Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

ZEVANDER

J ust outside the Black Salt Tavern, Zevander paused, listening. Only the rustle of dried leaves drifting over the cobblestones. Eyes and ears perked, he scanned over his surroundings, not bothering to call on his horse quite yet. He clicked his tongue, the sound bouncing off nearby objects. A number of Lunasier possessed the ability to echo locate as a hunting technique, but Zevander had honed the skill over the years. The image in his mind showed only the spindling boy from earlier, who’d watched him from the shadows. Zevander lifted a finger to his masked lips to ensure the boy remained quiet, to which the boy nodded and returned the gesture. The child then pointed in the opposite direction.

The mark of the scorpion that’d been branded into Zevander’s flesh stirred a quiet hum, as he strode down the empty street in the direction the boy had sent him. He could sense the stranger. Near.

Zevander slowed his steps a few buildings down from the tavern and turned into an alley. He paused again to listen, and his keen hearing picked up on the slightest tremble of breath. The stink of ale beneath the rot that carried on the air.

Prickling vibrations of fear radiated from a shadow beside him.

In as subtle a movement as he could muster, he unlatched the scorpion dagger beneath his cloak and set his hand on the hilt.

The shadow shifted like black smoke and took form, winding into the shape of the hooded man from the tavern. A black tendril lashed out at Zevander, but before it could wrap around his throat as intended, Zevander struck fast with his blade, cleaving it away. At a pained outcry, the black vapor dropped to the ground and morphed into a severed hand and forearm. The hooded stranger held up a bloody and trembling stump. Color drained from his face as he stared at the wound in shock, and Zevander struck twice more–across his mouth, the other across his throat.

Gurgling, the stranger fell to his knees and hit the pavement face-first, where he stilled.

Zevander knelt beside him and pulled back the cloak to check the back of his neck. Bestowed at birth, the stranger’s sigil, the primitive symbol of the Suvary bloodline, glowed a bright blue across his nape. The same symbol worn by the man Zevander had killed a fortnight ago by order of the King. He’d been a bloodmage who ran an unauthorized business of crafting serotonics–potent poisons that held the power to taint the blood and destroy an entire bloodline. No doubt, the stranger had sought revenge for his slain kin.

Zevander tore away his glove and raised his hand, sending a blast of sablefyre that caught on the stranger’s cape, devouring him in a matter of seconds. It burned so intensely that the pile of remaining ash was small enough to kick to the wind. He plucked the resulting bloodstone from the soot and pocketed it. Not that the stone was useful, or valuable, he simply didn’t want to leave any trace of the stranger behind. And just like that, the unwitting avenger was gone. Not a shred of evidence that he’d ever existed.

Though, Zevander had grown fucking weary of the attempts on his life. The constant need to look over his shoulder. While his identity remained unknown, for the most part, an occasional few managed to find him. Unfortunately for them, they never lived to carry out their vengeance.

The sound of shouts and clanging metal reached his ear, and Zevander turned back out of the alley. Halfway between himself and the tavern, the man who bore the predator tattoo fought to shove the young spindling boy into a cage at the back of his horse-drawn wagon. The boy kicked and shouted, his skinny arms threaded through the bars of the cramped enclosure. Most would’ve looked the other way. Even the Imperial Guard wouldn’t have spared a spindling boy a second glance. In their minds, it was one less spindling on the street. The boy would feed the man’s cravings and keep him away from their own children.

Unfortunately for the heedless Rapax, a bigger predator prowled closer.

The tattoos hidden beneath Zevander’s leathers seeped through the coverings like black smoke and gathered in his palm, taking the shape of a black scorpion the size of a plum.

The man slowly straightened his posture, as the Letalisz approached, clearly uncertain whether, or not, he’d dare to intervene. Most didn’t.

“You got no business here,” the boy’s abductor said, raising his palm in threat. “I’m warning you. Go on now.” Not a single glyph marred his palm. The wily bastard might’ve possessed blood magic, but he certainly hadn’t mastered any of his power. The stranger spun away from Zevander, but before he could take so much as a step in the other direction, Zevander released the scorpion onto the ground, and it grew to the size of a melon as it shot across the wet cobblestones after him.

With little effort, the scorpion caught his ankle, its tail winding around his legs, and its razor-sharp stinger thrashed and slammed down into the man’s groin. The outcry that followed would’ve surely drawn a crowd in any other part of the city.

Zevander strode toward the writhing abductor, passing the boy who trembled and clung to the bars of his cage. The scorpion kept its hold of the stranger’s cock, while the man shook and batted it with an unsteady hand.

“Get it off of me! Get it the fuck off of me!”

Zevander reached for the scorpion, and it finally released the man on a spray of blood, before slithering its way up the sleeve of his tunic. “The sting carries a poison that will ensure you never know pleasure again. Each time your cock fills with blood, all you will know is a pain that will have you begging for death.”

Without another word, he left the man cupping his mutilated groin, squirming and sobbing on the ground, and swiped up the keys the abductor had dropped in his attempt to escape. A blast of heat radiated across Zevander’s back,and frowning, he turned in time to see a tendril of black flame slithering from his boot, across the gravelly ground, toward the suffering kidnapper. His muscles lurched to reel it back in, but before he could so much as raise his hand, the flame consumed the man, who screamed and gurgled in the mere seconds before his body turned to ash.

Fuck .

Teeth grinding, he lifted his palm, calling the fire back, butinstead of following his command, it streaked across the ground toward the boy in his cage.

“No!” Zevander took hold of the power with both hands,as it thrashed and snapped at the air, fighting to break free,to swallow up another life. He hauled it, hand over hand, winding it back, fingers cramping with his tight grip. Until,at last, the flame retreated, scampering up his sleeve and back beneath his skin.

With palmspressedto his knees, he stooddoubledover,eachdeep,burning inhalationcrackling in his lungs,as the flame settled inside of him. He let out a groan. While episodes like these,during whichhe’d sometimeslost control of the flame, were relatively rare, it was enough to trouble him. A testament to the unruly and unpredictable nature of his power.

Aftercollectingthe new bloodstone left behind and tucking it into his pocket alongside thatfromearlier,he unlocked the cage, freeing the boy, and kept on toward the tavern.

A pattering sound at his back had him turning around to find the boy running after him, fastening the pants that slipped over his too-thin hips. Zevander kept on and whistled for his horse, a cursed stallion who was as dark as pitch. A breed only found on the harsh and violent plains of Draconysia. The clack of its hooves reached Zevander through the darkness, and it came to a halt before him, its eyes as black as coal and fangs dripping with the blood of a recent kill.

“I see you’ve been busy,” Zevander said as he climbed onto the saddle, and to his dismay, he found the spindling standing alongside the horse. “Your master is dead. You’re free to return to your family.”

The boy lowered his head, his shirtless body trembling with the cold. “No family, My Lord.”

Seven fucking hells .

Zevander held out his hand, and a blast of radiant heat engulfed the boy, leaving his body no longer shivering, skin red with the warmth that would last him through the night. “Find some shelter. And stay out of trouble.” With that, he gave a light kick to the beast’s flank and sent it on a lazy walk.

Up the street and two over put him on the path toward The Hovel, situated on the seediest outskirts of Costelwick, farthest from the citadel. Highbloods wouldn’t dare venture to that part of town, where disease ran rampant and death waited in the shadows.

A strange sensation tickled the back of his neck, and he turned to see the boy running after him, his spindly arms struggling to hold up his pants.

Zevander groaned and turned his attention back to the road ahead. He set his horse to a mild trot in hopes the kid would give up the chase.

T hrough the gates of the city, a stretch of weathered shacks supplanted the once artisanal beauty of Costelwick’s most flourishing district that was now a faded and chipped remnant of its former self. Flickering gas lamps casted shadows on the decayed brick buildings and across the damp and winding cobblestone streets, where the haunting whispers of desperation echoed from the alleyways.

Zevander removed his mask. Hiding his face wasn’t necessary in this part of the city. Nearly everyone in The Hovel bore scars in one form, or another, and no one cared who he was, or what he’d been cursed with. It was only the hideous scar that stretched across his cheek and branched into tiny black veins down his jaw and neck that still garnered stares, even in the worst corners of Costelwick.

The air was thick with sanitation fog, an enchanted mist that the highbloods released over The Hovel, to keep their diseases contained. Fortunately for Zevander, the flame inside of him burned away disease and infection, making him immune to just about anything he might’ve encountered.

An approaching wagon kept a slow cadence toward him. Mortemian. Death collectors for the city. The coachman sat hunched over, undoubtedly weary from a long day of gathering the dead. A leather tarp stretched across the back of the wagon and covered the bodies held within, bound for the vein. While Nyxteros boasted a high rate of immortality, the poverty-stricken villages on the outskirts tended to skew the numbers, which was ultimately good for the king. More bodies equated to more vivicantem, after all. While the sablefyre contained within the vein had the power to transform flesh into bloodstones in a matter of seconds, it took approximately seven years for a corpse to phase into the much-needed nutrient that was then harvested from the rock. For centuries, the highblood immortals had relied on the sickly nilivir and spindlings to ensure a long and successful bloodline.

Zevander stopped his horse in front of a brothel and dismounted. As he slipped his mask into one of the satchels of his saddle, movement caught the corner of his eye, and he twisted to see that damned boy running barefoot toward him. En route to The Hovel, Zevander had slowed his pace, thinking he’d lost the kid, but it seemed he’d kept on him.

Dragging a hand down his face, he groaned again, and as he stepped in the direction of the brothel, the boy fell into step after him. Zevander swung around, pressing a gloved finger into the spindling’s chest. “Stay. You can watch my horse.”

The boy gave a spirited nod and scampered to the mount, where he gently petted its chest.

On a huff of frustration, Zevander strode up to the once-grand house that had since stood dilapidated and in decay, its roof bowing and wood rotting. A place of dark fantasies.

Beyond the door, a curtain of perfume clung to the air, masking the heady stench of pleasure. Sexsells, clad in ornate corsets, lounged across settees and couches, the curvy beauties primed and ready. After the shot of vivicantem, Zevander should’ve been all too willing to accommodate them–every one of them. Instead, he felt only indifference to their half-naked forms lying about. After all, he hadn’t come to the brothel for sex.

A voluptuous woman, breasts spilling over a black corset, sauntered up to him, her red hair wild and cascading over slim shoulders. To most, she went by Madame Lazarine, but Zevander had known her intimately enough to call her Ze’Kyra. “Well, hello handsome. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Where is she?”

The woman’s face soured. “You’re not taking her again, are you? We just got her back. She’s our best girl.”

“I’m sure you’ll find another to take her place.”

“My Lord, please. I’m begging you. We are a clean and safe establishment. The best in The Hovel.”

He strode past her for the staircase. “Be that as it may, she’s coming home with me.”

“She alone will bring in enough coin tonight to keep mouths fed.”

Pausing his ascent, Zevander reached into a small satchel hooked to his belt and tossed her a silver coin.

Capturing it in her palm, she stared down at it and back to him. “A keltzig. She’ll make at least three times as much.”

He fished for two more and tossed them to the woman. “Where is she?” he asked, already making his way up the staircase.

“Last room on the left. Just finished up.”

At the top of the staircase, he found an older man fucking a brunette against the wall, and he stepped past the two, catching her leering stare. Moans bled through the doors he passed, the thumping of beds against the walls keeping time with his strides. When he finally reached the end of the hallway, he knocked on the door.

“Giv’me a minu, will ya?” A familiar voice, laced with the telling slur of the mandrawyld tonic she’d taken, came from the other side.

Pressing his ear to the wooden panel, he listened, and at the sound of a heavy thud, he slammed through the door and found Rykaia passed out on the couch. On the coffee table lay the evidence of what he feared–the substances she’d consumed, set out in small black vials. The white gown she wore carried the remnants of blood, and he lifted her arm for the fresh scars undoubtedly put there by one of her johns.

Unbeknownst to some brothel keepers, clients sometimes enjoyed the practice of firebleeding–making small cuts into the woman’s flesh and sprinkling flammapul onto their tongues that they dragged over the bleeding wounds. Once in the bloodstream, the flammapul caused slight paralysis and tightening of the muscles, including the pelvic muscles. For the sexsell, it was a terrifying circumstance that made them exceptionally vulnerable. For the client, he could do whatever he wanted and manipulate their blood magic for as long as the high lasted. Most Johns paid for hours at a time, not only to take advantage of the tonic, but to allow it time to wear off.

Zevander lifted the vial from the coffee table. Raptacy–a sleeping tonic by trade, but abusers of the elixir enjoyed the effects that turned them happy and horny just before falling asleep. She’d been using it for quite some time, and it might’ve been the reason someone as strong willed as Rykaia could’ve fallen victim to the flammapul. Another dark ampoule beside it—Vermis Eye—ensured she wouldn’t have felt a thing or had any awareness of her surroundings.

He pulled the small vial of vivicantem from his pocket and filled the dropper to the halfway mark.

Taking hold of her jaw, Zevander tipped her head back and squeezed the fluid into her mouth. Pure vivicantem in the blood acted as a powerful stimulant for the unconscious, essentially banishing the tonics from the body. At first, she didn’t move, but then her throat bobbed and her eyes shot open on a gasp.

Rykaia turned over in time to expel a torrent of vomit that landed on the gritty floor. Fingers clutching the cushion of the couch, she heaved and retched as the mix of tonics exited her body. With the back of a shaky hand, she wiped the stringy bits from her lips, and the moment she glanced upward, she rolled her eyes. “What brings you here, Brother?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“And if I refuse?”

Zevander tipped his head, brow cocked. She knew the answer to that. He’d carry her out, kicking and screaming, the way he had the last time she’d left home. And the time before that.

“Please don’t make me go back. You’ve no idea what it’s like.”

He lifted her arm, turning it over for the cuts. “And this is better? Who did this?”

Frowning, she ran her fingers over the wounds, undoubtedly unaware they’d been placed there in her drugged stupor. What had made her such a coveted choice at the brothel was, although her magic was weak in her drugged state, she possessed the ability to absorb pain and emotions. For the depressed, the stressed, the physically tormented, she served as something of a tonic herself. Allowing a moment when they might experience sheer ecstasy and bliss for the first time in their lives. Pain eaters, her kind were called, as they literally consumed the agony with a particular touch, or kiss.

It was hell for Rykaia, whose mind somehow had to process all that grief and suffering, the aches and injury, the weight of which had prompted her to abuse tonics at an early age.

“I don’t remember, so what does it matter?”

“What matters is that, one day, your client is going to take his blade across your throat. And by the gods, I would burn him alive for it. I want a name. Who cut you?”

She huffed, reaching for a small glass that held an amber fluid–nectardeium, or nectar of the gods. “I couldn’t tell you,” she answered dismissively.

Her insouciance grated on him and he ground his teeth. “Tell me, or I’ll see to it you’re locked in the dungeons.”

“You would do such a thing, wouldn’t you?”

His patience snapped, and he swiped the glass out of her hand and chucked it against the wall, where it crashed into tiny shards.

On a huff of a laugh, she leaned back, resting her arm on the back of the couch. “Feel better? That tiny bit of liquor costs a fucking quarter keltzig.”

“Tell me now!”

“I don’t know! I fucking lost my wits and everything turned black! I don’t know his name, nor his face. It’s entirely wiped out of my head.” The rapid blinking of her eyes failed to hold back the tears welling in them. “I never forget a face. Ever. But I cannot summon a single image for who may have done this. It’s peculiar. And, to be quite honest, terrifying.”

“Pack your things and let’s go.”

Tears spilled down her cheek. “There’s nothing for me back at Eidolon, Zevander. I cannot live within those walls with the memories I carry. The pain that suffocates me every time I walk past that room.”

Though he hadn’t been present for the trauma that plagued his sister, the pangs of guilt cut him inside. Still, as empathetic as he longed to be toward her, it infuriated him to see her destroying herself on potions and tonics that so often rendered her completely unconscious. Vulnerable. Ones that chipped away at her body every time she consumed them. Ones that, if taken in just the right dosage, could easily stop her heart. “Am I carrying you, then?” he asked in a flat, unsympathetic tone.

She rubbed a hand down her face and expelled a forced breath. “Fine. I’ll go. And we will find ourselves back in this very place once I’ve grown weary of being locked away in that dreaded castle. Mere hours from now, mind you.”

“And I will be here to carry you back home.”

“You are a tyrant.”

“And you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Aren’t you weary of this, Zevander? Haven’t you grown tired of watching over me like a beastly nursemaid?”

At a knock on the door, Zevander turned to see an older man, dressed in a fine brocade jacket that told him he was from the highblood neighborhood, where the wealthy resided. In one hand, he clutched a pair of shackles. In the other, a bottle of liquor undoubtedly meant to ply Rykaia. The sight of him stirred Zevander’s rage.

The stranger’s eyes seemed riveted on Zevander’s throat, where his sigil undoubtedly rippled with brewing anger.

“Zevander don’t,” Rykaia urged, but with fisted hands, her brother strode toward the door, his power lashing through him like a blazing whip.

The older man skittered off, stumbling as he made his way back down the staircase.

Zevander watched him, the fury still hammering at his muscles, and he turned to his sister. “Gather your things. Now.”

As she reached out for the black vials, he took a step toward her. “Not those.”

“I need them. I’ll be sick.”

“Leave. Them.”

“No! You’d do well to remember you’re not my father!”

Growling, Zevander strode toward her and gathered her flailing arms to lift his much smaller sister off the couch by her waist.

Stretching forward over his arm, she reached for the vials he’d denied her. “Let me go! Let me go, you tyrannical brute!” she screamed, wriggling and kicking, as he carried her down the staircase toward where Ze’Kyra waited, her long cigarette perched from the ring holder on her finger.

Zevander stopped alongside her, his patience snapping like a thread as he wrangled his sister’s arm and held it out toward the redhead. “Is this your idea of clean and safe ?”

The woman’s eyes widened, then seemed to sadden as she ran a painted nail gently over the wounds.

“Release me!” Rykaia howled, squirming in his grip.

“I’m sorry, I had no idea … please believe me, Zevander. I would never put her at risk that way.”

“You will never put her at risk again. She won’t be coming back.”

“I will! I swear–” Rykaia’s words were cut short by Zevander’s palm pressed against her mouth.

“If whoever did this returns, you will let me know.” Zevander said through clenched teeth.

“Yes, of course.”

As he strode toward the door, the spindling boy appeared there, his miniscule form hardly blocking his path. “ Godspit ,” Zevander muttered and shoved his hand into his pocket for more coin that he tossed to Ze’Kyra. “Give the boy shelter.”

“I swear on all of the unholy, if you don’t let me go, Brother, I will bite your damn ear off!”

As Rykaia wriggled and squirmed, he tightened his grip, ignoring her.

“I am not some charitable poorhouse.” Ze’kyra argued, casually leaning against the wall. “This is a brothel, Zevander. No place for a boy.”

It wasn’t. But most didn’t visit Madame Lazarine’s Brothel for young spindlings, they came for the busty women with wet tongues and silky hands, who sweet talked them out of coin. “Better than what he’ll be subjected to out on those streets.”

“Come, boy.” Rykaia reached toward the spindling in the doorway. “Come here. I’ll give you all the coin I have to come kick this beast as hard as you can in the groin.”

The spindling glanced up at Zevander, whose expression must’ve been grave enough to have him frantically shaking his head in response.

“You are positively demonic! May the gods rain down–”

“Quiet, Rykaia!” Zevander barked, his patience wearing thin.

“I will not quiet!” She kicked his flank. “You are.” She kicked him again. “Not my father!” At her third attempt, Zevander shifted her in his arms, hoisting her over his shoulder. With the tonics and liquor she’d consumed, the pressure in her sinuses would keep her from screaming, at least. “Release me. Please. I’m begging, Brother. I’m begging.”

Again, he ignored her pleas. “That’s enough coin to rent a room for the month.”

Ze’Kyra glanced down at it again, as if only just realizing that. “And what am I to do with a spindling child running around?”

“I’m sure you can dream up some tasks for him.”

“I’ll let him stay no more than a week. No more .”

“Good enough.”

“Come, darling. Help me with my tea.” Shoulders back, she reached a hand out toward the spindling. “What is your name?”

The boy looked to Zevander, as if unsure, but at the Letalisz’s nod, he followed after the woman. “Gavroche,” he answered, taking her hand.

With that, Zevander dragged his kicking and screaming sister out of the brothel and into the cold.