Chapter 13

Snow left Titus to his ale. As far as he was concerned, their partnership was at an end. He stepped out of the tavern and checked in on the villagers one last time to find them cinching a sack around Waldron’s bleeding face while Warin and a few other men prepare the gallows.

Good, he thought to himself. It was about time a real murderer faced judgement for once. He looked again at the collar in his hand and considered putting it on the fraud to find out everything the saviors were planning, but he could do that easily enough when the villagers dumped his body in the woods. With that in mind, Snow decided to stay another night, but first he would free Lia. He had told the villagers he would deal with the leashed monster in the woods, and he intended to.

It was a long cold walk back out to the fields. The sun was dipping sooner as autumn rolled in with no mercy. The same chill breeze was still blowing through the crops and the constant rustle made Snow wary of unheard footsteps behind him. He turned back often but saw no one.

He tried to distract himself with thoughts of what to do with Lia. She would be hungry with that much injury. And while she had the whole night to flee into the forest, it might be hard to resist a nearby village full of easy meals. Desperate animals always chose the easiest meal and vampires struggled with such instincts. Some were more animal than man, but those were the ones who died first. If one had the strength to hold on to a shred of their human heart, they could live a good long life in the shadows.

Lia seemed to be one of the latter.

Snow recalled Bal Lorn as a reasonable sort. Of all the lords the Saviors could have attacked, they made a fools pick by going after one who might have considered an alliance against those fouler, crueler vampires. Lorn ran a minor province and provided protection. Any lord, human or not, demanded tithe and blood from their subjects. And any vampire wise enough to become lord for more than a year knows better than to exhaust his lands with demands they cannot maintain.

It was likely that Lia wasn’t the only one collared. Lorn’s soldiers and other servants could have been yoked as well. Snow began to think it was Lia’s weak stature that made her look less than desirable by those making this slave army. Perhaps that’s why she was passed to this fraud, maybe as a boon for services rendered.

Snow cursed the lot of them again as he came to the boulder and tried to announce himself before moving it. A new shower of dirt rained down as he did so and in the waning daylight, he saw Lia huddling in his coat, just as he had left her.

He slipped inside the moved the makeshift door once more so there was only a hairline crack of sunlight inside the cave. It was enough to see that some of Lia’s skin had attempted to recover. More black soot-like flakes had fallen but rusty red patches had appeared in their stead.

“Your master has been dealt with,” Snow announced. He showed her the silver medallion briefly before tucking it away in a pocket.

New bloody tears welled in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away.

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“Where is my hero?” She asked. Her voice a little clearer now without the silver so close to her throat.

“Likely drunk,” Snow said with a sigh before kneeling close to her. “Did he truly set you free, or did you enthrall him?”

Lia looked up quietly with sad eyes before looking away. “He was alone, and he hesitated.”

Snow nodded solemnly. “So, you took advantage without him realizing?”

Lia pressed her cracked lips together tight and winced as she nodded.

“Well, I suppose he’s lucky then to have found you rather than one who might have killed him.”

“I could feel he wanted to let me go. I could see he wasn’t like the others,” Lia then let out a sad laugh, “and he was handsome. So, I only took what I needed from him and kissed him goodbye.”

“He believes it was all his own idea,” Snow explained.

“It wasn’t hard to convince him. He didn’t fight it,” Lia replied.

Snow sighed. He wondered if Titus truly was different, if could he risk finding out when his life is on the line?

“Can you take this off me?” Lia asked. Her question pulling him from his thoughts.

“The sun will set soon. I’ll walk with you into town and if we cannot find a smith willing to help, then I’ll take it off myself.”

The look of relief washing over her sad face stirred old feelings that were not unlike what Titus was spouting an hour earlier. Yes, Snow agreed, someone should teach those idiots. But he was then reminded of Waldron and wondered how many wolves were hidden among those sheep. He wondered how many knew of this fraud and his seemingly sanction scheme. Did they argue that it was for the greater good? To teach people to be wary of the darkness and support their cause? The Saviors were once a little band, but Snow feared it had become a secretive cult that sought to have a veiled hand in all matters of commerce and statecraft.

“Why are you so kind to me?” she then asked with a gentle tilt to her head. “You’re not a normal magician, are you?” she added with a noticeable sniff as if she could smell the strange magic under his skin.

“No, but I refuse to be the monster that I am,” Snow replied. “I’m a resurrectionist, a necromancer, a-,”

“A dragon child,” Lia interrupted with surprise. “I thought there weren’t anymore dragons?”

Snow stood surprised for a brief moment until he recalled that Lia was a vampire. Her youthful face belied her true age. Only those living hundreds of years ago knew that dragons could take human form and that any child born out of union with a human would have his peculiar set of skills.

“So did I,” Snow confessed. “I didn’t know what I was until I came to the Dead Library.”

Lia’s eyes went wide and she leaned forward. “It truly exists? Bal Lorn spoke of it sometimes. He said it held the wisdom of the ages.”

“It is real, but only one like myself can find it and use it.”

“Why?” Lia asked.

“Let’s just say, it’s an unusual body of knowledge.”

A grinding sound from behind then caught his attention. Snow immediately stood to face the boulder as it began to shift aside.