Page 91 of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

Atrius let me work, undoing as much of the damage of his curse from the last week as I could. And then, together, we drifted to sleep. I kept my hand to his chest. And this time, I let him pull me into an embrace, our bodies curled around each other, his aura and his body enveloping me like a cocoon.

I had to keep his trust, I told myself. It was important to maintain that, for when the time came.

But I was not thinking about plans or daggers or wars when I fell asleep in Atrius’s arms.

I was thinking only of the words I’d said to him, but felt in my own heart:

It’s been a week. You’re hurting.

It had been. I was.

But now, for the first time in eight days, I finally slept.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Atrius was uneasy.

The long trek across the plains had been slow and laborious as the terrain grew rougher, but remained uneventful. We made it to the northern border of Vasai, moved to the coast, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Days passed. Atrius’s cousin did not appear.

Atrius and I slept together every night. By our third day on the coast, despite my magic and my sedation, he was waking up every few hours, staring at the ceiling of the tent.

I could always tell if he was awake, even when he didn’t move or speak. His body and his presence betrayed him in all the wordless ways.

I rolled over and propped my chin up on my hand.

“You’re concerned about your cousin,” I said.

Atrius didn’t confirm it. He didn’t have to.

My brow furrowed. An uneasy feeling knotted in my stomach.

Three days was not a long time when it came to the movement of armies. Yet, I sensed something uneasy in the air, too, and I wasn’t in the business of feeding Atrius meaningless platitudes. Neither of us had the time or energy for that.

“I’ll Threadwalk on it,” I said. “When the sun goes down.”

He nodded, stared at the ceiling for a few minutes longer, then got up, abandoning the prospect of sleep.

As soon asthe sun set, Atrius and I went to a deserted stretch of coastline. I hadn’t realized just how much I had missed the ocean these last weeks until a gust of wind hit us and brought with it the scent of salty brine. The beach here was especially pungent, full of vegetation and seaweed, unlike the beaches further north where the Salt Keep stood, where there was nothing to rot in the water but stone. This area was damp and foggy, often warmer than the surrounding regions. The mists that Atrius had been relying on to hide his cousin’s fleet were thick and soupy—I could feel the moisture hanging in the air like a blanket.

Atrius stared out into those mists, silent, jaw set. I did too, the hair prickling on the back of my neck.

Neither of us had to acknowledge it aloud. The foreboding.

I pulled myself away from it, gathering materials and drawing sigils in the sand. Eventually, Atrius joined me, and together we caught a lizard scampering in the rocks and killed it, dripping its blood over the sigils and then tossing it into the fire.

Then I sat down at the edge of the waterline so the cold, salty water lapped at my dress, facing the fire.

Atrius had seen me do this several times now. We both knew the routine. But just before I was about to let myself fall into the vision, he abruptly stepped forward.

“Be careful,” he murmured, close enough that his lips brushed my ear, and his breath made goosebumps rise over my flesh.

“I know what I’m doing,” I said. A ghost of a smile flitted over his lips. And he stepped away, as I let myself fall into the threads—back, and back, and back.

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