Page 105 of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

A ragged breath. His threads pulsed like a quickening heartbeat, as if horrified and terrified by the memories, even now, even all these years later. Goosebumps rose on my arms.

“No mortals,” he breathed, “should do what we did. We committed acts worthy of fucking gods. Great things. Terrible things. All in Nyaxia’s name. All to prove our love to our goddess. Fordecades.”

His jaw tightened there, shook against the silence. Every part of his presence railed against this exposure. He was trying to reassemble his defenses, reel in what had broken free.

But I whispered, “And?”

One word. A beckoning hand. An open door.

Why? Why did I want to know, even if it hurt? Even if it made it harder—perhaps impossible—to rebuild my own walls?

He let out a shaky breath. He was trembling, every muscle taut.

“And we went back to her,” he whispered, slowly, between clenched teeth. “My prince and I. We gave her every head she asked for. Every artifact. Every slain monster.Everything. And then we went to our knees to ask for our salvation.” A single, enraged tear slid down his cheek. “And I will never forget the sound of herlaugh.”

And as if I had been there with him, I could hear it too, floating through the past to the present, as beautiful and terrible as funeral hymns.

“She said we were fools,” he spat, “to think that our ancestors’ disrespect could ever be forgiven. She left me with two gifts that night, and two commands. The first gift was the head of my prince, and the first command was to carry it back to the House of Blood to present to the king and queen. The second gift...”

His throat bobbed. His hand fell over mine, over his chest, where the curse pulsed.

He didn’t need to say it. I knew.

“And the second command?” I whispered.

A long pause. Like he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“She wanted a new kingdom conquered in her name,” he said. “I offered that to her, with my own life as collateral.”

And suddenly, it all clicked together.

“My people would not be allowed back home after being scorned by Nyaxia. The king and queen saw us—all of us—as complicit in their son’s death. They still wanted to believe a prophecy existed. Still wanted to believe that their goddess could save us.” His face hardened, like cut stone. “They had followed me to the ends of time. They had nowhere left to go. I was desperate to save them, even if I couldn’t save myself. So I made a deal with the very goddess who had forsaken us.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. His pain surrounded us both, scalding, and I knew it had been burning for years, decades, centuries.

I understood it so painfully well. The desire to believe that something larger than you could save you, even after it struck you down again and again.

“And now here we are,” he ground out, lip curling. “The innocents I was trying to protect, slaughtered. The warriors I was trying to save, now dying at the hand of a human tyrant. All for a goddess who spited us already. All in the name ofblind fucking hope.”

Another tear glided down his cheek, the silver damp pooling in all those stone-cut lines of utter fury.

His fingers tightened in my hair.

“Tell me I’m a fool.”

He was shaking with rage, so thick I could taste it in his exhale against my lips.

I shook my head. “No.”

He let out a choked breath, his forehead leaning against mine.

“Tell me to stop.”

Four words that could mean so much.Tell me to stop—stopthis war, stop the search for redemption, stop the quest for vengeance, stopthis, whatever dangerous thing was about to happen in this moment, inchingto inevitability.

I didn’t want him to stop any of it.

I wanted Atrius to destroy the Pythora King. I wanted him to do it slowly, painfully, relishing revenge. I wanted him to let me help. I wanted him to save his people. I wanted him to earn Nyaxia’s respect.

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