Page 43 of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

Damn it. Sometimes, I did hate this job.

I let myself go limp.

Reached to the threads.

They spread out around me, shimmery and translucent and difficult to see with a mind still half-distracted by incoming death.

I fell further into the water. I barely felt it the next time the current sent me against the wall. I turned… reached… and…

There.

I felt him. Not just my target—not just the stone, buthim. Atrius. A presence so unusual I feltit from even this far.

It was him I anchored myself to. I drew the thread tight, strong. I prayed it would hold enough to get us there.

And I stepped through it.

I collapsed against the damp stone. My sides and abdomen ached with violent coughs, lungful after lungful of briny water dripping to the rocks. Beside me, my rescuee did the same, and Erekkus helped her to her feet.

Someone touched me, and I jerked away.

“Stop,” Atrius growled.

Pain, as my arm was lifted. I cursed as something was drawn tight around it, trying to yank my arm away.

“Stop fighting,” he snapped. “You’re wounded. I’m stopping the bleeding.”

Bleeding.

My breaths slowed. My heart steadied. I felt my arm—the gash in it, now bandaged up tight.

Atrius regarded me like I was the subject of an assessment. “You can move?”

There was no concern in the question. Just pragmatism.

“Yes.”

He extended a hand, and I still felt unsteady enough that I allowed myself to take it. His grip was rough and scarred. Hands that carried lifetimes.

I swayed a little on my feet when he let me go. I was sore, but my injuries were surface-level. More disorienting was the exhaustion of my magic. The threads seemed intangible and distant now, hard to grasp. Wonderful. That would make it fun to navigate these tunnels.

“We need to go,” Atrius said. His gaze bored into me like a scalpel into flesh, trying to reveal what lay beneath.

“I’m ready,” I said. I took my blade from him, let him hoist me up to the next level of the tunnels, and we were off again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

We’d gotten much closer to the surface by breaking through to the upper tunnels. Another wave of Aaves’s warriors was upon us before long—fewer of them, thankfully, than last time, but enough to slow down our exhausted and much whittled-down group. If Atrius was feeling the strain of the journey, he didn’t show it. The man was as ceaseless as the tides that had battered us, and just as immune, apparently, to the flaws of the body. Injuries, fatigue—none of it seemed to matter to him. He forged forward, taking kill after kill. It was hard to keep up with him, but I was determined. The paths were so narrow that we needed to spread out in a thin line—I worked hard to stay close to Atrius, the two of us finishing off each other’s injured prey, covering each other’s weak sides.

“Not much farther,” I rasped out, as I yanked my sword from another body.

Atrius nodded tersely, already moving on.

We were in the midst of another lull in opposition when, at long last, we found ourselves approaching a starry sky ahead. “The end of the tunnel,” Erekkus breathed, when we spotted it. “Thank the fucking Mother for that.”

And I had to agree, it was nice to feel that sudden rush of fresh air. The castle was not far ahead now, looming over us forebodingly. Itwasn’t as big of a building as it appeared at a distance. Up close, one could tell that the way it blended into the jagged incline of the mountain bent reality in its favor. It was mismatched and gaudy, much like the gates we burst through to get into the city—like the entire thing was cobbled together in a stubborn rebellion of what a castle should look like. We were up very high now. The streets of Alka surrounded us—if they could be called such a thing, considering that they were little more than streaks of packed-down dirt and rotted hanging bridges, which led to houses built precariously into the stone. The people of Alka were used to violence. They knew to stay in their homes and draw their curtains tight.

Still, vampire attackers—that was a whole different game than their usual squabbling warlords. The whole city vibrated with terror.

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