Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“Which is insane,” Carice said. “His blood is iceni blood. It’s not doing anything for them but killing them.”
“That’s why Ødger lost his mind when he smelled your blood,” Cirillo told me. “His body knows, even if his brain doesn’t, that your blood could heal him.”
“It could?”
Keres nodded. “Oh yes. Within days of drinking your blood, he would be restored.”
“If other nobles came to Ophir, would their blood, over a matter of time, heal everyone within the castle?”
Keres was quiet, thinking. “It’s possible that infusions of richer blood would heal them, but one cannot say with any amount of certainty. What we do know is that yours, the queen’s, the king’s, and of course, Varic’s, would absolutely restore them all. The blood of any royal would bring the nobles of Ophir back from assured extinction.”
“Maybe don’t say that too loudly,” I teased her.
“Fear not, my consort, the prince is on his way.”
I wanted to see him. I needed more of his time. Being parted was not my natural state. I decided then that for the immediate future, even if the trips he was going on would be boring, I would go as well. Even falling asleep in the middle of meetings about infrastructure would be worth it if we were together.
As Balon promised, I was brought a meal of roast chicken, yams, broccoli, and pickled radish for dinner. It was very good, and I washed it all down with lots of water. I found paper and a quill in the desk drawer, wrote a note, and left it with the tray, thanking the staff for their hard work. Once I was done, I suggested we all get some sleep.
Keres thought it would be best if we all slept together in the main room, next to the fire, and everyone agreed that was an excellent idea.
“I thought vampyrs didn’t need to sleep,” I said to Keres as she stretched out on a couch across from the one Carice had already passed out on. Cirillo was with me down on the floor, on blankets and pillows.
She scowled at me. “Who told you that? Varic’s dreki?”
“Of course they don’t sleep,” Cirillo muttered, rolling to his side, away from me. “Hadrian’s a monster who doesn’t allow them to.”
Keres chuckled. “We need sleep the same as humans, but many of us need very little, just as we take very little blood. I haven’t drunk any in… I have to think.”
“Varic drinks mine, but he doesn’t need to, he likes to.”
Cirillo groaned, and Keres laughed. It was good to annoy him and make her smile.
I felt a chill, and when I woke up and looked out the enormous windows, the sky was black but for the millions of stars. It looked like spilled glitter, that’s how many there were on this cold, clear night.
The fire was getting low, which was what caused the temperature drop, so I put more wood on from the stack near the hearth, then used the poker to move it around. It was good to see the flames flare back to life. The moment I turned to lie back down, I startled. A figure was sitting in the wingback chair near the couch Carice was on.
“Don’t hurt her,” I warned him.
“Why would you care?” a man’s voice asked me, sounding old and brittle. “She is nothing but a courtesan Messina had and then pawned off on his precious firstborn son.”
I moved to the end of the couch Keres was on and took a seat. My eyes adjusted, getting used to the flickering light from the fire. I noted that the man’s face was completely wrapped in bloody bandages.
“You’re Decimus.”
“I am.”
“I assume there are many hidden passages in this castle, and you know them all.”
“You would be correct.”
We had locked the door from our side once my dinner had been brought, and when I was done, I’d placed the dishes outside in the hall as though this were a high-end hotel. Carice had checked the locks afterward. She was terrified we would be attacked in the night. She would probably pass out in fear if she saw Decimus here.
“Why drink from the iceni?”
“You are a member of the iceni,” he pointed out. “Why does Varic drink from you?”
He was right. Technically, a matan was, in fact, an iceni. “I’m not an iceni anymore. I’m his font now.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Because he made you thus. You are now more, but still, at your core, you are an iceni, and here in this place, in Ophir, you could be claimed as one.”
I nodded.
“You could be put to death or, better, as everyone is allowed to drink from the iceni here, your blood would save them all. Would that not be a mythic tale?”
“Was that your intent?” I asked, for some reason, not afraid of him in the least. Perhaps I should have been. Perhaps my exhaustion was coloring my perception, but I couldn’t dredge up any fear.