Page 14 of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

The vampire that took me from the inn leaned over me, grinning at me in a way that did far too much to highlight the sharpness of his canines.

“Good evening,” he said.

I’d been trained extensively on how to retrieve my consciousness quickly. Amazing what one can do with tightly controlled breath. I quickly took stock of my surroundings. I was in a chair, slumped over. My neck ached, probably from being wrenched forward for Weaver knew how long. It cracked a little as I lifted my head, though I didn’t let my grogginess or the pain show on my face.

I straightened my back, lifted my chin?—

—And came face-to-face with the conqueror.

He was right before me, sprawled out in a chair, one heel propped up on a box. We were in his tent, I gathered, the space small for aroom but huge for a tent. Though there was another soldier here, the conqueror’s aura dwarfed his, like a wave crashing over rocks.

I could kill him now.

I wouldn’t, of course. It wasn’t my mission. Those weren’t my orders. I wouldn’t disobey the Weaver’s command.

But the certainty that I could, right here,end it, seized me and wouldn’t let go.

He didn’t say a word, but I could feel his stare, drinking me in from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. It’s rare that I could feel that so acutely, just as firm and invasive as hands over my body.

“Welcome,” he said.

His voice was deep, but he was oddly soft-spoken. I wasn’t expecting that, given the domineering force of his presence.

There were a lot of things about him, actually, that did not seem to fit together. Strange layers to his presence that seemed to vibrate in uncomfortable dissonance. Even his clothing seemed contradictory—a dissonant combination of very fine, albeit very old, clothing and battered armor. Clearly he was indeed god-touched in some way, or else he’d befallen some other very unpleasant event with a powerful magic user. Even experiencing people as I did, taking them in all at once rather than with sight, his horns were… disconcerting. And the horns, I could see in the threads, were not the only part of him that had been tampered with, even if he did his best to hide the other darknesses.

“Leave us,” he said to his soldier, who obeyed in silence.

Leaving me alone with the conqueror.

I wouldn’t admit to myself, and certainly not to him, that I was intimidated.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

I rose, carefully, keeping the movement smooth and still even though my legs felt wobbly beneath me. Whatever they’d used to drug me, it was powerful.

“That isn’t necessary,” he said.

“I prefer to meet death standing up.”

He laughed. The sound slithered over my skin like a snake. Then he stepped closer, one step, two. The scent of snow, Irealized, was him. Like he’d carried that piece of his homeland all this way, all the way across the sea. Snow and iron. A hint of salt.

“I hear that your kind can see even without your eyes,” he said. “Is that true?”

“Eyes are a very inefficient way to see.”

“Sounds like something a cultist would say.”

“Hypocritical for one of your kind to be calling me a cultist. All of Obitraes is Nyaxia’s cult, isn’t it?”

He laughed again, low and rough. I felt him approaching, and yet I still had to fight hard not to flinch when his fingers brushed my cheek. They were rough and calloused, the nails a bit sharp, coaxing just a hint of pain to the surface of my skin.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “We’ve all made such sacrifices for our goddesses, haven’t we?”

His hand ventured to my blindfold, fingers closing around the fabric, and I grabbed his wrist.

“No.”

“If you get to see me so thoroughly, shouldn’t I get to see you?”

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