Vanquished Gods (Hallowed Games #2)

Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

I let my head fall back against the cage, the temple’s chill sinking into my muscles. Rowena wanted me dead, but Sion? I wasn’t sure yet.

Everything around me felt hard, sharp, digging into my sensitive skin. I found myself missing the feel of Sion’s soft, velvety magic, which had so often wrapped around me like a soft cloak.

Exhaustion pulled at my limbs as I slumped lower in the cage, but I didn’t give in to it, instead closing my eyes, imagining the way his magic had always felt intertwined with mine.

A fragile spark of hope had flickered to life inside me.

I thought back to that day in the forest, to that first time our magics had combined. If he wasn’t really involved in my arrest, could I use that, summon him with it?

If I let him know I was down here, would he come for me?

Lying flat in the cage, I sent my magic out, tendrils of death energy wending through the stone corridors of the castle above me, searching, seeking, hoping to feel that connection.

In my mind, a vision flickered—Sion and me, dancing in a moonlit forest. He whispered poetry about kissing my naked body, and I wrapped my arms around his neck…but that was a lifetime ago. I could almost feel his body moving against mine, arms wrapped around my waist…

I tightened my fingers around the bars of my cage beneath me. Was I losing my mind? That wasn’t a memory at all, it couldn’t be—it was just a fantasy.

I continued searching for his magic, but I found no trace. Nothing but the cold void of his absence. Was he hiding from me? The thought coiled through my chest, a sharp tendril of doubt that anyone wanted to save me. I sent out my magic again, this time searching for the wild, chaotic power of Maelor—raw and untamed, dancing like a flame. My magic found him and latched on to his cool shadows, drawing closer, calling to him, pulling him toward me.

I tried to once again sit up, but my body sagged against the cage as my strength ebbed, my throat dry and parched.

As my magic snapped back into my body, it settled in my chest. Down there, I had only the Serpent for company.

I stared at the walls of the pit, hoping— begging —for an answer.

At last, the sound of footsteps echoed through the cavern above, and I felt Maelor’s magic moving closer.

I managed to force myself to sit up just as Maelor’s figure appeared above the edge of the pit.

“Maelor,” I croaked, my voice barely a whisper.

“I’m getting you out.” He didn’t even bother with the stairs. Instead, he leapt straight down into the pit.

He rattled the cage door once, twice, then slammed his fist into the lock on the front. The metal twisted and bent, and the door creaked open. I crawled closer to him, and he reached into the cage, scooping me up. He pulled me into his chest, carrying me like a broken bride—not for the first time.

I leaned my head against him. “Am I going to be executed?” I whispered.

“Of course not, Elowen. I’m going to get you some blood. Can you tell me what happened? I just felt your magic calling to me and followed it here.” Still gripping me in his arms, he carried me up the timeworn stairs I’d been staring at for two days.

“Rowena said I would be executed. She found Bran’s pendant in my room, and she figured out that I killed him…” The words tumbled out before I had a chance to consider if it was a bad idea to confess.

“Rowena? Who’s Rowena?” His voice echoed off the temple walls as he carried me through, jagged rocks swooping overhead.

The world around me blurred, my thoughts disjointed and sluggish. I waved a tired goodbye to my gaping-eyed skull friends. Desperate for blood, I barely registered the cavern walls as we swept past them, as Maelor carried me back up to the castle.

“She’s Sion’s lover,” I mumbled, hating the words even as I spoke them, and confused that he appeared not to know her. “Rowena? She’s a servant, turned by Sion. She said she knew you and Epona in the old days. She brought me dresses…”

“He hasn’t taken a lover in ages, and I’ve never known anyone named Rowena. Certainly not since I was mortal. What does she look like?”

“Pale blonde curls. Doll-like face. Porcelain skin. Obsessed with Sion.”

“Ah…that’s not Rowena,” said Maelor softly. “That’s Epona. My wife. She’s been in your room?”

I blinked as a jolt of shock ran through me. “Your wife? That’s your wife ?”

His grip tightened on me as he moved up the next set of stairs. “She never took well to becoming a vampire. It broke her mind, I’m afraid.”

“Why is she a servant ?”

“She isn’t. It seems like she just found a pretext to get into your room. Aveline was supposed to be your lady-in-waiting, a human who could survive the glass windows. She’s Epona’s favorite thrall.”

My mind reeled. “There was that day, the day the tincture was missing…Maelor, your wife has been alive this whole time? You’ve been married the whole time?”

Maelor sighed heavily. “In a sense, yes. But she’s not the same. She doesn’t think of herself as my wife. Once Sion turned her, she became fanatically obsessed with him. She’s unable to tell reality from fantasy half the time, and she’s driven mad with jealousy. When you asked me if I’d end it all if you were no longer the same and no longer in control of yourself, I said yes, and I meant it. I believe there are worse things than death. But Sion wouldn’t let me kill her. He never let me end it all for myself, either. He believes there’s always hope for us, no matter how terrible things get. No matter how terrible we get.”

“So…Epona and Sion aren’t lovers?”

“Not since we were human, but he feels responsible for what happened to her. After we turned, Sion found me with my teeth in her throat, draining her, and he saved her by turning her into a vampire. But she wasn’t really saved because she turned into a completely different person. Wild. Feral. It took her an age to even remember how to speak again. We kept her locked away in a tower for years—centuries, actually—but after a while, she convinced Sion she was fine, even though I knew how obsessed she was with him. It happens sometimes when a vampire sires another. She thought of him all the time, desperate to get him to fall in love with her again. She’s hidden it well in recent decades, but I suppose when you arrived, it triggered something. I think for all these centuries, he’s been all she’s thought about.”

As Maelor carried me through the castle, the pieces slid together, forming a picture more haunting than I could have imagined.

Inside a great hall, lit with flickering lights, he set me down on a velvet chaise.

Weak and starving, I slumped over, staring at a tapestry of a battle scene across the hall. Just then, I was only half aware of what Maelor was doing as he barked orders around the room. I thought he might be demanding to see the new seneschal.

I licked my lips, dry as bone, and blood hunger carved through my gut. If any humans had been lingering around me, I feared they’d have been dead within seconds.

When I looked up again, I saw soldiers scattering. Their heavy footsteps echoed through the hall as they set off, following Maelor’s orders.

Even with all the goings-on, my mind kept flipping back to the cage, to the eyeless skull carvings, until I was no longer sure which version of reality was the right one. Was I still in the cage, or was this actually reality? Was I really free now, or was this another fantasy?

My mind only sharpened when someone handed me a full carafe of blood. My thoughts went quiet, and I put it to my lips. The beautiful taste of it slid down my throat, and I drank it, relishing every drop as it filled me. Slowly, strength flowed back into my limbs, clearing my muddled thoughts.

I wiped my hand across the back of my mouth and looked up to see Maelor talking to Aelius, who I hadn’t even realized was in the hall. The seneschal’s long black hair draped over a cape—blood red, embroidered with gold. Just like the one Bran had been wearing that day in the woods.

Did any of them know yet that I’d killed him?

“Ashes,” said Aelius. “That’s all the was left. Ashes and singed armor.”

I rose from the chaise, walking closer to them. “Where is Sion?”

Maelor turned to me, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “We don’t know. He left a note for me saying that he’d be out practicing with you for days, and that we shouldn’t worry about his absence.”

“Well, that’s absolutely not what happened.” A thought pricked the recesses of my mind. “Was it sealed with his sigil?”

Aelius nodded. “Yes. It was his legitimate seal.”

I nodded. “Epona has his ring. She was flashing it over my cage, quite pleased with herself.”

“I knew she was a liability,” Aelius grumbled. “And how did she get you in the cage? She overpowered you?”

“A group of soldiers arrested me. Six of them. They believed Sion had ordered my arrest. I think Epona used the ring to convince them the orders came from the king, and then she ordered them to keep it secret. But I think they were growing suspicious of her.”

“I told you,” snapped Aelius. “She should have been kept secure. Six soldiers? Like the six dead I found this morning, burned in the sunlight?”

I took a deep breath. “The soldiers were starting to doubt her. I think they wouldn’t allow her to kill me until they heard from Sion directly.” My stomach tightened. “She was talking about hawthorn. She poisoned them, then laid their bodies out in the sun.”

Maelor’s expression darkened. “So, if he hasn’t been with you, where the fuck has Sion been for the past two days?”

Aelius’s jaw flexed. “Do we think she could have killed him? Did she kill Bran, too?”

“Let’s just focus on Sion for now,” I said hastily.

Aelius pivoted. “I’m going to order a search of every room in this castle, and Veilcross, too. We will tear this island apart until we find him.”

Maelor turned to me. “Did she tell you anything that might suggest what she’s done with him?”

I cast my mind back to her strange words. “She speaks in riddles. She said he deserves to rest his head where the sleepy-robins grow and the quickbeams arch over him. Does that mean anything to you?”

He frowned at me. “Quickbeams, it’s an old term for rowan trees. The sleepy-robins are flowers that only grow inland.” He closed his eyes, his body tensing. “I think she’s taken him up to the Crag. The witches say it’s a cursed place.”

“Let’s go find out.”