blazed at her from its northern nest. It called, and Neferata came. No matter how much she might wish otherwise. No one else could see it. It called to her and her alone, though she could not say why; it was a distant whisper that drifted just at the edge of her hearing, as annoying in its way as an incessant shout.
Angered, she looked south, towards Nehekhara, and a pang clawed at her chest. She reached beneath the heavy white furs she wore and let her fingertips drift over the spot where Alcadizzar’s dagger had entered her flesh, seeking her heart. There was no scar there to mar her marble flesh, but she could still feel the traitor’s blade.
Yes, she had been a queen once, centuries ago. Queen and goddess of a vibrant land, she had asked so little of her people and given so much in return and been rewarded with treachery and pain. Once, she had thought to go back, to re-take what was rightfully hers. That was impossible now. Only the dead ruled Nehekhara, and though she was not truly alive, Neferata was anything but dead.
No, Nehekhara – Lahmia – was dead and dust and there was nothing for her there, nothing but fast-fading memories of a different world and a different woman.
‘Do you smell it?’ a soft voice asked. Neferata glanced at the woman rising from the snow nearby and blinked in momentary confusion. Then she tilted her head and tasted the wind. Her eyes widened.
‘Blood, freshly spilled,’ the former Queen of Lahmia breathed. No wonder she had been dreaming. She stretched, thrusting her hands towards the moon. She felt no soreness or stiffness, even hungry as she was, but old habits were wont to die hard. She luxuriated in the feeling of powerful muscles pulling against one another. As a mortal, she had never truly indulged the limits of her body, but in the centuries since the tainted blood of Arkhan the Black had mingled with an assassin’s poison in her veins, Neferata had come to derive a certain satisfaction from the raw physicality that immortality had conferred upon her.
She could run faster and longer than any beast and her strength was as that of the great saurians of the Southlands. She could follow the beat of a man’s heart and track the sweet scent of his blood for miles. And all she required in return was what any predator required. Blood. Dollop or deluge, the blood was the life, and Neferata wanted to live. She looked at the other woman and said, ‘Where?’
‘To the north, I think,’ the woman said, brushing snow from her shoulders. Like Neferata she wore heavy furs, though she no more felt the cold than her mistress. ‘The cold dulls my senses, however,’ she added hesitantly, with the wary modesty of a servant with a temperamental master.
‘It dulls all of our senses, Naaima,’ Neferata said, stroking the other immortal’s cheek. ‘But dulled or not, we will follow them. It has been too long since we last fed. Wake the others.’ Naaima caught her hand and held it for a moment. Then she nodded and set about thrusting her hands into the snow to dislodge it and reveal four more huddled shapes. One by one the vampires snapped alert as the smell of blood invigorated them.
Neferata watched them awaken, a familiar sense of possessiveness rising in her. Each of them was a part of her in some way. They were all blood of her blood, having been gifted with her blood-kiss in the centuries since Lahmia had fallen. There had been more once, but these were all that remained. Neferata grimaced and turned away, looking south once more. It had been weeks since they had seen any sign of their pursuers. Perhaps they had given up.
No. Not her, not the little hawk. Neferata repressed a growl. Nonetheless, they had been wandering in the mountains for weeks now. With the coming of winter, the hills were barren of sustenance, and it was only their inhuman vitality that had kept the little group moving. But now, there was blood on the air.
‘It smells like the greatest feast our father ever laid out, Khaled,’ one of the vampires squeaked, her eyes wide as she stripped the snow from her glossy hair. Anmar bin Muntasir had been young when Neferata had delivered her up into immortality, only seventeen at most. Sometimes, Neferata regretted having done so, though she couldn’t say why.