Adela Augusta Blood Famine

Chapter Seventeen

Chaise

Chaise pressed his horse on. He wouldn't thank Zeva for the steed she gifted him with but he certainly appreciated it. She could have supplied him with a much less conditioned beast or left him to find his own way home, Instead, she gave him a highly trained horse. One he could keep or sell when he got home. The price it would fetch could feed him for months. Although a horse for him was harder to come by, especially one of that caliber. He didn't like the thought of Aquilo letting him off so easily or the fact that the vampire lord seemed to know so much about himself. Was the horse a bribe from Aquilo, or was it simply Zeva's petty rebellion.

"Ride fast human." Zeva had told him. "Aquilo will not wait long to collect your friend."

Why would Zeva care? Why would she help him? Maybe she was planning on going rouge and was in the process of building her own fold. After all, it wasn't unheard of for vampires to turn humans into their kind and form their own underground gangs.

Chaise spurred his horse faster, he was almost there. He didn't have the capacity for the mind games of vampires, for now, all he could do was focus on the task ahead. Get to Diya and warn her that the Augustan hierarchy was coming for her and that by word of the guard captain herself, Diya's chances for survival were slim.

"I can't promise you your friend's safety once she arrives at Augusta Manor Chaise Comfert." Zeva had said her accent always betraying her origins. "Aquilo seldom makes promises, and nothing happens that is not part of his design. What plans he has for your witch, I do not know."

It was at that point in the conversation that Chaise yelled at Zeva and she ignored him no longer offering him any words. Friendly or otherwise.

But was she truly friendly? That's what Chaise needed to know. Her accent clearly placed her from Mallory. Her original house was that of Tavares, there was no doubt about that. Her appearance and speech screamed that of the nation by the sea. That country was falling apart, ravaged by civil problems. Master Taveres had turned his back on his people unseen for nearly two decades, and now his vampiric brood and the human citizens were often vying for dominance. Perhaps she wanted a piece of her homeland, or maybe she simply had abandoned her land as well, whatever the case he needed to be careful and stay out of the affairs of those bloodsuckers.

Chaise leaped off his horse before she had completely stopped moving and tied her to a tree. He gently patted the animal's neck and thanked it before walking up to Diya's makeshift home. After the mobs had burned her own, Chaise had helped to rig her up a shelter just beyond the trees in the forest. A torn tent stretched across four sturdy conifers created walls. A net stuffed with moss supplied the ceiling and the earth provided the floor. Inside he had furnished it with broken or half-burnt cupboards and tables, as well as rocks for sitting.

There was a flicker of lantern light leaking through the bottom of the tent wall, and smoke rose from a fire built in a stone pit outside. She was there. Chaise parted a tear in the tent that served as a makeshift door.

"Ah, so the foolish boy returns. For a passing moment, I thought you'd be dead." The wrinkled face of Diya barely glanced at him as she said it, her attention instead focused on the glass bottles in her hands.

"For a moment there I thought I was too."

"What are you working on?'' Chaise asked, not particularly interested in the steaming bottles and beakers Diya had sprawled out on half a crooked table and some fallen tree trunks.

She tore some leaves off a nearby plant and placed them in a stone bowl and proceeded to grind them up with a small rock. She spoke without looking up at him. "I'm seeing if there is nothing I can do with what ails your father."

"Any luck?"

Diya shook a small glass tube that began to fizzle and bubble over the top. "No." she answered, placing it in the knot hole of the dead tree.

"Well, I may or may not have had any. I reached the Augustan Manor, was imprisoned-"

"-Imprisoned?" Diya repeated, interrupting him.

"I got in a fight with their guards."

She nodded to herself and returned her attention to her work.

"After waiting hours inside a cell, I finally found Adela-"

"By which you mean Adela found you."

"Correct. It's the oddest thing. I swear by the way she spoke and looked at me that she doesn't remember meeting me at all."

"So boy, which part of all of this is the lucky part?"

"If you'd let me finish instead of interrupting I'll get there." Chaise smirked and Diya simply shrugged, offering no apology.

"I was then given an audience with Aquilo." He prepared himself for another remark, as Diya quickly looked up at him, giving him more attention than she had since he had arrived. She said nothing though and then returned once more to the boiling plants in front of her.

"He said he would send someone to bring back a member of the Dawn Blades."

"And this member will be the one who decides my fate." Diya said, her voice heavy.

"Yes. But there is one more thing. Aquilo-"

"-Wishes to keep me under lock and key."

"Yes." Chaise said looking away for a moment. "He sends men to capture you. They probably ride as we speak."

Diya lifted another vessel to her eye. "Then they shall come."

"You need to run. The captain of the guard told me herself, that she doesn't think Aquilo means you well."

"Oh, and what does he mean for me then?"

Chaise looked around for a bag or anything that he could use to help Diya pack. "I don't know. Nothing good I'm sure."

"And I'm sure that you don't know. Why are you so certain Aquilo has the worst intentions? Hm? Not everyone shares the same hate. Nor do they all share your same love. I appreciate you trying to save me, but this I cannot run from boy."

Anger pricked at Chaise's eyes. He was tired of hearing his role models defend vampires. After everything, they've done.

"I know that you don't agree with me but one day I think that you will see. And besides, to run is to plead guilty. Adela told me this when she first spared my life. No matter what this guard captain thinks."

"Then what?" Chaise asked, unable to keep the annoyance from his voice.

"We wait. We wait and pray that the food they serve is better than what you've been feeding me from that forest. 

**Author's Note**

Okay another short one, thanks Chaise. Have we decided yet if we like following Chaise or Adela around more yet? And speaking of deciding is Diya a witch or not? Just saying, seems kind of suspect to me. But a magician never reveals their secrets likewise an author doesn't write and tell... scratch that. doesn't make any sense, anyways! Diya the law! Chaise Witches! Adela! ... not even in this chapter? We can answer some of these ramblings as we move on.