SOLD TO THE VAMPIRE EMPEROR

THE DEAD KING'S SECRET

CHAPTER 5

THE DEAD KING'S SECRET

NYRA'S POV

"Impossible?" I repeated his words. "What do you mean by that? What exactly is impossible?”

Zevran had stepped away from the railing. The fear I'd seen on his face was gone, buried under the composure he wore like armor, but I'd seen it, and I wasn't going to let him pretend otherwise.

"Answer me," I demanded. "Since I arrived, you've been telling me only bits of the truth. Just enough to leave me confused." I drew closer. "What do you know about my mate bond?"

"This isn't the right place for that conversation," he replied.

"Then take me somewhere it is."

He studied me as if weighing his options. He finally headed for the door. "Come."

"You keep saying that like I'll stop asking questions if I follow you."

"I keep saying it," he answered over his shoulders, "because you always do."

I had no choice but to follow him. Instead of leading me through the parts of the castle I already knew, he took me to another path. The walls here weren't smooth. They were rough and uneven, carved directly from solid rock instead of carefully built. The air here was colder and drier. It smelled like a place that hadn't been disturbed for centuries.

The lights were different too. Instead of candles, blue-white flames burned in iron brackets along the walls. There was no wood and no oil. Yet the fire burned continuously. The strange light made the shadows move in unsettling ways.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Underneath the castle," Zevran replied. "There are chambers here that existed thousands of years before this castle was built." He glanced at me. "I'm the only living person who has entered them in the last four hundred years."

"Then why bring me?"

"You wanted answers." He kept walking. "I decided it would be easier to show you than explain."

We descended two more staircases, each one narrower than the last. A passage suddenly opened into a huge chamber. The blue-white flames barely reached the ceiling. I entered and stopped.

Every wall was covered with paintings. So were the pillars, from floor to ceiling, hundreds of images that had been painted directly onto the stone. The colors should have faded long ago. However, they remained bright and clear. I saw faces, battles, ceremonies and places I'd never seen before.

I advanced slowly towards it. The nearest faces were strangers. Vampires, I guessed. Their clothing, posture, and faces spoke of royalty.

"This is some kind of vault," I murmured.

"A record vault," Zevran said. "It contains every important figure in vampire history, from the founding era to the third age. Six royal dynasties commissioned these paintings."

I continued walking. I saw a queen wearing a silver crown, two warriors standing before a burning city, and a little girl sitting on a throne far too large for her.

"Zevran." I didn't stop walking. "My mate bond. You still haven't explained it."

"Keep going," he urged. "You'll find your answer."

"What answer?"

He didn't reply, so I kept moving. I passed by a painting of war leaders gathered around a table. Another showed a woman waist-deep in water with silver light flowing from her hands. I slowed. That light looked familiar.

I reached a particular portrait and froze. A man painted there stood alone between two pillars. He was tall. One hand rested on the hilt of his sword while the other hung at his side. His grey eyes were almost silver.

Air left my lungs as I stared at the face of my dead mate, Aeron, painted on stone that had existed for thousands of years.

The room spun.

"No..." I said, to myself, to the painting, to whoever had put it here. "No." My eyes dropped to the inscription under the painting.

VAEREN MORVANE

BLOOD PRINCE OF THE THIRD DYNASTY

DIED DURING THE GREAT SEALING, YEAR OF THE FOURTH ACCORD

Not Aeron but Vaeren. And the family name attached to it was Morvane, Zevran's name.

I turned around. He was about ten feet away with his hands in his coat pockets and his face calm. Almost as though he'd been waiting for this moment.

"That painting..." My voice shook. "It's thousands of years old."

"Yes.”

And that face..."

"Yes."

"It's Aeron's."

"The face you knew as Aeron's," Zevran corrected softly. "Yes."

I took a careful glance back at the painting, with the name, Vaeren Morvane. The same family name as the man standing behind me, the man with the same face in a different era. The pieces still didn't fit, but I could finally see the outline of the truth.

"Someone lied," I frowned. "About Aeron and who he really was." I clasped my hands together. "You already knew. You knew before you sent your men to find me."

"I suspected," Zevran admitted.

"What was he? What is he?"

Zevran sighed quietly. "That is a longer conversation than this room comfortably allows.”

"Then start talking anyway." My voice rose. "I've been trapped in this castle for days. You've given me nothing but half-truths." I pointed toward the painting. "That's my mate. His face is on a painting that's thousands of years old. I deserve to know what it means."

He opened his mouth. Before he could speak… The room shook.

It wasn't an earthquake. The vibration came from the stone itself and I felt it in the soles of my feet. Every blue-white flame bent sideways at once as though something had taken a deep breath.

Silver light burst from my body again. This time it came without warning. It exploded from my hands and raced up my arms brighter and stronger. The light poured into the chamber in powerful waves. I stumbled backward, grabbing the nearest pillar to hold myself upright as my legs threatened to give way. The light kept growing.

Deep inside my chest I sensed something was waking up, that had been asleep for years.

I noticed the carvings. They covered the base of every wall, climbed up the pillars and circled on the floor. I hadn't seen them before.

One by one… They began to glow in their dozens. Soon every carving blazed with silver light. They were responding to me, to the silver light coming off my skin, as though they had been waiting specifically for this, specifically for me.

"Nyra.” Zevran called. "Stop."

"I'm not doing this!" I gritted my teeth. "I can't control it!"

The entire vault glowed. The runes shone brighter with every passing second. The shaking grew stronger.

At once, I heard something move from the deepest part of the chamber... like stone scraping against stone. I paid close attention to discover the sound was coming from the far end of the last row of pillars. It seemed like something sealed away for ages was finally opening. It was slow, heavy and deliberate.

A massive black stone coffin appeared, and its lid began to rise. No hands or mechanism touched it. It opened by itself.

The silver light in my skin flashed once more. The heavy lid of the coffin slid aside totally.

Everywhere suddenly became filled with silence.

The glowing runes stayed still and the air seemed to stop moving.

A deep, ancien

t voice unexpectedly echoed from inside the coffin. Its weight pressed against my ears.

"She has finally returned.”