Blood and Fire

SIX

Mara's mind was reeling. "You're telling me," she said slowly, "that my mother is from this place?"

Lazarus barely looked at her, a simple flick of his eyes before his stare returned to the sky above them. "She was born in one of the many lands here," he told her.

"Where?"

He regarded her for a moment. "Quitha." Her brows rose, and he sighed before explaining. "In the far north. Your mother was born to a powerful bloodline there, but gave up her title to be a soldier in the witch wars."

Mara blinked at him, a frown forming on her face. "Witches exist here?"

Lazarus gave her an almost withering look. "Witches exist in your world; why is it so strange that they exist in mine?" He had a fair point, but she held her tongue as he continued, "The witch wars happened centuries ago, when my father was still a young child. The witches rebelled against their mothers and leaders, and your mother was one of the soldiers sent to destroy them for it." Lazarus offered her a wicked grin. "She's the story told to give misbehaving children nightmares."

Mara's stomach turned leaden. Her mother was a legend here. Her mother, a woman who so rarely left her house and preferred the company of a notebook to a human, was a soldier. And, if Lazarus was right, a witch.

"Did she...Did she have magic?"

"By the gods, Mara, did you never speak to the woman?" That was frustration, bordering on anger, that shone in his silver and red eyes. "Your mother had power unlike any of her kind." He swallowed, as if pushing down more that he couldn't—wouldn't—say. "She gave all of it up to live in the mortal realm, though. To have a human life, with a human man, and raise a child."

A pointed look told her that she was that child. She sucked in a long breath, tearing her stare away from the strange man before her to look out at the even stranger city laid out below. It was a stunning place, there was no denying that. Stunning, but still strange. Every structure, Innara had briefly explained on the long walk back up to this sitting room, was made from sprite trees, the plants twisting together to form natural spaces. This palace, she had said, was formed from the five largest sprite trees to ever exist in one place.

Of course, the fact that Mara had no idea what a sprite tree actually was had only added to the confusion of this entire world. The city before her looked like a forest, the lush green canopies of the trees spreading for what seemed like miles. Through the canopies, she could just about see twinkling, golden lights—the only sure sign that there was anyone dwelling here.

Mara didn't look at Lazarus when she asked, "Do you have magic, then, or only the witches?"

She could feel the man's incredulous stare. "Of course I do." He seemed offended that she would even ask such a thing. "I'd be a useless prince if I had no magic."

Mara blinked. Prince. The strange creature from Dawnguard, Naomi, had called him that too. But a prince of what? Certainly not here, where Innara had so blatantly dismissed him and seemed likely to kick him out at any second should he speak to her in a way she didn't like.

"A prince," she repeated a bit dumbly.

Lazarus sighed, and turned away from her to walk back into the main sitting room. She watched him over her shoulder as he plunked himself onto one of the long, cushioned settees. He crossed an ankle over a knee and looked at her as though she bored him. "I'm the Crown Prince of my father's kingdom, sunshine," he drawled.

Mara almost rolled her eyes. "Sure you are."

His brows lifted slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. "You don't believe me." Not a question. "How about now?"

She didn't know what he did, or how he did it, but the room around them changed. The wooden walls gave way to great red stone pillars, the floor changing to black marble. Even the air grew stiflingly hot. And there, right in front of her, was a throne made from what looked like iron, moulded into shape with a pair of great, sharp wings jutting out of the back. Sitting on the throne, infinitely small compared to the vast room around them, was a young boy.

His hair was blueish-black, with silver gleaming at the roots. Deep red eyes, framed with dark eyelashes that any girl would be envious of, stared almost gleefully at the room. The boy's mouth pulled into a grin, and Mara had to blink. She glanced between Lazarus and the boy.

"It's you," she breathed.

Lazarus's mouth was a tight line as he nodded.

Mara turned her attention back to the significantly younger Lazarus seated on the throne. His grin was dimming, and Mara held her breath as a brute of a man, tall and tanned and glaring, stormed in from a door she couldn't see.

"Get out of my seat, boy," the man said, his voice gruff and stare unyielding. He sent a shiver down Mara's spine. "Never sit in another king's throne, or you'll lose your head before you reach your first century."

The younger Lazarus scrambled off the throne, moving to stand tall in front of it. Mara's chest ached a little at the straightness of his back, the lift of his chin. A child trying to impress his parent.

Lazarus's father took no notice, simply sitting back in the throne and watching with the same bored expression that Lazarus looked at her with. Atop his head of dark curls sat a helm of a crown, with black horns twisting out above his brows.

The image was terrifying, and her whole body relaxed as it disappeared as quickly as it had come. Mara turned her eyes back onto Lazarus, only to find him watching her.

"You look nothing like your father," she said.

The laugh that left the man's lips was humourless. He waved a hand at himself almost dismissively. "I owe my looks to my mother's bloodline." Something dark twisted in his eyes. "I'd like to think I'm more like her than I am my father."

He said it with such resentment, such hatred, that Mara's chest ached. Ached, even though he had stolen her away from the only place she knew, and brought her into a world of monsters. Because she knew what it was like to have a monster of a father.

"My dad used to lose control of his emotions sometimes," she offered quietly. "He would get angry or jealous of my mother's guy friends and lash out at us." Saying it out loud sounded so pathetic, especially after seeing Lazarus's father. She shrugged. "I know it's nothing compared to your father, but—"

"I don't want your pity." He was glaring at her. "Your childhood trauma does not affect me in the slightest, and I do not care for your attempts at relating them to mine. Get out."

He flicked his hand at her dismissively, and something in her blood boiled, writhing. The anger twisted through her, squirming under her very skin. "I'm not one of your subjects," she told him. "I'm a person, so don't speak to me like I'm less than that." Her skin felt too tight, like a cage, and she rolled her neck to ease some of the discomfort.

Lazarus just watched her, his lips pressed into a thin line. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he stood, walking wordlessly to the archway leading out of the sitting room. "You're bedroom is on the left, up the stairs," he said to her, something hollow in his voice.

When he was gone, Mara waited a handful of minutes before she followed his directions to the somewhat cosy room that had been left for her.