Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(23)

“Sentinel?” Rhoswen’s sharp call came from the direction of the kitchen door, the eastern side at the back of the house. “Sentinel!”

The Vampyre sounded upset, even urgent. He broke into a jog. By the time he rounded the corner, he was at a flat-out run.

Rhoswen stood in the doorway, Rasputin tucked under one arm. The powder puff with teeth broke into a frenzied barking when he appeared. Out of patience for the dog’s histrionics, Rune bent, bared his teeth and growled a deep-throated warning. “Behave.”

Rhoswen stared at him. Rasputin froze, his frenzy stopped in midbark. The whites of his eyes showed around shiny black irises. He looked like a startled stuffed animal.

“That’s better,” Rune muttered grimly. He patted the little dog on the head. “Good boy.” He straightened. “Now, what’s wrong?”

“I just woke up a few minutes ago,” Rhoswen said. Her hair was mussed, and she had a crisscross of pillow lines on one cheek. “I went to check on Carling. I thought you should know—she’s faded again.”

Rune grew grimmer. He said, “Show me.”

FIVE

Rhoswen strode quickly through the house. Rune kept Rffortless pace beside her, his long legs eating up the distance.

The oral histories in Carling’s research stated that the mysterious episodes increased in frequency and intensity the closer a Vampyre came to the end. He wasn’t sure yet what “the end” was, or what happened once a Vampyre reached it. It was possible Carling herself didn’t know, or at least she hadn’t at the point in her research when he had taken a break from reading.

Carling’s text was chronological in nature, and one of the things she was meticulous about was recording the date and time of each event or discovery. She did not leap ahead or fall behind. Whenever she made reference to something earlier in her notes, she did so in a kind of shorthand by simply notating the date/ time. It was a simple enough method of cross-referencing short of using a software program for footnotes, although it slowed his progress down as he had to flip back and forth through the entries to get the full gist of things.

Rune asked Rhoswen, “How often are these episodes occurring?”

“Almost daily,” she said in a strangled voice. “It’s why I hate so very much leaving her alone. What if she goes into an episode when she’s cooking for the damn dog, or when she has taken off the spell that protects her from the sun? She sits so close to the edge of shadow when she does that. What if she has an episode and then the angle of the sun changes?”

He swore under his breath. Daily episodes weren’t a good sign. In one of Carling’s oral histories, one Vampyre had reached such a point and he was gone in a matter of weeks. Had he simply collapsed into dust? Usually mortal creatures struggled with death. Their hearts went into arrhythmia and their breathing became labored. If Vampyres were killed by the sun, they burst into flames first and expired in horrible agony. When they were killed in other ways, they disintegrated into dust.

He and Rhoswen reached a flight of stairs and took them three at a time. Rasputin rode silently under Rhoswen’s arm, his small foxy head swiveling to track Rune’s movements.

Rune said, “From here on out, we don’t leave her alone. Agreed?”

She nodded. “Agreed. Sentinel, maybe I haven’t seemed very welcoming since you arrived, but I want you to know—I’m glad you’re here.”

Rhoswen didn’t seem very welcoming at the best of times, but he shouldn’t get snarky on her just when she appeared in need of a moment.

Instead, he said, “Don’t sweat it. Just stop calling me Sentinel, would you? It makes me feel like some kind of flea and tick repellent.”

The Vampyre darted a quick startled glance at him. He winked at her, and she coughed out an uncertain laugh. At the top of the stairs, Rune put a hand on her arm. When she stopped, he gave her a steady look that had nothing of humor in it.

“We should be prepared for the possibility that Carling won’t survive,” he said. Saying it aloud made his muscles clench, but he forced himself to speak calmly. “But I promise you, we’re going to do our damnedest to see that she does.”

Rhoswen’s mouth shook. “Thank you.”

He nodded and let go of her arm. She turned and led the way down the second-story hall, toward a pair of carved wooden doors at the hallway’s end. Rhoswen started to open one door, and sunlight—what looked like sunlight—spilled through the widening gap from the room beyond.

Rune didn’t pause to think. He grabbed Rhoswen’s shoulder in a hard grip and yanked her back, away from the light.

She stumbled and clutched the dog close as she looked around wild-eyed. “What is it? What happened?”

He said, his voiced edged, “I’m sorry. Look, it’s a knee-jerk reaction. That looks like sunlight, but it can’t be because the sun is setting and the house is almost dark. What is it?”

“What are you talking about?” Rhoswen stared at him. “What light?”

He took a deep breath. Let it out again. He gestured toward the half-open door. “There is light spilling out of that room, a very bright, strong yellow light like sunlight in the middle of the day. Are you telling me you don’t see it?”

“No I don’t,” Rhoswen said. Now the whites of her eyes were showing too, just like the dog’s. She looked nothing like her usual sleek composed self. She looked disheveled, frightened and very young. “It’s quite dark, actually. I just figured since you’re Wyr, you would have good eyesight and you’d be okay with that.”