A musty, metallic odor struck Eliza’s nostrils, jolting her to consciousness, her wrists pulled to either side by the cuffs she was hanging from.

  Cold air bit at her naked skin. Her own fire magic had burned her clothes to ash during the battle, and whoever chained her up had not replaced them.

  Wherever she was, it was almost pitch black. The only light came through an iron-grated window, moonlight faintly outlining the stone chamber.

  She ignited spark from her right wrist, intent on melting away the iron bonds that held her. It flickered for a moment, illuminating a white stone shackle, immune to fire, latched to links of white stone chain. Then her spark exhausted, and the chill hit, sending tingling numbness up her spine.

  She pulled at the shackle, testing it. It held fast.

  A slow scraping echoed off the chamber walls. It was faint but growing, something scurrying, large and low. Eliza squinted, peering into the darkness, but static shimmer, the afterglow of spark fire, still burned on her retina.

  A crunch, like bone, followed by the wet impact of chunks of something hitting the floor.

  Panic rose in her chest, but the pull of the chains made it difficult to breathe. And as the dread grew, the burn scars on her legs began to prickle.

  Eliza flared spark from her left wrist, illuminating another stone shackle, but this time she looked away quickly, not letting it blind her.

  Her attention snapped to a lump of flesh slumped in one corner, its spine showing through gossamer skin webbed with black veins, its spindle-thin limbs folded beneath its emaciated body. It was, or had been, a man. Weak breaths lifted its torso as she wondered if it could have made that sound.

  In answer, the scurrying returned, quickening. It climbed high, then skittered down, circling a spiral path along whatever corridor joined the room.

  It stopped suddenly, and she became acutely—terribly aware that the loudest sound in there, wherever she was, was her own breathing.

  A drop of cold sticky spattered against her flame-balded head from above, accompanied by the creak of a loosening jaw.

  “Hells,” she muttered.

  And with a rush of wind, icy flesh pressed against her face. A jagged maw pinched the meat around her eye.

  Panic hit, her spark crackled, and the thing jumped back, skittering across the ceiling.

  “Sca-scaggs?” a voice croaked, following the scurrying sound as it weaved back and forth.

  “Yes?” she answered, not bringing herself to look.

  “You ssshould have… sshould have killed me,” it hissed. “It would have been kinder.”

  “I-I, apologize,” she forced the words through chattering teeth. “Fair warning, I’m going to spark a light, a little one.” That was all she could manage.

  As a candle-sized flame flickered from Eliza’s index finger, ‘it’ hissed again, cringing, but didn’t move away.

  The thing was hanging upside-down from the ceiling. It was constructed like a man, with two arms, two legs, and a mop of long, ratty hair covering its head like a hood. A pair of circles flickered in the firelight, eyes piercing the darkness, as a trail of dark crust ran from its mouth to its bloated belly. The rest of its body was pale, twisting with sinewy muscle.

  “Reuben?” she asked.

  The thing released and dropped to the floor, its claws clacking against stone. It turned right-side-up, but remained on all fours.

  “Ssshe catch you too?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “Josssephine.”

  Eliza took a shuddering breath, trying to force the panic down. “What has she done?”

  “Sshe’s been feeeeding me…”

  “Feeding you what, exactly?” Glancing at the lump of flesh, Eliza feared she already knew the answer.

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  The thing, Reuben, took a deep snorting breath. It shuffled crossways and back, always facing her with those flickering eyes. “You sssmell sssooo, ssssoo…” It stepped forward. “tasssty.”

  “Reuben?” Her heart beat raw, pounding in her chest. “I thought you left town?”

  “I did…” The flickering circles blinked as it stepped closer. “Or I tried to… But I couldn’t, not the opera, not the musssic, so I went under. To the ssewerss.”

  “You were supposed to leave entirely.”

  “And go where?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “I trrieed to be good… kept my word… nothing but pigsss blood. Fed under a ssslaughterhouse… bland but filling. That’sss where she caught me.”

  “Is this what you call being good?” Eliza nodded to the lump of flesh.

  “To sspite her, I wasss—wasss ready to die. Imagine my sssurprize when I tassste-ted blood, human blood, and the fire rune you put on my chest did not incinerate me.”

  “Oh,” she sighed. “That… was a trick, a delusion. I am so sorry.”

  “A kindness, twisssted. Tassting it again after ssoo long, I couldn’t help myself,” Reuben shrugged, for the first time looking something remotely human. “How did ssshe catch you?”

  “Ulbrecht.”

  “Ulbrecht?”

  “The king’s enforcer. Big, blond, pointy sword on a chain? Moves like—like nothing I’ve ever seen. He must be magical, but I’ve never seen a spark from him.”

  As Reuben looked up, moonlight fell on his face, still awkwardly handsome with long, thoughtful features. “Doess he ever sspeak?”

  She shook her head. “You know who I’m talking about? You’ve seen him?”

  Pulling his legs under himself, Reuben sat cross-legged with his shoulders hunched. “Not in a very, very long time. Scaggsss, it seems I need to tell you sssomething.”

  “Alright then, speak,” she said. At least if he was talking, he wasn’t biting.

  “A sstory from my youth. Don’t trussst every word. I’ve lived longer than memory can recall. The passst, it either fadesss to nothing, or growss, embellissshing with each visssit, and I have told my-ssself this story ssooo so many times.”

  “Go on,” she said, and as he rocked back and forth, clutching his body for comfort, a line of dark drool fell from his lips.

  “Newly awoken on the wessstern coast of Ssshivar. Alone in the world, having murdered my sisssters, my brotherss, and my father, I was not one to sshare my hunting groundss with anyone,” Reuben’s voice grew stronger, clearer, becoming theatrical like he was narrating a play.

  “The city was Karicho, overflowing with the aroma of people, always moving, always dying, never suspecting. And everywhere temples to new gods rose. Their priests, the Eluru, touched by spark, would be monsters to Norian eyes, but in Shivar, they were sacred. The city, lussh in so many ways, but the only two I cared about were blood and gold.

  “I was brassh, arrogant, unforgiving, and, most of all, hungry. I sought my prey in gambling halls. Dice before feasting. If a man beat me, he was a cheat, a liar, and deserved what I took from him. If he lost, I reasoned, he should lose more than gold. Either way, I bought them enough drink to stagger a camel before drinking their blood in whatever dark alley they passed out in.” A smile curled onto his lips.

  “Not very sporting of you,” Eliza said.

  “And not very clever. Young, as you call us ‘vampires’ have more appetite than brains, and I was no exception. People disappeared while I reeked of death.

  “A follower of the serpent god poisoned his own blood, then went to my favorite gambling hall with entirely too much gold.”

  “He died to catch you?” she asked.

  “He believed death was fleeting, and I was left too weak to struggle. I was brought before their Eluru, the priestess Anasia, and given a choice. Either die, or stay in the temple and drink her blood, and hers alone.”

  “An Eluru? Damn my curiosity, what did she look like?”

  “Imagine a snake swallowing someone whole and stopping at the very end, with their face sticking out between the jaws, both sets of eyes watching you. She had no legs, just a tail, but she had arms covered in scales. Or maybe I’m mistaken, and that was simply a statue at the temple. The details of memory fade so quickly.

  “Every day, before I drank, I had to show her something I’d learned. She taught me my beloved music, and maths, and the science of the mundane. Her blood was strange. My appetite waned as my hunger for knowledge grew, but my body atrophied until I could barely draw breath, yet I was addicted, even happy, consigned to oblivion.” He inhaled deeply, taking a long pause.

  “And?” Eliza asked. “What happened? Why aren’t you dead?”

  “War.” He licked the dark crust off his lips. “I don’t remember from where they came. Maybe I never knew, but came they did, in ships, razing the coast. Cities burned, whole religions wiped out. I begged Anasia to flee, but too late, we were taken unaware. The armies of the ‘one true god’ were still a week away when—he—appeared at the temple gate. A short man, thick as a tree stump, wielding a broken sword.

  “He called himself ‘ruin’ and took her head as a trophy while I cowered in the shadows. In the days that followed, her blood left me, and my thirst, my anger, my old ways—returned.

  “Rage drove me to their army, but I arrived a day, a battle too late, only to see a thousand Eluru, their bodies on spikes, their heads laid at their feet on a field of blood. But… so still stood the enemy’s camp.

  “I crept in that night, leaving only corpses in my wake. Their leader’s tent was unguarded. A giant man, I remember, and beautiful as well. I found him sleeping, bit at his neck, but no blood came. He sat up and smiled, ran his fingers through flowing blond hair, and impaled me on his sword… pulling me in with its chain.

  “He raised a brow when I didn’t die and watched me into the morning. Then he scraped me off with his boot and departed.

  “Weakened, I crept into a sewer and slept for a year.” As Reuben shrugged, his posture crumpled, signaling the end of the story.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Died, I heard, defeated by the Eluru prince. The celebration lasted three yearsss.” Reuben’s hiss returned.

  “Did he?” she asked. “Die?”

  “I made the pilgrimage, sssaw the corpse. He is dead, but the… ressemblance to the man you sspeak of is… unnerving.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “In my youth. Two hundred yearsss since passed… Sca-scaggs, Are you going to finish it?”

  “Finish what?”

  “Kill me.”

  “No,” Eliza shook her head. “All those threats, that was just me trying to protect you. Well, that and get paid. Honestly, I’ve never killed anyone. And even if I wanted to,” she rattled her chains, “My hands are bound, my spark exhausted.”

  “Eliza?” Reuben stood up, his eyes going wide.

  “Yes?”

  “I wisssh. Wisssh you hadn’t told me that.” He leaped to the ceiling, into the darkness. The skittering rushed forward, and Eliza gasped as his fangs entered her neck.

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