The Vampire King Forgets Me Every Dawn

The Person Who Would Pay

Nera had been offered command of the dawn guard that morning.

She took the appointment from inside her coat and put it beside her brother's scrap. The new document promised increased pay, rooms for her mother, and access to the eastern garrison files. Everything she had wanted since Tomas disappeared.

Sabine had signed the offer before the council met.

“She said it was overdue,” Nera whispered.

Sorin asked to see the oath. Nera unfolded the attached sheet. Its language was familiar: lawful service, defense of the crown, protection of its household. Near the bottom, a pale line lay beneath the visible writing, the old ink partly scraped away rather than fully removed.

Liora held it toward the lamp.

Service of body, blood, and unneeded recollection.

“The memory clause was struck out after the famine,” Sorin said.

“On the copies we read,” Liora replied.

Nera rubbed her face. “I haven't signed.”

Nobody spoke for a moment. On the table, Sanna kept one finger on Tomas's drawing as though the paper might be taken from her while she looked away.

They returned to the palace together. Sanna stayed at the parish rooms with Iven's trusted sergeant nearby. Liora did not surrender the room key. She put it in her pocket beneath her sister's pen.

The green room lay behind the keeper's entrance, where Tom said it would. Its windows were painted over. A narrow grate connected it to the room next door. They found a stool beneath the grate and nothing on it.

Tomas had been moved.

Nera pressed her forehead against the wall. Tom stood a step away, repeating that he had heard him there that morning. Neither repetition nor apology could move the clock backward.

Sorin ordered the servants' doors watched and the gate records kept. He did not close the whole palace. Liora saw the temptation pass across his face before he told Iven to make sure people could still leave for ordinary reasons.

The regent was waiting in the cabinet room.

She had set two chairs opposite a narrow glass case. Inside it lay the memory of the king's stopped heart and Liora holding him through its return. Sabine had taken it from the drawer they sealed the night before. The broken wax lay neatly beside the case.

“You should have kept both keys,” she said.

Sorin faced her. “Where is Tomas Sol?”

“Alive.”

Nera moved, but Iven caught her arm before she reached the table.

“Where?” Sorin repeated.

“Somewhere less vulnerable to a frightened guard with a sword.”

“Tell her mother.”

The regent glanced at Liora. “You have been busy in the city.”

Liora looked at the two chairs. One for a king, one for a prospective queen. Sabine had left the difficult thing outside the arrangement, waiting to be called in when they were grateful.

“What are you offering?” she asked.

“One memory restored through dawn. Not a picture you have to describe. His own experience, returned to its source.”

Sorin's gaze moved to the case despite himself.

Liora saw him as he had been: ill, frightened, entirely trusting her. She remembered his weight against her and the joy that had hurt worse than fear when his heart started. Tomorrow he could know that moment without demanding she retell it. The thought went through her body like hunger.

“And the cost?” she asked.

“The crown cannot increase what it holds in one person without taking from another. A willing servant can make the exchange.”

Nera understood first. She looked at the appointment paper in her hand.

“Me.”

Sabine's face softened with the patience of someone explaining a fair bargain. “Your brother is alive. Your mother would have rooms here. You would give one burden you no longer needed to carry.”

“Which burden?”

“The grief that brought you into service.”

Nera stared. Without that grief she would not know why she had spent eleven years searching. The crown could call it relief. It would still be a thief returning the house after taking out the doors.

“No,” Liora said.

Nera turned on her. “It isn't your decision.”

The anger was deserved. Liora had been so quick to refuse being purchased that she had nearly denied Nera the right to weigh her brother's life.

“You're right.”

“If she gives him back, I could learn it again.”

“Perhaps,” Liora said. “I can't tell you what you could bear.”

Sorin had not moved from the case. His silence frightened Liora more than Sabine's offer. He was looking at the memory as if a part of him had been waiting for it for centuries.

“Would you let her?” Liora asked him.

He looked up.

“I want it,” he said.

“That wasn't the question.”

“I know.”

His hand rested beside the broken seal, close enough to touch the glass. Liora wanted to move it. She had spent months directing him toward good decisions and calling it love when he followed. This one had to belong to him.

Sabine opened the case. Light spread across Sorin's fingers. He inhaled, and Liora felt his attention change. He could almost hear himself asking her to stay. He could almost remember her answering.

Nera staggered.

She looked down at the appointment paper, then at Tom. “Why are you here?”

Tom caught her before she struck the cabinet.

“You brought me,” he said.

“Did I?”

Liora grabbed the case's lid. Sorin shut it first, breaking the light. Nera gasped, clutching the paper against her chest.

Sabine stepped back. “The exchange wasn't complete.”

“She didn't agree,” Sorin said.

“She accepted the promotion document. The old oath recognizes acceptance of its benefit.”

Nera tore the paper in half. She kept tearing until the pieces fell through her fingers. Her brother's scrap remained in her pocket, untouched.

“I took a letter,” she said. “You told me it was a job.”

The regent watched the paper fall. Her composure finally slipped.

“Without my system, half this court would drown in the things it remembers.”

Sorin pushed the closed case away from himself.

“Then you will stop choosing who pays for us to sleep.”

He called Iven forward. This time the captain did not hesitate to place Sabine under guard. There had been no disputed dawn between the offer, the attempted exchange, and the woman swaying beside the cabinet. Nera's anger belonged to the people in the room, not to a letter they might decide to disregard.

Sabine looked at the mark beneath Liora's collar.

“You've refused the cheap cure,” she said. “Wait until you hear what the other one costs.”