Loretta goes to the corner of the room and puts her shoulder into the bookcase. To my shock, it swivels open. She descends into the darkness. I try and catch up to her, but the moment I take the first step, the darkness swallows me.
Jolting awake,I fly to the bookcase and push just like she did. It refuses to budge. I keep pushing. My legs and arms strain. With a groan, the ancient hinges slowly loosen and the door to the secret passageway cracks open. I keep pushing until it’s open wide enough for me to squeeze through. I need to suck in everything to fit and, even then, it’s a tight push, but I make it. I silently thank Mother for all the times she pushed me to lift more heavy ingots, coal, and water. Without the strength she helped me build, I could do none of this.
The stairs round down, before opening to what appears to be another workshop, though this is far less stocked than the one in the depths of the old castle. Through another room, I suddenly recognize where I am. I catch my bearings and head right. Sure enough, at the end of this passage is the study I found the letters in—the one that connects through forgotten halls down to the workshop.
I wonder if Callos has had a chance to read those yet. He was going through everything brought back from the workshop so slowly. I wonder, if he did, if he would have found more concrete proof of a relationship between King Solos and Loretta. I’m beginning to affirm and expand my theories as I walk through these abandoned halls, a forgotten corner of a mazelike castle.
Loretta was human. Solos kept her hidden because he knew his people wouldn’t accept her and, since he only spoke through Jontun, that was an easy feat. These were her chambers and secret passages. She was the castle’s unseen presence. Solos took all the credit for her work on the blood lore. And yet…she loved him anyway. Despite all odds, she did; I can feel the emotion so vividly in the brief moments that I see the history of this world through her eyes.
And now I have another piece of the puzzle.
Tersius, the first hunter, stole the first three books of blood lore—the ones Callos has been after. Her initial work with Solos. They were the books I saw the statue holding in the underground hall of the fortress. Those tomes enabled Tersius to lay the curse, which he did in vengeance. Maybe if I can figure out what was in those books, I can find a way to identify the curse anchor or nullify the curse without it.
I stand back at a crossroads, looking up the passage I came from, and down farther still. Loretta had said that she was going after Tersius. That means she had some way to leave the castle and cross the Fade, even though she wasn’t a vampir. Maybe it was even something that could get Solos himself across, too. She said it was too dangerous for him to go, not that he couldn’t.
Perhaps that same pathway is what the Succumbed use. Another mystery explained. Everything is falling into place and soon enough I’m going to have all the proof I need. Ruvan will listen to me, then. He’ll have to.
Down it is. If there’s a way to make it easier to get across the Fade for the vampir, they’re going to need it. Maybe then I can get across myself, too. If Loretta was a bloodsworn and had a way to make it across on her own then I should be able to use that same method as well. If I can’t find alternative records of her initial work then I’ll go back to the hamlet myself, sneak in, and somehow steal them from the fortress.
My heart is racing. It’s all coming together. I’m so close to the truth—to figuring out the last pieces we all need to break this curse once and for all. I can feel it in my marrow and I will do it whether Ruvan and the rest of them believe me or not.
I enter a large, subterranean space. There are rows and rows of what appear to be small casks. I’m reminded of all the casks in the secret hall of the fortress. I run my fingers along the racks, leaving deep lines in the thick dust. Another confirmation that Tersius stole her work; he used it to make the Hunter’s Elixir.
My stomach curdles with disgust at how this woman was treated. I ache for her. Erased from history, her life’s accomplishments used against her and the man she loved. Hidden by that same lover. I shake my head. If I survive this, if the curse is broken…I will erect a statue in her honor in Tempost, in Hunter’s Hamlet. Both. I will forge it out of silver steel. And I will write her name for everyone, and for all of time, to see.
Loretta. Bloodsworn of King Solos. Woman who gave the vampir their strength and Hunter’s Hamlet the ability to defend itself.
I’m so lost in my thoughts and my anger that I don’t see the movement until it’s almost a second too late. A monster scampers across the ceiling, emerging from the darkness into my periphery. It launches itself at me. I tumble back, landing hard to avoid its claws.
The Fallen crashes into the racks of casks. Old blood, inky black, the same shade as the Hunter’s Elixir, explodes, coating the monster. It shrieks with what sounds like beastly glee. A mottled and shriveled tongue laps over its face. Its all-black eyes gain a speck of gold to them.
It stills.
It looks around, jerking its head left and right, as if confused. The Fallen lets out a mighty shriek that seems to rattle the very foundation of the castle. It grips its head. Its stomach distends and shrinks from underneath its ribcage as it heaves breaths.
The Fallen are just vampir that were lost to the curse. Blood, fresh and preserved, help stave off the curse. I wonder if this bath of potent, ancient elixir has returned a semblance of awareness to this poor creature. I wonder if it’s confused, searching for an answer, a shred of consciousness that was once lost.
Slowly, as it screeches and cradles its head, I reach down. I unsheathe the dagger from my hip. I drag it through the elixir on the floor. It glows so brightly that the Fallen and I are now in a halo of crimson light, the same shade as the Blood Moon.
Thatgets the monster’s attention.
But rather than lunging for me, it scrambles away. Is it afraid of me? Afraid of this power? What does the shred of consciousness lingering in this ancient beast remember? While I pity the creature, I don’t give it a chance to flee. Allowing it to do so would give it an opportunity to attack someone else in the future. I’m putting it out of its misery here and now.
I leap. My blade sinks into its chest. Its claws reach up for me, but it doesn’t have a chance to strike before my blood silver has pierced its flesh. The Fallen dies instantly. I free the blade from the monster’s ribs. The metal is no longer glowing, the magic gone.
The Fallen Ruvan and I fought in the old castle had a tolerance for silver. This creature died with a single jab. So the blood silver both stores power, and unleashes it with lethal effect.
As I’m inspecting the weapon, movement distracts me a second time. Deep power stirs in me.
“Ruvan, good, I’m sorry for earlier. But I must tell you what I’ve—”
I turn and freeze.
The shift in power is not from the vampir lord, though it is equal to his might.
Stalking through the darkness is a monster so horrible that it was previously unimaginable to me, even in the worst of nightmares. It has the body of a man with gray skin, the color of a corpse, stretched thin over powerful muscle. There’s not a stone of fat on this creature clearly designed by Death himself.
His fingers are turned into claws. Fangs so large that they can’t fit in his mouth extend past his chin. Horns ring his head like a crown. Two, massive, batlike wings extend over his shoulders, arcing around his body.
I have never seen anything like it before, which leads me to believe that this creature is the third monster Ruvan told me about. The worst of them all.
I’m face-to-face with a Lost.
