Page 29 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

“What?” Hector cut him off in a hissing rush. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

Arawn’s expression softened enough to verge on pity. “You were grieving.”

“It’s still my responsibility—”

“Look,” Arawn interjected, “they’re only eight people, and the Valkhars are plenty capable of handling their territory. The whole reasonweexist is thatyoudon’t have to deal with every vampire-related issue in the entire Realm. Everything is under control. They’re just going to be a little late.”

Late?

“Late?” Hector echoed my thoughts, all color draining from his face.

“They’re to leave for Lumia tomorrow, so they’ll be here in a couple of days. Surely, you don’t mind if we wait until then.”

The words dropped over me like a bucket of ice water.

This charade was supposed to last a single night. We were supposed to have our little soiree, declare Hector sovereign, fall asleep at dawn, and wake up at dusk to see them out of the Castle. We were not supposed to wait, and certainly not wait fordays.

The most ominous, blood-curdling feeling stole over me. Then the vision came. With a violent, inward tug, I was pulled somewhere deep into my mind, and with a painful flash, the scene took hold of my eyesight. A man, who I knew to be Kaladin Valkhar, was standing in this very foyer, black-clad and as pallid as a ghost. His greyish lips were curled back in a snarl of rage, and his skeletal hands were reaching for Hector’s throat.

“We can’t wait,” Hector’s growl jostled me out of the vision just as I felt that it was about to change, that the wheels of destiny were about to reveal to me something else—something greater.

I shut my eyes and tried to call it back, but the scene was a startled butterfly, fluttering its way into the sky.

“Come on, Aventine, can you at leasttryto look a bit less appalled?” Arawn mocked, the humor in his voice unable to assuage us this time around.

Hector and I exchanged a horrified look, a look neither of us had the time to wipe off our faces before the front door flung open and a glacial gust of wind thrust into the floodlit room. The flames inside the sconces went up in sparks, then down in curls of smoke.

Ten slender figures emerged from the nightly mist, their faces like something out of a nightmare, glowing eyes stitched on darkness. Even the air seemed to give way where they walked as they entered the Castle.

10

Thea

The last time I saw the Ravenors, I was seventeen years old. Although I’d never been allowed to attend any of Esperida’s famed balls—Hector’s birthday parties had been the only exception—every now and then I would get glimpses of the three families, brief passings that sometimes kept me awake at night and other times haunted my dreams, fascination and terror inseparable from each other.

The Ravenors, who were in charge of the vampires of the East, were the largest of the families, with Espen and Collette at the top of their little pyramid.

Espen, the patriarch, was a quiet, solemn man but built like a god, with deep brown skin, long lustrous braids, and a pair of ever-watchful black eyes. Invariably, he carried himself with an air of authority and the expression of someone who didn’t allow anyone to question it. Anyone except his wife, perhaps, who was so old she’d been amongst the villagers the goddess had cursed more than a thousand years ago. She was as pale as the moon, her black hair draping like silk down her shoulders. In some lights her eyes shone icy blue, in others pure white, verging on transparent.

Their youngest daughter, Dahlia, who was only a year younger than Hector and me, was the spitting image of her,apart from her eyes, which were much larger and darker, with a smoky ring circling each pupil. I had no idea if Dahlia was as sweet and timid as she seemed, but she did have a set of delicate, almost girlish features that gave her the appearance of a fragile doll and a tilt to her brows that made her look perpetually shy.

Her older siblings, Roan, who should be in his late twenties by now, and Alexandria, who was well into her hundreds, looked much more like their father, a blend of deep browns and honeyed blacks. Alexandria’s children, the twins, Nikko and Delyth, had also taken after their grandfather, considering that her husband, Lance, had an almost greyish complexion with a head of snow-white curls. Out of everyone, he was the most human-looking: dimpled, sleepy-eyed, with a pleasant quirk to his mouth.

They were all breathtakingly, uniquely beautiful, but the most captivating amongst them—the most cunning, lethal, terrifying vampire in the entire Realm—was Espen’s half-sister.

Camilla Ravenor.

The moon-kissed Lady of the East, they called her, for her skin and hair and eyes were all of the palest silver. Her mother had been a sea nymph, something that made Camilla’s existence as rare and extraordinary as Hector’s, despite her common sunlight intolerance. She didn’t have Collette’s years or Espen’s raw strength, but there was no question she was the sole reason why vampire-related issues never rose in the East.

After all, who would dare go against a woman who was notorious for hanging her enemies upside down and draining them of blood?

She was also known for refusing to consume actual food, sustaining herself on blood alone, and more specifically vampire blood, which implied a level of bloodlust I did not dare to think about right now.

The hairs at the nape of my neck stirred, the rush of my blood quickening. Nothing had ever disturbed me more than the subtle horror of their presence. Their beauty was a handful of juniper, something that looked like sweetness when in truth it was a poison.

The only unfamiliar person amongst them was the tall, pale man that stood between Camilla and Roan. Vampire, obviously, but not by birth. No, this man had been turned, for his eyes were in a shade of red that had nothing to do with hunger.

The first law Esperida had imposed on vampire society had rendered the turning of humans a crime punishable by death, and given that the Ravenors were the enforcers of these laws, I suspected that this man had been turned a long time ago, back when vampires were still the reason people were afraid of the dark. I also realized that he was Roan’s husband since they both wore identical silver wristlets. And yet… Camilla seemed oddly possessive of him as well. She hadn’t left the man’s side from the moment they’d entered.

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