“What an arrogant ass.”
“I like him more already,” Skartovius drawls.
When I think we’ve gotten all the jitters and jokes out of us, I turn to my men. “We ready? For anything? Altogether now? No big speeches to give?”
No one says a thing. The grandiose speeches won’t do here. The nerves are clear on their faces—not anxious for themselves, I know, but for me. Even if this is the end of the road for us, there’s a sense of accomplishment threading between us, through the bond I share with them through my Loreblood.
We’ve come this far, and now there’s only a little further to push.
“No ambushes up there, that you know of?” I ask.
Zef shakes her head. “He wanted you alone. I think he’ll be disappointed you have friends and he doesn’t.”
Garro quips, “Well, we can’t help him there. It’s a personality fault, not ours. He seems to be anextremelyunlikable man. And that’s coming from someone who was Skartovius Ashfen’s bloodthrall for sixty years.”
My mates snicker. Even Vallan shows a hint of a smile behind his beard. I love these stupid fucking vampires, and I’m going to do everything I can not to get us all killed.
It’s too bad I can’t control our fates.
A winding staircase leads up to the rooftop of Sutlis Spire. If it was drafty in the prison room, it’s positivelyfrigidup here, and the wind is strong. The landing is higher than I’ve ever been, overlooking the entirety of Olhav in all its glittering, multicolored splendor. The clouds almost look eye-level with us.
To the southeast, pockets of fires and smoldering smoke still rise in the sky from the Faith Ward. Northeast, the gray hub of the Intelligence Ward is quiet as always, lacking a spy network and leader. Southwest, the Commerce Ward shimmers like a rainbow, but the little vampiric ants are running amok because the mercenaries Liolen hired are on the loose and also leaderless. Northwest, the yellow Military Ward is stoic, silent, and the four watchtowers that nearly rise to Sutlis Spire’s height seem uninhabited. The running motif is that it, too, has no one to lead it.
And then there was one,I think.
Aramastun Wyvox wanted to do it all. He wanted centralized power . . . and now he has it. The problem with that, and with the deaths of the other four Ministers, is that now he is sorely lacking in allies.
Perhaps the Night Judge is not as cunning as everyone feared he was. Or perhaps this was his plan all along.
Overlord Aramastun waits at the other end of the roof. It’s a large expanse, encircling the entire tower of Sutlis, reaching perhaps two-hundred feet across in every direction. Still not very large for people who like moving around a lot. We’re relegated tothis square to face off against our ageless nemesis, with the wind slapping us.
Aramastun turns to us long before he can hear us. He’s a towering figure, made even larger and more imposing by the black leathery wings that spread across his back, the webbing of which flaps in the powerful breeze. He wields his thorny whip in one hand and a thick blade lodged across his right shoulder with the other hand. His long, straight black-and-gray hair flutters in a single direction across his left shoulder, helping to make Aramastun a very beautiful, very intimidating, very scary figure.
But like I told my boys: We’ve fought demons before. We’ve been doing it our entire lives. This is just one more very beautiful, very intimidating, very scary notch in our belts.
Behind him, Jinneth shivers. My mother is seated on her ass, chained at the neck. Currently, Aramastun is not holding the other end of that chain. The loop rests next to his boots. He doesn’t exactly need to hold it though, does he? Where can she go other than a long waysdown?
“Sephania Lock, in the flesh,” he calls out.
We’re maybe fifty feet from each other by the time I stop, with my line of mates alongside me: Skar and Lukain to my right, Vallan and Garro to my left. Battle-hardened, pissed off to be up here in the cold, and ready to end this one way or another.
It’s the height of hubris that Aramastun Wyvox has decidednotto ambush us. I’ll never understand it, other than to say he maybe wants the credit for ending the most powerful rebellion his people have ever faced.
We’re the only true threat the vampires of Olhav have ever had, and judging by my aforementioned thoughts on the surrounding Four Ministries, I’d say we’ve done a pretty damned good job of executing.
“Heard you have no friends,” I call out. “So I brought you some of mine.”
He smiles wickedly. The man could be related to Skartovius in another life, or maybe that’s just how all noblebloods look: haughty, self-important, and ridiculously attractive. There’s also the small detail about his crude dragon-looking wings that separate the two.
I put my hands on the handles of my swords, tapping the pommels. “You’ve been up here waiting dramatically for my arrival for . . . almost two nights?”
He looks suddenly shamefaced, ducking his head. “I went downstairs during the days.”
“For shame, Overlord.” I splay my hand out toward them. “And you didn’t even give my mother a coat?! It’s freezing up here!”
Jinneth smacks him in the back of the leg. “Ass.”
“Quiet, sow,” he growls, cracking his whip. Facing our row, he spits out, “Her comfort is no concern of mine.”