Hexeri answered nothing so quickly and urgently as a summons from her Sire. How could she behave any differently? Most of her kind were released from the bond between progeny and Sire early into their existence, within a few decades of unlife. Hers had remained for centuries, and she would have it no other way. There would never come a time when Hexeri was willing to be separated from Lilia, and she now hurried to answer the Vampire Queen’s call as it graced her cognition.

  Miles flew beneath her in minutes, and her jog took her to her creator shortly. Lilia was in her own quarters, and god did it feel good to be back in their castle once again. There was something about the air, about the skies themselves where they were seated above it, that soothed her. It was, she supposed, the magic of one’s own home, nothing special there. Save that it was hers.

  Black stone, cool air, a familiar layout and so very much crimson adorning everything. Lilia was seated upon a great sofa stuffed by feathers. It was, Hexeri thought, perhaps the most comfortable piece of furniture in the region, and surprisingly young. Then again she was older than most antiques.

  “You called me?” Hexeri asked, kneeling down beside her Sire. Lilia was smiling, as always, but there was a strain to it. The expression was something of a falsity, and knowing as much left Hexeri more uneasy than simply being scowled at would have.

  “I did dear.” Lilia was distracted, and that almost terrified Hexeri in and of itself. It took a great deal to distract a mind which had seen so many centuries. Vampires grew quicker as they matured, their wits sharpening and focus perfecting. Hexeri, after a few hundred years, was already more astute than she could have hoped to train herself into being as a mortal. Her Sire… She shivered as Lilia continued. “I don’t like to ask this of you,” She began, slowly, reluctantly, “But I need you to infiltrate the Dark Lord’s abode in search of Shaiagrazni.”

  The air grew heavy around them.

  “The Dark Lord.” Hexeri echoed. “You told me he was more powerful than…Your Sire.”

  Lilia met her gaze without wavering.

  “He is.”

  Hexeri had heard stories of her grandsire, she reckoned there wasn’t a Vampire unalive who hadn’t. If her Sire spoke true, she was being sent into the lair of a creature able to make mountains shiver and clouds choke.

  “I’ll do it.” She promised, forcing her will into the words, letting her own promise give her strength.

  ***

  It hadn’t taken too long to get Ado out of her cocoon, particularly thanks to Collins’ own skill in luring terrified trauma-addled people out of their own defensive positions. What took longer, though, was the walk.

  Aoakanis and Kaltan were in a similar-ish direction from their current position, or at least the roads headed towards both of them were. So, for now at least, despite the sudden unravelling of Shaiagrazni’s coalition, they remained together. Collin found that he didn’t mind that quite so much any longer. If nothing else the princess had stopped being quite so snooty, and it was more than a little bit fun to rub her nose in all the times he’d saved her.

  “What happens now?”

  It was Ado’s question, the first one she’d asked in about an hour of walking. She hadn’t complained about the trek, uncharacteristically. Collin had noticed that in the past few weeks she’d generally toughened up, growing leaner and harder from the casual exertions of actually doing things herself. Her voice was the same though. No surprise there, people’s vocal chords didn’t change no matter how hard they became. It still felt strange somehow.

  “Nothing good.” He said, realising he’d been walking in silence for a full ten paces. Shaiagrazni was gone, that singular lodestone about which they’d all been balanced. Lilia had put it more or less perfectly- they had no more business with each other beyond maintaining what they had. And he didn’t think that would hold long either.

  “What do you think about becoming the King of Aoakanis?” She asked him abruptly. Collin coughed in surprise.

  ***

  Galukar had once killed twenty thousand men, personally, in a single night. The plan had been to die as a distraction, so that his men- a scattered force of merely one or two hundred- could flee while he held the enemy off. He’d exceeded expectations and won rather than heroically perishing, adding another notch to his, at the time, still growing legend. Even then, marching forth to die against twenty thousand times his number, he’d not been half so nervous as he was now.

  “Felicia.” He had meant to greet her with his usual, booming confidence. The confidence he’d never even really thought to notice, merely felt the effects of on others. Somehow his throat strangled it out of him, dried his mouth, tightened his chest, weakened his voice. Galukar felt like a young man again, standing before his first wife. Except this wasn’t his first wife, it was the child of his fourth. And she meant more to him than any other woman ever had. She was his little girl, his daughter.

  She was glaring at him, though not actively swearing or throwing things anymore. That was a small mercy.

  “Galukar.” Felicia replied. He winced.

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  “Father, please.” He offered. “Call me father.”

  “Is that your biggest concern right now, Galukar?”

  He hesitated, actually weighed the question but…No. No, it certainly was not.

  “It’s been years.” He continued, deciding to move onto more comfortable topics. He hadn’t reunited with his daughter just to argue. “You’ve grown so, so much.”

  “You weren’t around while I did.” She fired back. Galukar winced, everything seemed to be an argument with her.

  “I wasn’t.” He admitted. “And I’m sorry for that-”

  “-No you’re not.” Felicia growled. “You’ve never been sorry, not for ignoring me and not for bullying me around into doing whatever you decided was ladylike when you weren’t.”

  Galukar was stunned, but only for a moment.

  “I am sorry.” He repeated. “I really, truly am.” He met her eyes, and said nothing more. Let her decide unmoved by anything else he might say.

  Felicia didn’t say anything for a while, just stared back. Galukar realised she was trembling. With rage, with grief, he couldn’t say, but some emotion was seizing her into vibrations with its intensity. Her eyes were wet, and angular.

  “I believe you.” She said at last, the words escaping her as a gasp as if they were reluctant to leave. “But that only goes so far.”

  “I know.” Galukar nodded. Waited for more. Eventually Felicia gave it.

  “What do you want from this?” She asked, her demand cutting through the pause in their conversation. He’d forgotten how direct she could be.

  “I want you to come home.” Galukar said at last, deciding that only the truth could even hope to reach her. “With me. Your brothers are…They’re all dead, joined with your mother. Your sisters are married off and belong to other Kingdoms and families now. You’re all I have left, only you and I remain. Come home with me Felicia.”

  She looked at him long and hard, considering. But distantly. Coolly. It was a deliberate, careful kind of thought left knowingly removed from the emotions behind it, the process of a woman too used to being hurt to risk extending her heart and guts again.

  “Fine.” She replied at last, relaxing as she did. It wasn’t the relaxation of a woman letting her guard down. More a person finally letting themselves drop a great weight, her eyes remained hard and warded. “Fine.” Felicia repeated. “But I’m not going to stop engineering.”

  Galukar smiled at that, the thought of even asking her to hadn’t even occurred to him since they’d started talking. Whatever concerns he’d once had with the fact, it all seemed small now. Thin, insignificant. Felicia was returning home, that much was all that mattered for now. He could go about resolving her other issues at a later date.

  ***

  Felicia had something in common with her father, despite being removed from his physical prowess by more than an order of magnitude. When she spoke, people listened. Swick really couldn’t have begun to say why. She was physically imposing, at least, a solid six feet tall and built like…Well, like a woman who made money by yanking on levers and beating hot metal with a hammer. But plenty of bigger people failed to match her silent authority.

  Perhaps it was just the instinctual knowledge that she was perpetually in an awful mood. Pissed off at something a thousand miles away, and likely to take it out on whatever was right beside her. People never went into a conversation with Felicia entirely fearless. Swick himself found his focus aimed fully at her as she entered now. The Red Finger Crew seemed to agree with him, because their chattering died as well.

  “Did it go well?” He asked.

  “Fuck off.” She snapped back, then added, “Work, what have you found?”

  Somewhere along the way, at some point between taking off and garotting the Dark Lord with a one-ton anchor, Felicia had become a member of Swick’s crew. This was probably a very large gain in objective terms, she was one of only a few people living who knew how to repair and maintain a skyship. It did, however, mean that he spent a lot more time being yelled at than he was accustomed to.

  “Lots of work.” Swick shrugged, leaning back and feeling a spread grow. Contract-hunting had always been his favourite part. “We have offers from your father obviously, as well as Kaltan, Sphera, somehow, and even Lilia of all people.”

  That last remark earned a few scowls and coughs from the Crew. Pirates were nothing if not superstitious- well, save for rapists and murderers- and superstition around Vampires was about as super as it got. Half the men in this very room thought Lilia ate babies, and the other half thought she fucked them. Swick himself wasn’t entirely sure they were wrong.

  “I’m going to be working with my father.” Felicia told him, with a tone that promised more or less the exact amount of negotiation that was always permitted to someone speaking with one of Galukar’s family.

  Swick reckoned that about decided his next job, then. It wasn’t like he had any other engineers.

  ***

  Sphera did not panic. Her heart was racing out of excitement, her blood pumping from enthusiasm and her hands trembling from eagerness. That a person might mistake any one of these signs, let alone all together, for panic simply demonstrated how alien the thoughts of a true caster were to the mundane masses.

  Why, after all, would she be panicked? Even with both her masters now gone, and the one she betrayed the more likely to return, Sphera had everything under control. Even with her Shaiagraznian education cut short, even-

  She paused, pushed her thoughts down, continued heading for Prince Nemo. His quarters were as humble as ever, more library than abode and sure enough he was coiled around a book strewn out across a table as she entered. The boy looked up at her, eyes wide and face strangely lax as if he were fearful of what she might say.

  And he controls a power to almost rival King Galukar.

  It struck her, suddenly, how unfair that was. She pushed that down too.

  “Staliga is weak and vulnerable, your people need a ruler. I can be that ruler.” Sphera didn’t bother mincing words, she didn’t have the time. “Someone with true power in the dark arts, a Hero. That’s me. I studied under Shaiagrazni himself and the Dark Lord.”

  The poor boy looked like he’d start crying as he stared back at her, with the expression of a man suddenly asked to hold a burning log in his hand and trying not to ask for permission to drop it. He took his sweet time in replying.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea.” He said at last.

  “Why not?” Sphera was legitimately surprised to be contradicted, and more so when the boy made an argument in favour of his stance.

  “Because what we need now is to do without attention, you would draw more in. You’re a necromancer, and…A woman.” He said the last part awkwardly, which he shouldn’t have. It was a valid point. Men with power didn’t like women with power, not one bit.

  But Sphera couldn’t afford to let Prince Nemo think he was right.

  “And yet you will get attention no matter what, all your neighbours remember you serving the Dark Lord, and serving Shaiagrazni after that…Well, that hasn’t engratiated you to anyone else.”

  He hesitated, eyes wavering. Then a new voice cut through the room, Princess Ado.

  “Which is why he’s far better off suborned by me.”