Page 106 of Besieger
The Regent.
Marquis Bracci.
The Drythen.
All these incarnations of the same man. All of them bearing the weight of desire. All starving.
The thirst was savage, it maddened him. The more he drank from Kyrillos, the less it quenched, the more it ruined him.
He hungered for another.
“My consort,” Felivar—no, Silvio—hissed, eager to reclaim the last remaining part of him. The part he had unwittingly sent away.
The smell was driving him mad. Lilac and leather reminded him of the dusty tomes kept in a church’s sanctum. His gloves and clothes bore persistent traces of the perfume. The bedsheets reeked of it, slowly overwritten by Kyrillos’s human scent of blood and sweat.
The Council had wronged him, cheated him of his lover. It had been a mistake to give France to Emerick, to make him Regent. The title ofMarquishad never been meant for Emerick, it did not suit him. He was Silvio’s chosen one, his closest and most cherished. TheComte.Einvala.
Silvio was going to summon him back to the Coven, strip him of titles, lands and responsibilities, and keep him by his side as consort, next to the throne, close.
But what of the French coven?Scarlett and the others were going to ask.
Let them have it, Silvio clenched his teeth.
He would not weep for Béziers, his tower of wonders. Like all physical things, it was temporal and fragile. Silvio could easily replicate it, here in Berlin. This mansion was bigger. True, it lacked the thermae—his precious gift to Rico—but it had a pool, numerous bathrooms and acres upon acres of land. Silvio’s tower was going to fall, and from its ruins he would build a maze for his lover, have him bound and sated. The Coven was full of so many vampires to bow and serve his consort, and of so many mortals to feed and entertain him. To drown him in pleasure.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SCARLETT, 2019
SILVIO HAD BECOME UNRECOGNISABLE.
He looked wrong. As if someone had broken him into pieces and attempted to put him back together, and because the man himself could not be remade, he turned to the mansion instead.
He cleared out all of Ingenuar’s belongings, gathered and arranged for them to be taken away. He replaced the paintings hanging in the great hall and the ballrooms. Vases that had previously stood empty—the China so fragile the servants scarcely dared to dust too profusely—now overflowed with flowers and trailing vines: lilies, lilacs, irises and roses, eucalyptus, rosemary and freesias, everlasting pea and Italian clematis. Plants in beautiful clay and terracotta pots were arranged in the corners of rooms and hallways where the light pooled during the day; Birds of Paradise and small palms, eager to grow. Sculptures and busts were brought out and arranged in the garden, benches were placed by newly made flower beds, and off to the side a greenhouse was being built. Scarlett had seen the plans for it, the enormous pool it would have at its centre full of water lilies, and the glass of the structure rose up in pointed angles like the rooftop of a church.
Silvio had the Coven’s ceilings repainted to resemble an old nautical chart, a siren sprayed above the doorway, greeting thosehe allowed to peruse the leather-bound tomes and dictionaries he filled the bookshelves with.
The only thing he left untouched was the velvet Rococo chaise, the so-called throne. Whether he did not dare destroy it for fear of what his court would say, or because he liked the sight of the thing, Scarlett never asked. Silvio seemed to enjoy occupying the seat even when there was no one to witness him. He spent hours there, poring over his correspondence or talking to the servants.
The servants, he also changed, the butler was made to retire, replaced by one of the footmen. Kyrillos was his name: a charming youth whose sudden rise through the chain of command left him flustered, though he quickly rose to the occasion.
The master bedroom Silvio left to Scarlett, keeping instead to the smaller chambers assigned to him asMarquis.
“They will still be used by theMarquis.” Silvio smiled at the words. There was such fondness in them, as though he expected Emerick to arrive any moment now…as though Emerick had not been gone for years.
Scarlett watched Silvio descend into a kind of mania, lighting candles before mirrors, arranging them as if in offering. There were days when only Kyrillos had seen or spoken to the Master. Scarlett had noticed the signs of blood loss in the young man but she did not say a word.
“He is asking about Emerick,” the butler said, talking more to himself than to Scarlett. As if he, too, had followed into his master’s madness. “I have been trying to do as the master commands, but it is not easy. I’m meeting with his lawyers…there is something going on with the bank accounts…that is the only trace theMarquishas left behind. There is nothing else to track him by.”
Scarlett nodded in understanding, lacking the strength, or perhaps the will, to explain to this mortal that the words held no meaning for her. Kyrillos raked his hand through his hair,pushing it back from his forehead, which was damp with sweat. He looked so young, so small and out of place in this mansion. His lowered gaze was thoughtful.
He reminded her of the formerComte. They looked alike save for the birdlike quality of Kyrillos’s gestures and the way he moved. Emerick possessed a predatory, feline grace. He enjoyed being the centre of attention, drinking in both the desire and the scorn that oozed from those who observed him. Like a true vampire, Emerick fed on everything a person could give him and asked for more.
Kyrillos…Kyrillos would make a beautiful addition to their Coven, if Silvio intended to turn him.
Had it been any other vampire, Scarlett would have tried to listen for Emerick’s thoughts, to scan mortals’ eyes for a glimpse of a long-haired spectre roaming their streets. But Emerick’s mind had always been a tricky thing, hollow even when he was a fledgling. It was so tightly locked, a dam threatening to burst and drown them all.
Scarlett remembered meeting him for the first time, back when she was the All Mother. A mind locked not out of fear that its secrets might be unlatched, but because it had discarded the memories of mortality, rewriting them as a playwright on a winding stage of lunacy. All three had been mad—Dulior mad with rage, Silvio with lust, and Emerick with fear. They ruined one another and those around them, and now one of them had taken a bite of the Coven too big for the Council to swallow. After ascending, Silvio revealed a side of his character Scarlett had never imagined he possessed, a side that not even the All Father had seemed to predict before making him a Regent. All vampires were greedy and peculiar creatures, but Silvio’s hunger went beyond that of his kin.
