My instincts were right. I’m both relieved and horrified. Our adversary is deadly and cunning in ways I know I don’t yet understand. But I’m ready to. The more I know, the more clever I can be. I’m not going to lose now when everything I love is in the balance.
“Gather everyone else in the receiving hall,” I declare as I open the door, much to Ruvan, Lavenzia, and Quinn’s startled expressions. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” Lavenzia asks.
“Time is precious; let’s keep the questions to a minimum for now. You’ll find out soon.” I start down the passage.
Lavenzia looks to Ruvan, clearly unsure if I’m allowed to make orders like this. When he says nothing, she sweeps into a dramatic bow. “Very well, if the lady of the vampir lord commands it.”
Ruvan’s gaze turns harsh and cold. Lavenzia merely shoots him a smug grin as she heads back toward our stronghold. Whatever undertones were just exchanged, I don’t linger on them. But…lady of the vampir lord, it doesn’t have a bad ring to it.
Within minutes, we’re all gathered in the receiving hall. Lavenzia has returned with Ventos, Callos, and Winny, and they join us at the table we’ve claimed. Not much has been said. Drew is intensely focused on Ruvan, no doubt because he now knows that the man sitting across from him is the one who nearly killed him, the vampir who was Drew’s mark on the night of the Blood Moon, and the one who now wears mine.
“I’ve filled my brother, Drew, in on everything that has transpired here.” I rise from my seat, resting my fingertips on the table in a pose that I imagine—hope—to be imposing and somewhat intimidating. No one says anything, which must be a good sign. “He knows about the curse and that we’re working to try and break it.”
Ventos radiates disapproval but says nothing. I’m certain that a few weeks ago he would’ve. Do I dare read into his silence as the foundation of real trust?
“I’ve gathered us all because Drew has information of his own to share. As Ventos and I discovered, there was a vampir hiding in the form of a raven. And that vampir seemed to be controlling the minds of the master hunters and thus Hunter’s Hamlet across generations, Drew most recently.”
“That’s possible?” Winny whispers. She looks to Ruvan, whose face betrays nothing, and then to Callos.
“There’s writing from Jontun’s personal records of the blood lore being used in such a way, long ago. Though it’s brief and was never published at large due to how dangerous it was deemed,” Callos admits hesitantly. “Some archivists have theorized that was how King Solos could control the initial humans kept for their blood. That he had tapped into their minds and made them his willing servants. They knew nothing beyond pleasing the vampir.”
The information is heavy and I slowly ease back into my seat. Ruvan had said that he wouldn’t blame the initial humans for resenting the vampir’s treatment so much that they would lay a curse. But I hadn’t considered it possible that the Vampir King had stripped complete autonomy from them to the point that not even their minds were their own. If that’s true, how did one escape? How did the one who led the group from the castle break the blood lore?
The more I learn, the more questions I have.
“If they were rare, and private records of Solos and Jontun, how does a rogue vampir know how to perform this feat?” Ruvan asks the question on all of our minds. His tone is rough, angry.
“Could this other vampir have been a lord?” Ventos wonders. “He knew powerful blood lore to disarm me. It wasn’t unlike your blood control, my lord. He might have once had access to these old tomes.”
Ruvan’s focus remains on Drew. “Tell us everything you know about the vampir that controlled you.”
Drew swallows thickly. I can tell how hard this is for him to talk about. I know as a hunter he’s sworn to keep his ways a secret from all who would seek them. But that was before we both knew the hunters have long been a front for a vampir, seeking…
Vengeance. Blood. Loretta.
“When Davos was killed, the bird took flight,” Drew begins finally. His eyes drift to Ruvan. “We fought.” Ruvan shifts slightly in his seat next to me but says nothing. “Everything went hazy, blurry. I was fading in and out of consciousness… I could feel my life slipping away. But then the bird came to me and it spoke. I thought I was hallucinating from blood loss. But it asked if I wished to live, and of course I told it yes. It said the price would be my blood.”
“A bloodsworn?” I direct the question at Ruvan and Callos.
Callos considers this and asks Drew, “Do you have a mark somewhere on your body? One like this?” Callos grabs Winny’s hand and holds up her arm, pulling down her sleeve to expose Ruvan’s mark on her body.
“No, I don’t think so.” Drew shakes his head. “Not that I’ve found.”
Ruvan hums. “A bloodsworn would leave a mark that could be seen and questioned. It would make sense for this vampir to not arouse suspicion.” He looks to me. “Plus, I told you that becoming bloodsworn doesn’t grant any kind of control over the other. This is blood lore, no doubt, but not a sworn oath.”
“It didn’t matter what it was to me in that moment,” Drew continues. “I told the creature to take my blood. I had promised it to my family, to the hunters, had spilled it in the marshes—it had long since stopped being my own, anyway. I had to keep living to serve.”
The urge to touch my brother is overwhelming. I think of all his smiles. The joy he’d project from being a hunter and serving Hunter’s Hamlet. All a lie. All a farce. He’d been living for everyone but himself.
And I never saw it.
Me—the one who’s supposed to know him better than anyone, who should know what he’s thinking with a mere glance. I didn’t see past his front. Maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe I couldn’t. No wonder he never gave up on those childhood dreams of escaping the hamlet. He was still dreaming them.
The idea shakes me to my core, rattling a cornerstone of my world much more important than the hunters themselves ever were.
“Then, the raven drank from my wounds. I felt its beak pierce my flesh. Its talons sank into me, and I drifted away, lost and trapped within my own body.” Drew rests his head in his hands, staring at the grains of the table. No, looking past them, back to that horrific place he describes. “I would see the world and could feel myself moving within it. When I looked in a mirror, I would see my own eyes. But I would not see the bird on my shoulder. Hovering behind me was a man.”
