The slight vampirex is dressed in a regal golden gown and looks better than she ever has, with her beautiful face crowded with rosy rouge that makes her look like she’s been Liolen Sesk’s makeup mannequin.
“Pala!” I gasp, and unlike with Rirth Idorun to her and wrap my arms tight around her. It has the effect of pressing my tits in her face, but the placid-yet-undeniably-lewd interfolk girl has never seemed to mind that.
Once we’re free at arm’s length, I hold her thin arms, practically shaking her with worry. “What are you doing here? You should be with . . .”
Rirth takes space beside her, shoulder to shoulder, and as I trail off I gaze downward and notice they’re holding hands at their sides.
“. . . Overliege Liolen.”
“Escaped for a night,” she tells me. There’s a hint of a smile on her face, which is rare.
My eyes widen.
Rirth lifts their threaded hands like a champion prizefighter and squeezes. “We have fallen for each other, Sephania. Like we once were, years ago.”
After Culiar.I blink wildly. Thisisgood news. I think.
But the dangers that come with this coupling can’t be denied. “Liolen Sesk, they’re . . . I left you with that gilded bastard!” There’s shame in my voice, crackling, opening a pit in my stomach.
“It was the Silverblood,” Rirth says. He bows his head, and when he looks up his eyes are glassy. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you sooner, Sephania. Pala told me you gave her a vial, and it . . . worked.”
“Liolen is too busy with their coins and other mistresses and misters,” Palacia says. “I can escape their clutches easily enough. At least for a night.”
I want to apologize profusely for abandoning Palacia to the Gilded Liege, who took only a few weeks to betray us and deny us access to the North Mines. I should have expected and planned for such a thing.
I can’t rightly apologize when Palacia and Rirth are giving me such heartfelt news. I see the brightness on Rirth’s face for what it is now: love. Something he’s missed ever since losing his comrade and paramour, Culiar.
Another death I was reasonably responsible for.
My throat constricts. I have to fight through to speak. “I . . . I’m happy for you two. Truly.” My smile is teary, and Rirth chuckles. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh in years.
“I came here to thank you, Sephania. Even if our groups don’t see eye to eye on everything. I believe . . .” He clears his throat, apparently finding it hard to continue. Maybe he’s harboring shame of his own. “. . . I think the Silverbloodfixedher. I believe it brought her to me.”
There’s some underlying religious bullshit behind his words. Still, I can’t deny them their happiness when it’s so evident on their faces. All I can do is smile wide and bring them both into a jarring, wobbling hug.
Rirth guarantees he’ll continue the fight on the eastern flank of Olhav and keep me apprised of the goings-on. Palacia says she’ll find a way to escape Liolen for good, when they’re not looking. I trust her to do just that. She doesn’t want me worrying about her, and I think about how much she’s grown, even since becoming a vampire.
I watch them leave proudly, rather than entering the Firehold through the back exit like Palacia did. They take the front entrance, holding hands, and I feel a figure slide up next to me in the corridor as I watch them go.
“Thought I felt a familiar presence in my mind,” says Lukain, the man who saved Palacia and turned her. It makes sense he’d recognize her blood signal in the Firehold.
“They’re in love.” I’m starry-eyed, staring forward. It makes me reach out blindly and grab his hand at my side, much how Rirth did with Pala.
When he sees the small-statured duo holding hands, disappearing into the darkness of the corridor, he grunts out, “Huh.”
I turn to look up at him. “What?”
“I’m just thinking. Alacine Mortis, Liolen Sesk, you, and now Rirth.”
“And?” My voice gets accusatory.
“Some people fight their way through vampirism. Seems Palacia is fucking her way through it. Who knows how long Rirth will last with her?”
I scoff, appalled and red-faced, and slap his arm. “Lukain!” I come away grinning, shaking my head. “She is quite the, uh,handful.”
“More like four handfuls, the way I’ve heard it.” He pantomimes stacking fists one on top of the other.
I stifle a laugh, cheeks burning. “Unless you’ve got bear paws like Vallan Stellos, maybe.” I would know all about those four handfuls. Yet I don’t feel a hint of jealousy that Rirth and Palacia have found each other.