Page 205 of Vasmora

“I thought you defied the gods?”

“Only for you,” he said and kissed me again.

I threw off the sheet and swiped up the dress that Rykaia had set out for me, all too aware of Zevander’s occasional glances toward me as he continued to stand by the window.

“I don’t know what bothers me more,” he said, as I slid on a lacey pair of undergarments. “The possibility that he’s here to kill me, or the fact that he interrupted my morning with you.”

Smiling, I tugged my arm through the snug sleeve of the dress. “I think I miss wearing the tunic and trousers.”

“Personally, I prefer the bedsheet,” he said and strode toward the door.

I shook my head, and yanking on my boots, I trailed after him.

We arrived at the staircase to find Rykaia in the foyer below, peering through the cracked entry door.

She shot a quick frown back at us as we descended the staircase. “Can someone please explain why Kazhimyr is on the front lawn surrounded by black flames?”

“He’s infected,” Zevander said flatly, and yanking his blade, he plucked his thumb along its edge as we made our way toward the door.

“He doesn’t look like a spider to me.”

“Not all infected look like spiders,” I clarified, shifting the bodice of the dress where it clung to my torso.

“Well, that’s a terrifying thought.” Rykaia stepped back, as Zevander swung the door open to the chilly air. “How do I know the two of you aren’t infected? You did come from the mortal lands.”

He paused at the doorway and shot her a glance over his shoulder. “When I ask to eat a chicken–alive–I suppose you’ll know I’m infected.” Turning away, he headed down the stone staircase, and I followed.

“Branimir eats raw,” she said, trailing our steps.

“Yes, he does.”

At the sound of Dolion’s voice, I turned to see him exiting the castle after us.

“He carries the plague to some degree, but as I understand from Cadavros’s notes, the sablefyre altered it. Subdued it.”

The moment we rounded one of the hedges, I paused on seeing Kazhimyr drop to his knees, and an ache bloomed in my heart.

Torryn strode up to Zevander, hiking a finger over his shoulder. “This is your doing, then?”

“He’s infected,” Rykaia answered for him, and when Torryn’s brows lowered, she added, “I know. I don’t believe it, either, but Maevyth agrees with the tyrant, so I’m going along with it.”

Kazhimyr’s gaze flicked between Zevander and me. “Surely, I must be seeing fucking ghosts. First him, now you.” He glared back at Zevander. “And you never said a word about her.”

“Why would I tell you?” Zevander spat, his voice brimming with menace.

Kazhimyr’s eyes wavered with tears. “Because I have spent days imagining how I might end my own life for having failed you.”

Zevander inclined his head toward me. “She might be able to cure you.”

Brows lowered, Kazhimyr stared back at me. “Cure me? How?”

“Her blood. It’s deadly, but effective.”

His pupils seemed to dilate, just as Aleysia’s had whenever she’d seemed to slip into one of her strange fits. The air around us shifted, thickening, somehow. Kazhimyr lowered himself to the ground, knees bent where he rested his elbows. A spider crawled alongside him, and he picked it up, letting it scamper over his hands. “I tried to save him, you know. I pulled Dorjan out of that web. We were sailing the Australius Channel en route to Costelwick when he succumbed.” Even the tone of his voice had changed, as if he’d shifted into an entirely different personality.

“When did you become infected?” Zevander asked, seeming to ignore the observation.

“In The Rotting Tree. I dreamed about it long before it happened.”