I said. “We’ll be safest there, and I need to look into whether Luren and Zadis have gotten the unicorn’s serum out.”

“Perfect place for a revelry,” Simon said.

I felt my cheeks heat, but still walked out with my friends, ignoring the insults of vamps who were angry that I’d won as we made our way over to the side of the field, and Mor made a portal.

Time to go home and see if a revelry was in order, it seemed.

40

“Unicorn serum,” Luren said, pushing a little glass bottle with golden liquid in it across the dining table we were all sitting at after dinner.

“Damn hard to harvest,” Zadis said, leaning back in his chair next to me. “It was a good thing I stayed home from the trials to help.”

I gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you, so much. I mean it.”

“You didn’t miss anything,” Griffin muttered. “Just a lot of horrible, stupid vampires dying horribly and stupidly.”

Zadis shuddered, shaking his head. “I’m glad I wasn’t there then. I don’t like any loss of life.” He looked at me. “But I’ll be there tomorrow, for Cleo.”

I nodded.

It had felt good to get back to Ara’s, clean up, bathe, and heal up for a bit while eating dinner with my friends.

We were all currently sitting in one of her smaller party rooms, with a couple of tables on one side and a floor for dancing on the other. On the other side of the house, separated by a door, was a revelry space.

Nervousness fluttered through me thinking about it, but I’d never even seen one.

“We should all take some,” Simon said, raising the unicorn serum. “Just in case.”

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