The Bloodtruth Series (Box Set: Heiress of Lies, The Queen's Betrayal, Trials of Truth, A Heart's Deceit)

by Cege Smith

  Malin rolled onto his hands and pushed himself up. He ran a hand across the back of his head and winced as he felt the knot growing there. “Are you alright? You were running a fever.”

  She waved her hand away. “I didn’t realize that we’d end up delving into a space that had a protection spell around it, and a nasty one at that. I should have been more careful before I tried to eavesdrop.”

  Malin got to his feet slowly. He looked around. “Did Healer Hand come by?”

  Corrinda shrugged and then stepped closer to him. She put her hand on top of his head. “That’s a nasty bump. Do you want me to heal it for you?”

  There was something about Corrinda’s behavior that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something different. He wasn’t sure if it was her mannerisms or the way that she looked at him, but he felt uncomfortable.

  “No, it’s fine. Just a little bump,” he said, stepping away from her. “Thanks though.”

  “Did you see Angeline in your vision?”

  Malin remembered that brief glimpse of Angeline. “Yes. She was in Tobias’s study.”

  “Ah,” Corrinda said. She crossed her arms. “I’m sure she’s in good hands with the Clan. They’ll help her, and then everything will be right as rain again.”

  Malin was sure now that something was amiss. Corrinda was never that chipper. For as long as Malin could remember, it was a constant battle between the women in his life: his mother and his sister. When his mother was voted into the First Seat on the Council, it grew even worse. Corrinda became withdrawn and sullen and looked for any opportunity to shine outside of Theodora’s sphere of influence.

  As for Theodora, Malin knew from bitter experience that she was not the maternal type. He was much closer to his father, and was relieved the day that his father sent for him to join him in Brebackerin and begin his studies for his future role as Chief Advisor. Malin suspected that his father knew then that his time was growing short. Away from the core of power of the Clan, age and disease caught up with a person. Malin had been angry with his father for a long time that he didn’t go back to the Clan and ask to be healed. His father disagreed and said that every person had to die sometime. At least, until the One arrived and then everyone in the Clan would live forever. The day his father died, Malin considered himself an orphan.

  “Are you feeling well, Sister?” he asked. “Perhaps we should call for some tea. You do need your rest tonight. I can take care of the nobles and make sure that everyone is calm for the Ascension Tournament tomorrow. We will come up with a cover story about Lord Redley’s death that will suffice for now.”

  “I’m not tired,” Corrinda said. “Perhaps I’ll go walk the towers. It would be good to show support of the soldiers, right?”

  Malin had no idea what she was talking about. “We didn’t discuss anything like that. We need you to stay here in your quarters except when absolutely necessary. We can’t have anyone questioning who you really are.”

  A smile flitted across her lips. “Indeed. I mean if the people discovered that their queen deserted them in the middle of a crisis that would be cause for a full out mutiny, wouldn’t it?”

  He wasn’t sure if it was the bump on his head, or something more that he was missing, but Malin knew now for certain that things were not right. If Corrinda had broken through the compulsion, then he was in serious trouble. They all were.

  “You need your rest,” he said as he started to make his way around her toward the door. He wasn’t going to tell her that he planned to lock it behind him. Of course, if Corrinda had recovered enough to be coherent of her predicament, she would just use magic to escape. He knew of an herb that would bring on sleep and could also dull magical abilities. His father once let it slip that he would put small amounts in Theodora’s tea to take the edge off of her magic.

  Corrinda caught his wrist. Malin started to shrug it off, but her grip was remarkably strong. “We’re not done yet,” she said. Her formally sweet voice took a much edgier tone. “Besides, I’m your queen. You can’t leave until I dismiss you.”

  Keeping his tone even, he looked at her. “You are not my queen. Do not forget yourself, Sister.”

  “Oh, I have forgotten nothing,” Corrinda said, eyes narrowed. “It’s a bit shocking even for you that you’d hand over your own sister’s body and mind to the control of a vampire. Especially one who has designs on the woman you supposedly love. Guess that’s the Clan in you coming out after all, I’d wager.”

  “Corrinda, I think that you are still suffering from the effects of that defense spell,” Malin said. “You don’t know what you are saying.”

  Corrinda threw back her head and laughed. “It is quite endearing, how easily you are manipulated, Chief Advisor. Quite frankly, I thought that I’d have a much harder time with you, but you are utterly blinded by your own ambition and what you call love for a girl who cannot possibly hope to keep a handle on this kingdom. It is all going to be ripped away from her. I guarantee it.”

  “You dare threaten the Queen?” Malin stepped toward her, feeling his hands curl. He had never struck a woman in his life, but the sneer on his sister’s face made him want to for the first time.

  “As far as anyone in this godforsaken palace or city knows, I AM the Queen,” Corrinda said. “What do you think is going to happen when your sweet little love doesn’t come back from her visit to the Clan?”

  “She’s coming back,” Malin said. The tremor in his voice gave away his uncertainty. “Whether she is able to convince them to cure her or not, she will come back.”

  “Trust me, the Queen has her own problems to deal with right now, not the least of which is figuring out how to survive the Trials of Truth.”

  “What?” Malin felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. “Those are a myth only reserved for those who…” He saw the book in her hands now clearly in his memory. Tobias was pointing to a passage on meeting with the Immortal Ones. “That’s not possible.”

  “Like I said, she’s a bit busy right now. Poor thing has it in her head that she’s the One.”

  “She could be,” Malin choked.

  That was when the air turned chilly all around him. The air in front of him shimmered, and it was as if a mirror shattered all around him. The image of his sister disappeared. In her place stood a woman he had never seen before. She wore a black dress and her silver hair swept back in a knot against the back of her neck. Although her face was unlined, Malin sensed an age about her that was much older than himself. She was lovely, but it was the violent eyes that made him realize that whoever she was, she was a Robart.

  “Well, for everyone’s sake, you better hope you are right. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Finally, the Clan would get their One after all this time. The timing of it does seem a bit inconvenient though, for several reasons.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Someone who has waited a very long time for the intersection of events that are happening now.”

  “You were the one helping Elvry,” he said. It made sense. Elvry had access to magic, and the woman in front of him obviously was a spellcaster, but she was not Clan. He knew all the Clan members on sight. Which left only one logical conclusion. “You helped her because you are a vampire.”

  A grimace twisted across the woman’s face. “I was never meant to be a vampire. That was not the life for me. Elvry was a friend. She helped me when I needed someone as an ally. Now you’ve gone and killed her. I think that I will have to cause you a little bit of pain for that.”

  Malin didn’t even see her move and then she had his hand in hers and was twisting his fingers back at an angle they were never meant to bend. He heard the crunch of his bones being broken just before the searing pain roared in his ears. Immediately he fell to his knees, but the woman in front of him didn’t let go.

  “I certainly wish I had known that breaking a man’s finger would bring him down to your level when I was younger,” the woman said. “It probably would have saved my
life.”

  “Who are you?” Malin asked as he felt tears well in his eyes from the pain.

  “My name is Sophia Robart,” the woman said.

  Her stunning answer made Malin forget his pain. It was impossible. Sophia Robart had been handed over by her father, Alair, to the Master as part of their peace treaty. He had no idea what kind of life the girl had after that, but he did know that somewhere along the years, she had died. “Sophia is dead.”

  “That person is dead, I agree,” Sophia said. “Elvry helped me fake my death so that I could escape the creature who made my life miserable for over two hundred years. Then I ran. I ran to the ends of Altera and hid myself away. Eventually, I knew that I would be able to extract my revenge. On the Clan, on the coven, and most especially, on whoever remained of my father’s bloodline.”

  “Angeline is your kin,” Malin sputtered. “She’s done nothing to you. She’s a victim of deceit no less than you.”

  “She’s a willing participant in a game of power that spans a thousand years,” Sophia said. “There are those who feel as I do, who have made enemies in the wrong places and are outcasts. We kept to the shadows, but our time has come.”

  “I don’t know what you are planning, but you will not succeed,” Malin said.

  Sophia released his hand, and he let out a burst of air that had been trapped in his lungs. He cradled his hand next to his chest.

  “I will, and you will help me.”

  “Never,” Malin said.

  “You will because as long as your precious queen is with the Clan, you need me.” Sophia’s smile was smug. “What is different now is that you are no longer calling the shots. You will stay by my side in your role as Chief Advisor. You will do it because you know as well as I do that if it were discovered that the Queen was missing, the whole thing would fall apart around your ears. Then what would Angeline have to come back to? A ruined kingdom. Her people scattered to the winds, and most likely right into the waiting hands of the Master and his lot of slobbering followers. You know who she will blame, Malin?”

  “Me,” he said. The webs of deceit surrounding him continued to pull him in deeper and deeper. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to extract himself. “What did you do to my sister?”

  “I did nothing to your sister,” Sophia said. “It amuses me that you lecture me on the importance of kin, and you did not even know that your own mother killed your sister six months ago.”

  The shock of her words had their desired effect. Malin let out an angry howl and barreled toward her. She easily deflected him. He slipped and fell to the ground.

  “What’s going on in here?” A new voice entered his consciousness.

  “Healer Hand!” Angeline’s voice was intact once again. Malin rolled onto his back. This time, there was no pretense with his sister’s face. Sophia slid on Angeline’s image as easily as a glove. “The Chief Advisor slipped and fell. I think he may have injured himself.”

  The old healer was at Malin’s side moments later and pried Malin’s hand away from his chest. Malin watched as Sophia studied them with a small smile on her face. “I will leave you to take care of him, Healer Hand. I’m needed downstairs. I understand that many of the nobles are upset.”

  “Go, go,” Healer Hand said. “I’ll tidy the Chief Advisor right up, good as new.”

  “Excellent,” she said. Then she swept out of the room.

  Malin let his head fall back onto the floor. He didn’t know what he was going to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  If someone had told her two fortnights ago that her father would be dead, she would be queen, and vampires still walked Altera, Angeline would have laughed that person right out of the room. It was strange how life could take such unexpected turns, and Angeline’s in particular seemed to have been wrung inside out several times.

  She stood before the doors to the Council chamber with Tobias at her side. “Whose blood was it?” she asked him. The question had been in her mind ever since he told her the tea he served her was laced with blood. He was right in that it had calmed her, but she remembered that part of Mamette and Arduro’s legend. The Clan secretly fed Mamette Arduro’s blood while they were separated, and then during the ritual, she found her own brother was the sacrifice. In a fit of uncontrollable hunger, she turned on him and killed him; only Arduro came back from death. He was the first wraith.

  Mamette was not the One.

  “What?” Tobias looked confused.

  “The blood you fed to me. I assume that it was the blood of the one who will be sacrificed, yes?”

  A flush rose across Tobias’s cheeks. “How much do you know about what is about to happen, Angeline?”

  “Only what I know from a story told to me by a very old vampire,” Angeline said. “I am sure some of it is false, but it’s the little details that always seem to prove to be true. The Clan fed Mamette her brother’s blood to ensure that she would kill him.”

  “We learn from our mistakes,” Tobias said.

  “Have you had any others?” Angeline wondered how many other people were coerced into submitting to the madness of the Clan’s plans. She hoped that there was something to them and that the Immortal Ones that they claimed existed could actually help her. Otherwise, she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

  “Others?”

  It annoyed Angeline that Tobias was now being deliberately evasive. “Others who you thought were the One.”

  “From time to time, over the years, someone special would catch the eye of the Clan.”

  Angeline didn’t need to ask how that worked out for the person they found. “So back to my original question, whose blood was it?”

  Tobias regarded her from underneath hooded lids. “Is it really something you want to know? Does that knowledge really make what you are about to do any easier? They say that ignorance is bliss, Angeline. Don’t you want to appreciate the innocence of what is left of your human existence for just a few moments longer?”

  The sentiment pricked at her because she did want to take those last remaining moments and savor them. There was a chance that she would be dead before the night was out. She would either die or be saved. The stakes could not be higher. Still, she acknowledged that the moment that she became queen, she gave up childish, selfish things. If someone was going to lose his or her life tonight because of her, it was important for her to know who it was because that life was one that she intended to honor for the rest of hers.

  “I do not need to be coddled, Tobias,” she said. “If you think that I would not be able to handle the truth of my actions, you would be wrong. Tell me who the Clan has chosen as my key into the Immortal Ones’s world.

  “Naturally, it is a servant,” Tobias said. “Her family has served the Clan for many years, and they understand the way of the Clan.”

  “That service to the Clan means you might have to die?”

  “It makes no sense to sacrifice someone of pure Clan blood. There are too few of us remaining the way that it is,” Tobias said.

  She had just learned something valuable in Tobias’s rant. During her short stay inside the Clan’s compound, she had noticed the lack of people moving in the passageways. Although she attributed some of that to the time of day, she realized that even in the wee hours of the morning in the palace, there were always servants out and about. She wondered how large the Clan actually was, and if some of the reports of missing people in Altera were not all the fault of the coven. The Clan may well have been trying to boost their ranks, as well.

  Angeline felt rumbling beneath her feet and a thundering pulsing beat began emanating from the other side of the closed doors.

  “The ritual has begun,” Tobias said. He said a few words of magic and a dark robe appeared over his clothes.

  A swirl of his hands followed and Angeline’s travel gown turned into a shimmering red dress with a band of silver around her waist. A dagger appeared in Tobias’s hand. She knew it well, and wondered h
ow it had arrived there. Rhone had given it to her as a gift after he said she reached an exemplary status on her weapons skills tests. She wore it on her ankle every day, until the night that Connor kidnapped her. She had not seen it since. The irony that she would use that knife to make her first kill was not lost on her.

  “This is yours, I believe?”

  Angeline took it from his hands. Although it had been made specifically for her, and was usually lightweight and easy to move, that night it felt impossibly heavy. Her initials were craved in ivory on the handle. What was once a prized possession would become a horrible reminder of an act of pure treachery.

  “You may choose how you obtain the blood from the sacrifice. There is nothing written that speaks to that, but what is important is that it is quick and that she dies. I think it would be best if you use your dagger and do it quickly.”

  “I can assure you that I want this over as quickly as you do,” Angeline said. She slid her hands into the long billowy sleeves of her dress. Goosebumps ran up and down the length of her arms and she felt her fingers trembling. She clamped her jaw shut to keep her teeth from chattering.

  “Everything alright?” Tobias watched her like a hawk.

  “Fine,” Angeline said. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  Tobias moved to stand in front of the door. His hands rested on the handles. “You still have time to stop this. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Open the doors,” Angeline commanded.

  Fire was the first thing that Angeline saw as the doors swung open. A rush of intensely hot air hit her face as if it had been waiting inside for a chance to escape. Her hair swirled around her and then she realized that the fire and heat was a reflection of some kind of spell that enclosed the open dome above their heads. There was no smoke, only fire.

  For a moment, she stood there enthralled looking at the ceiling. The fire swirled in unidentified patterns and seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. She expected small pelts of it to fall, but it was suspended there in the air blocking out the night sky. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.