Page 52 of Vow of the Undead
“Have you been fed on?”
She nodded as she retrieved the new dress. The magenta silk puddled on the floor when she dipped it low enough for me to step into. Pulling the sleeves up, she draped them just below my shoulders.
The combination of silk and lace made for an odd but extravagant look. Black lace sleeves hung off my shoulders, baring all of my collarbone and an expanse of my chest. When Stasia slipped behind me to tighten the ribbons of the corset, my breasts lifted, but were still gratefully covered. The more skin I showed, the more it felt these vampires would want to bite into me.
I didn’t know if I would get used to this style of clothing. Animal bones kept the corset’s shape and the ribbons were pulled so tightly, I barely breathed. The people of Vylheim had no use for such inefficient and uncomfortable dressings, but the courtiers all wore it, so as a part of Mara’s Keep now, I had no choice.
Stasia finished off the ribbons with a small bow at the top of the corset.
“So you’ve been fed on, but you’re not in a daze, why?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too rude.
“I’m not a vessel anymore.”
“At the risk of sounding like a child,” I said. “Why?”
She laughed and shook her head. “It’s complicated. Let’s just say, if the fish you dined on could become a human if you enjoyed it a little too much, then you’d probably stop eating from it.”
At that, words escaped me.
I let her chatter away about the food that’d be at the engagement celebration. Roast duck, milky eggs, dates wrapped in charred pig, cinnamon apples, cinnamon pears, and cinnamon almonds. She gushed over the selection of drinks as well, honeyed mead, ale, spiced wine, and mint tea, and as she claimed, it did lift my spirits to focus on the food.
“Do the servants eat as well as the guests?”
She snorted. “Yep. Vampires hardly eat at all, only for taste occasionally, and they want their vessels healthy. Ylva has even said humans have flavor based on what we eat the most. So I like to imagine I taste like bread soaked in melted butter and dusted with cinnamon. Obviously, the cinnamon-everything was my genius idea. Before you arrived, I was a cook, and when you’re sleeping your life away, I go back to irritating the current cooks. I’m going to miss it.” A little laugh escaped her.
Stasia’s enjoyment spread like a contagion, and for the first time since coming to Mara’s Keep, I smiled. Smelling of rosemary soap instead of sweat helped. I suddenly couldn’t wait for the party, the food, and to track King Drakkar.
Now I knew exactly where the blood came from—his vessel.
All I had to do was find Thora. I’d follow him to wherever he fed on her, then I’d demand to know where he kept the lost history. Though they were all vampires, monsters, and would surely deny it, I still refused to be discouraged.
Freya said these trials would spare the witches, and that was all I needed to know.
That and exactly what she wanted me to do. Follow the damn blood. I’d repeated this to myself enough times that it should become a reality now. And it would, soon.
Once I received a visit from Freya’s cats, the first trial would be over and I’d be closer to saving my mother. To sparing Ragna and the other exiled witches from death at sea.
Lively music and the warm scent of honeyed mead greeted me upon stepping into the throne room. Commoners danced, their ignorance a type of wild bliss.
North of Mara, winter already raged. Here, they still enjoyed flourishing crops late into autumn, but Mara couldn’t sustain all of Vylheim. How long until starving villagers from Stormdal, Torsholt, Einnland, Daganfold, Myrr, and Skaldir flooded Mara? How long until their bliss ended in a desperate war over food and warmth?
The Dawn of the Exploration Age was supposed to solve this problem, but it’d only send thousands of people to their deaths when witches, like my mother, could yield successful crops if they weren’t bound to hiding or exiled to the wasteland.
For some reason these vampires didn’t like witches. They buried us and our beliefs, deeming our existence and the Gods fake, but to what end? To hide their true nature? Clearly, they didn’t want the people of Vylheim to know they were vampires. Belief in monsters, based on the sagas, would havevillagers suspicious—perhaps suspicious enough to cut them down.
What human wanted the undead to lurk among us?
Hiding witches must be motivated by self preservation.
But with the history, with the witches help, Freya would undo it all.
My gaze sliced from the dancers to the throne. King Drakkar sat with one ankle propped on his knee, his hands relaxed on the armrests. Two courtiers kept him engaged in conversation, but he still slid his eyes to me as if he sensed me watching him.
I didn’t blink, instead, soaking in his gaze as it raked over every inch of me. Heat reddened where my chest was bared, and he instantly took notice. My lips parted. I sucked in slight breaths until I snapped my eyes away.
It was too easy to fall into his gaze, to want him to look longer. King Drakkar played the man of my dreams. Dressed like a warrior, powerful, dangerous.
I scanned the crowd of servants, of commoners, of vampires playing at being courtiers. Where was Thora? She’d been as pale as Embla, as quiet and discreet with her movements, but instead of Embla’s long hair, Thora kept hers shorter than her earrings.
