“Ah.” So the girl continued making herself more valuable to Velrav alive than dead. And she also ensured, by telling the cheerfully vindictive prince that Gideon and Chandra were lovers, that their supposed relationship would be remade now into a source of suffering and torment, rather than comfort and satisfaction. “What a nasty little girl.”
“This man is, like you, unusually healthy and strong. Also tall.” Velrav concluded, “You both come from the same place?”
“He followed me.”
“And then he tried to rescue you.”
She suspected where this conversation was going. “Rescue? No, I guess he was trying to keep his prize.” Chandra tore her gaze away from Gideon to look at Velrav. “He’s a bounty hunter. No prisoner, no reward.”
“What crime did you commit?” the Prince asked with interest.
“It’s a long story.” She allowed herself a deep breath. “And I am not going to tell it.”
“Oh, I hope you will someday,” he said. “I suspect it must be a very engaging tale. That man down there- Gideon?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Gideon killed a Fog Rider, which no one has ever done before, and he gave the other three riders quite a fight.” Velrav sighed voluptuously as he gazed down at his bloody captive. “You must have committed a very impressive crime, for a man like that to come after you.”
“Has he been tied up there the whole time I’ve been lying in here?”
“More or less. And I believe he’s been looking forward to this moment!” Velrav knocked hard on the window.
“Don’t!” she said reflexively. The sound would carry well in the empty courtyard.
“Why ever not?” Velrav knocked harder.
As she had feared, Chandra lost control of her composure as Gideon’s head slowly lifted. She pressed her palms against the window and looked down at him, distressed and appalled.
He looked up at the window. The torchlight illuminated his face, which was pale from blood loss and darkened by a thick shadow of hair on his jaws, chin, and upper lip. His left eye was blackened and swollen shut.
Gideon’s weary, impassive expression didn’t change, but she knew he saw her, silhouetted in the candlelight that shone on her unmistakable red hair.
“You look heartbroken, my dear,” Velrav said smoothly. “I thought he was hunting you?”
“He was.” She kept her gaze locked with Gideon’s, though she doubted he could see her face clearly in this light. “That was just… business. What you’re doing though…” She shook her head. “This is disgusting.”
“I suppose it’s a little… ostentatious,” Velrav admitted. “But I assure you it’s not our normal custom. We usually have some sport with our captives-”
“Sport?” she repeated with loathing.
“-and then feed on them. On rare occasions, we might bring someone into the fold. Someone like you, for example. But the rest die soon after arriving.”
“So why is he… on display like this?”
“He killed a Fog Rider.” Velrav’s tone suggested the reason should be obvious, even to her. “So a certain amount of extraordinary treatment is expected. And I couldn’t disappoint my companions and loyal servants, now could I? They deserve this.”
She didn’t try to continue speaking.
“You know, he’s not looking at you like a hunter,” Velrav observed, gazing down at Gideon. “No, indeed. The hunt is not what’s in those lovely blue eyes of his.”
“What do you know about hunting?” she said contemptuously. “You sit in this castle and have victims brought to you.”
“Actually, I do still hunt a little,” Velrav said, not sounding at all bothered by her disdain. “But not often, I must admit. Not anymore. Like everything else, I find it so boring by now.”
“You’ve been alive for a long time.” As she gazed at Gideon, Chandra remembered what he had told her about blood magic.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I have.”
“You’ve had total power, with no challengers, feeding on the blood of your people to stay young. You’ve had no purpose except to satisfy your own hunger.” Chandra continued staring down at Gideon. “Night never turns to morning. The seasons never change. Even the moonlight never changes.”
She could see Gideon’s gaze growing more alert and intent as his exhausted, pain-fogged mind started to focus. She doubted he had known until this moment whether she was still alive. Even so, he maintained his control. She envied him that ability.
“What could possibly make your existence worthwhile anymore?” Chandra said to Velrav. “What could make your pointless existence still worth living?”
The prince was silent.
Someone entered the courtyard below. Like Velrav and the Fog Riders, this individual was male, slim, sickly pale, black-haired, with those unnaturally dark lips. He appeared to be in a hurry, going from one wing of the castle to another. As he passed Gideon, he withdrew a dagger from its sheathe on his belt and, with a casualness that shocked Chandra, slashed the blade across Gideon’s back. He bent down and licked at the flow of blood.
She gasped and slapped her palms against the window.
Gideon grimaced and closed his eyes for a few moments. He lowered his head, and even from here, Chandra could see his chest heaving with his rapid breaths as he tried to master the pain.
“I’ve sometimes wondered the same thing myself,” Velrav said somberly. “Why go on? Why not just end it? The weight of my boredom sometimes becomes so unbearable, I think I’ll go mad.”
“You are mad.” She couldn’t take her eyes off Gideon.
“I have indeed wondered, from time to time, what could possibly make my life worth living again.”
Gideon tilted his head up again and looked for her in the window. She balled her hands into fists against the glass and didn’t bother to try hiding how enraged and upset she was. Velrav knew, anyhow. Of course he knew.
“And then you both arrived,” Velrav said, “and now I know.”
“Know what?” she asked absently as she leaned her throbbing head against the window. Her heart was beating like it wanted to escape her chest.
“Know what would make this existence bearable again,” the dark prince said. “Know what can make this tedious life as exciting as it used to be, long ago.”
She tore her gaze away from Gideon and turned to frown quizzically at the prince. “Not that I care,” she said, “but what are you talking about?”
“Now I know there is more beyond Diraden.” he said. “So much more, in fact, that I am eager to explore it. And somehow, you and your bounty hunter will help me.”
That’s his plan? To become a planeswalker?” Gideon’s voice was weary.
“Yes,” Chandra said.
“What have you been telling him?”
“He kept pressing me about things and really I just got tired of it. I felt like if I told him the truth he would leave me alone.”
“Well, it’s really the least of our worries. It’ll never happen.”
“Well, there’s a little more to the plan. He’s going to use you to do it. He has some blood ritual that he’s preparing with the court magi. He thinks he can transmute your essence, or something.”
They were talking through the door of Gideon’s dungeon cell. He had been moved from the scene of his public bloodletting in the courtyard once the Prince had come to a decision. That had been some days ago.
From the next cell over, an old man’s demented laughter rang out intermittently.
“Has that been going on the whole time?” she asked. Chandra had been given leave to move about the castle unsupervised. Velrav was so confident in his enchanment that he felt he had little to fear. Nevertheless, Chandra’s feet and hands were shackled so that every where she went, she did it by taking mincing little steps. She didn’t go many places. Still, she had been able to bribe one of the castle guards with a small bit of fire quartz that Brannon
