Page 60 of The Star's Sword
Then he strode out of the room through a huge wooden door, and disappeared out of sight.
21
Mor was staying with Ara in an inn near the demon realms, along with Luren, who was in training with Ara to develop his demon powers. Still, she visited the sanctuary nearly every day with her void portals, both to help train and to check in on us.
When I came back to the sanctuary with Simon after talking to Mark, Samael, me, Simon, Cayne and Zadis had all sat down at one of the tables in the dining hall to discuss our options.
Griffin and Os had soon joined, and when Mor showed up, fresh out of a portal, and saw us all slumped over a table looking morose, she walked over with her hands on her hips. “What the hell happened? Did someone die?”
“Cleo’s reputation,” Griffin said, keeping his reassuring arm over me as I rested my face on my hands on the table.
Mor sat down next to me, budging Samael to the side. Sam merely moved for her, because Mor was one of the few people he listened to, but also because I could tell he was deep in thought himself.
“Surely no one could think wrongly of Cleo,” Mor said, running a hand through my hair, her shining silver eyes gleaming with concern.
“The Morningstar is literally hated for no reason,” Griffin muttered. “Os says it’s part of the prophecy.”
“Why is that?” I mumbled. “I haven’t done anything to hurt anyone who isn’t an evil monster.” I put my fingers up. “Gabe was trying to kill Samael, Bran wanted to take me back and rape me, Dellen wanted to be killed before he killed anymore.”
“Sometimes people just hate people who fight back,” Os said. “Especially when the status quo works for them.”
“I’m about ready to stop fighting,” I said, resting my forehead on my hands again.
All of that blood. I wished I’d just kept it for training. I would have been faster, had less decapitations. If it was never going to help, if the vampires were all going to turn against me anyway over such cheap tricks, what was it all for?
“I’m the one who should be worried,” Simon said, resting his cheek on his hand, his black hair shading half of his face so only one red eye was showing. “Half of my vampires are going to die for this.” He shook his head. “Maybe more.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Blood loyalty, isn’t it?” Zadis asked.
“Have you studied everything?” Mor asked Zadis, shaking her head.
Zadis ducked his head slightly, flushing, but shrugged. “I study all races and creatures. Whether it’s because I intend to have to fight them, like the vampires, or because of my menagerie.” He clucked his tongue. “It wouldn’t hurt the rest of you to visit the vampire libraries and learn some history. They’ve been around a long time.”
“Tell us more about blood loyalty, Simon,” I said, as Simon let out a groan, causing Cayne, who was pacing at the head of the table, to look at him in concern.
“Simon’s tired,” Cayne said. “That stupid celestial is draining him dry. I can feel it.”
“She does need a lot of attention,” Simon said faintly. “To keep her out of other trouble.” He put both hands in his hair, pulling at it in frustration. “But I swear, I thought I was protecting you as well, Cleo. Not that you need it, but I should have known she would try tricks. But honestly, I thought it was just another one of her whims. That she heard about you getting attention as the Morningstar and she was jealous and just wanted to show up and feed. I didn’t think she’d slander you to my whole court. Or that they would believe her.”
“It’s easy to believe someone when you think they are keeping you alive,” Zadis said. “But we both know that Cleo is the real donator here.”
“Do we?” Cayne asked. “We’ve seen her donate, but we don’t know how much Vasara has donated.”
“I would bet both of my arms that she hasn’t even donated once,” Samael said, glaring. “She only takes, she never gives, which is why it’s so odd that everyone always has the opposite impression.”
“So if she hasn’t donated, they should have no blood loyalty, right?” Zadis asked. “So we just have one of the elders request a blood loyalty test.”
Simon glared. “Easy for you to say. I’d be losing half my vampires.”
“Why?” I asked, stomach curdling at the implications of what Simon was saying.
Simon sighed. “Not that they wouldn’t deserve it for being stupid, but Vasara truly has some of the most powerful illusions I’ve ever seen. She has even ruined other combined vampire-human settlements by using illusions to scare the humans and demonize the vampires, just so she can perform the miracle of saving the humans.” He shook his head. “My fellow vampire kings have reached out, saying she was a problem at their settlements and to watch out. So I thought if I gave her what she wanted, which was my attention, she would not cause trouble.”
“So that’s why you’ve been hanging around her,” Cayne said, folding his arms.
Simon nodded, looking away. “Among other things.”
