Chapter 5

"We'll be in range of ash in two days," I heard Larevik inform Garde over dinner. We'd been back on the road for six days this time, passing the checkpoint between the Northern and Southern Continents. The landscape was already giving way to a lusher, tropical variety of plants. Those plants were trying their best to crowd the side of the road, since most of the High Demons and comesuli had gone north after Baetrah's eruption.

"We'll go as far as Baetrah an Hafei and see what's left of it," Gardevik replied. He and Larevik were sipping tea I'd made for them after dinner. They didn't hold back on any of their conversations; they figured I didn't understand any of it anyway and certainly wouldn't repeat it.

"What do you make of the rumors that there are Croth still hiding in the area?" Larevik asked.

"If they're hiding, I have no idea how they're surviving if the damage from the ash is as bad as I've heard," Gardevik replied. "The cane crops in the area are destroyed. I hope we have plenty of stores, because we may not see another crop for a year or two and the fields may have to be moved."

"There are the jungles farther south," Larevik pointed out. "We could plant there."

"Those will have to be cleared, at least in part, and I don't like cutting down the trees. The farming in that area must be kept at a minimum."

"I agree, but who will be running those farms? Croth and Drith did it before, and we have thinned them down to nothing. We found so few of them innocent of treason." Larevik shook his head.

"The fools," Garde growled, holding out his cup so I'd bring more tea. I brought the tea and poured for him. "Niffy," Garde grabbed me and planted a kiss on top of my head. "Go to bed, short one." He motioned toward the wagon. I stared at him in shock for a few seconds before getting my head together and walking toward the wagon.

I lay awake, listening to the rest of the conversation; my hearing was still as sharp as it ever was. Garde and Larevik were kicking around ideas regarding what they should do if they did come across Croth or Drith in the region. We'd met no comesuli at all after passing the border and there were few animals; they'd fled the area as well. Garde talked about food rations, which concerned me. We'd loaded up as much as we could at the border town, but we had three more days to get to the city below the volcano. Baetrah an Hafei was the name of that city and it would take another six days to return to the border, once we turned around to come back. That might get tricky. Larevik talked of sending some of the comesuli troops back to the border town to wait for us. Garde thought it a good idea.

"If we send fifteen back with one of the wagons, we can make do with the others—that will leave the drivers and grooms plus a few handpicked troops," Garde agreed. I was hoping Breth would be among the fifteen sent away. My hope was short-lived as I watched fifteen comesuli leave us the following morning after breakfast. Breth stayed. Dammit.

That day we came across volcanic ash and it kept getting deeper the farther south we traveled. It choked the vegetation we now passed on both sides of the road, which was nearly covered in the grayish black stuff. We stopped midafternoon to inspect a farm not far off the road. Furrows were buried beneath heavy, suffocating ash and the plants were dead when Garde kicked away some of it to check. "Heat from the ash and lack of sun," Garde grumbled. Decomposing corpses of cattle lay nearby and they smelled. I was having difficulty dealing with the stench, but followed Garde and Larevik obediently toward the carcasses when I was instructed to walk behind them.

"Why did the cattle die here?" Larevik asked. "This was a cane farm. The cattle farms were south of here."

"They were running away from the eruption when they were poisoned from eating ash covered plants," I said, and then clapped a hand over my mouth.

"Niffy, how long have you been able to speak?" Gardevik was now frowning at me. Larevik stared in shock—he'd never expected me to speak at all. My eyes were wide as I gaped at both of them.

"Not until now," I squeaked an answer to Garde's question. "It just happened."

"Well, barring future miracles, I think we've seen enough here," Garde was laughing and shaking his head as he herded Larevik and me toward the wagons and the others waiting there.

"Difik," Breth was back to his old tricks as I got supplies from the wagon to make dinner that evening.

"Shithead," I replied in High Demon and walked away from him, carrying my small crate of food. I didn't look back, but imagined his mouth may have been hanging open as I left him standing there, ankle-deep in volcanic ash.

* * *

The ash was nearly a foot deep the following day and deeper than that when we arrived in the deserted city of Baetrah an Hafei. Located roughly forty miles from the volcano, it had been heavily damaged by the eruptions. Buildings that hadn't burned had collapsed beneath the weight of ash. I found myself hoping nobody had stayed to get caught in all of that, thinking of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

"Turn back, you will find nothing here." I knew that voice. It had come from nowhere, accompanied by the sudden appearance of the voice's owner. Kifirin.

I'd slogged along behind the others—the High Demons had the easiest time getting over the thick piles of ash in the town. I didn't waste any time now, though, misting myself right in front of Kifirin. "You asshole!" I shouted at him in English. "You did this on purpose!" I slapped him as hard as I could. "I hate you! You and Griffin both! I was just a convenience for you, wasn't I? You only wanted to save your High Demons' asses. You didn't give a fuck about me. Never gave a fuck about me." I was crying by then and I slapped Kifirin again. Slapping a god was probably going to make me very, very dead. But that's what he'd intended to begin with, wasn't it?

* * *

Gardevik and the others stared as little Niff somehow appeared before Kifirin, shouted at him, and then slapped him—twice. Gardevik understood the English, but none of the others did. This wasn't a common. He was staring at the Vampire Queen and she knew Kifirin. Not only that, Kifirin was standing there, taking everything she chose to dish out and she wasn't being kind with her words.

* * *

My breaths were sobs as I collapsed in the ash before Kifirin. He hadn't moved the entire time I'd yelled at him and then slapped him. And I'd put most of my strength into those slaps.

"Lissa, how are you alive?" Kifirin sounded sad. He could keep that lie to himself. I wasn't swallowing it. Ever again. He knelt before me as I hugged myself, trying to stop shivering even in the heat of the Southern hemisphere.

"I d-don't kn-know," I stuttered. "Leave me the fuck alone."

"Avilepha, please do not do this. I have loved you from the moment I met you."

"D-don't give me that shit, Kifirin. You sacrificed me. You and Griffin. And I'm just supposed to act like that's okay?" I sobbed again. "Go away."

"How will you get off the planet, m'hala?" Kifirin's voice was soft. "I must do this for you."

"I don't want a fucking thing from you." I stood and walked away from him.

"Very well," he called after me. "I will join your expedition. I will work to bring myself back into your good graces, avilepha." Kifirin stood behind me.

"Fuck," I muttered and passed Gardevik, who was staring—first at me and then at Kifirin as I made my way toward the wagon.

"Don't come anywhere near me," I warned Breth later—he'd come to gape, as had the other comesuli. "You see this," I gripped a handful of my hair. "You fucked up my hair and I waited so long for it to grow out again."

"You are the Vampire Queen?" Veris stood beside Breth, his question whispered reverently.

"Yeah. Sure. Don't I look like a fucking Queen?" I snapped. Kifirin had holed up somewhere with Gardevik and the other High Demons. Figures. They were all he cared about anyway.

"But you walk in daylight," Breth accused.

"Yeah. How about that?" I grumped. "Feel free to ask dear old Dad about that." I turned and slogged my way over more ash. I wanted to get away from all of them right then, but figured if I misted away, I'd still be stuck on the fucking planet with no food, money or clothing. Some days, I just loved my life.

* * *

"Your mate is the Vampire Queen?" Larevik couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You question me?" Kifirin leveled his gaze at Larevik. Smoke curled from Kifirin's nostrils. "She bears my claiming marks. If you hadn't had you head up your posterior, you would have seen them."

"But she was shouting at you," another of the High Demons ventured to say. He was terrified. Kifirin had stepped out of myth and into reality for him in the space of a few moments.

"Yes, she was." Kifirin smiled. "My little Queen is not frightened of me. Nor do I wish her to be."

"What do you want from us?" Gardevik asked. He'd seen Kifirin before, but that had been long ago, when Gardevik was very young.

"I want nothing from you. I want my mate. I want her love. Therefore, I will be traveling with you. Do you have objections?"

"No," Garde shook his head. This was Kifirin. He could do as he pleased. "But Niff has been working as my personal servant. He—she—has been cooking for us."

"I see you cut her hair." Kifirin wasn't pleased about that.

"Some of the commons did that," Garde huffed. "Without my permission."

"Did you punish them?" Kifirin asked.

"No. I just told them not to put their hands on—her—again, unless I requested it."

"Your brother has upset the Oracle, the Larentii and the Saa Thalarr," Kifirin said. "Because he wanted to wait a year to put up a memorial to my Lissa."

"We may have made a mistake," Garde lowered his eyes, afraid to admit his part in that decision.