“Gryphons,” Caedmon said, seeing the direction of my gaze. “The sigil of my house.”
“There are gryphons?” I’d always thought those were a myth.
But then, I’d thought the same about the fey, not so long ago.
“In the mountain fastnesses of my realm,” he told me. “They build their nests on the very highest peaks. Some of our more courageous—or more foolhardy—warriors occasionally climb up in an attempt to steal an egg.”
He smiled. “Sometimes, they even come back.”
I swallowed. “How, uh, how interesting.”
“Visit my realm, princess, and I’ll take you for a ride.”
“I’m not a princess,” I told him, before what he’d said registered. “You ride gryphons?”
I couldn’t quite keep the excitement out of my voice.
His smile widened. “Your mother was Queen of Heaven; I believe you deserve the title. As to the other, you shall have to visit and find out.”
Caedmon tucked my hand under his arm and pulled me away from the stunned-looking guards and down the hall. “I—I’m looking for Mircea,” I told him, wondering why I was walking away from anywhere Mircea was likely to be.
But I kept on doing it anyway.
Caedmon was a little overwhelming.
“As am I. Let’s find him together, shall we?”
It sounded like a plan, but it quickly became obvious that it was going to be tougher than I’d thought. The consul’s palace had been damaged in the attack, and rebuilding had been going on ever since. But it looked like she’d decided to throw some renovations in there, too, while she was at it.
Big ones.
Caedmon and I passed through a wall that used to indicate the end of the passage, but which now opened onto a massive new wing. Workmen were running everywhere, down a corridor the length of a football field and at least half as wide. One which I knew, I knew, hadn’t been there a month ago.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Caedmon asked. “I’m told that they are working around the clock: vampires at night and human servants during the day.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I’ve also heard that the consul visits daily, to check on their progress. I believe that may have helped to expedite matters.”
I flashed to an image of Darth Vader visiting the Death Star, only with more snakes. I’d seen her send vampires hundreds of years old running for cover with barely a flash from those dark eyes. I was surprised the workmen weren’t pissing themselves.
What they were doing was moving mountains, or at least sizable hills, considering the countryside around here. Which I guess I should have expected. The consul had recently found herself with a distinct lack of living space.
The world’s six vampire senates had joined forces for the war, something that had never been done before, or even attempted, because they mostly hated each other. Fortunately, they hated the gods more. But they still needed to govern their own territories, something that war-related issues might have interfered with.
So they’d decided to have some of their senior members become part of a new governing body to deal exclusively with the conflict. Mircea, for instance, used to be the consul’s go-to diplomat, but was now her general. His official title was Chief Enforcer of the Vampire World Senate, because Enforcer was the senatorial position that did a consul’s dirty work—but in wartime, it amounted to the same thing.
Of course, he’d needed a new staff to help with all the extra responsibilities, hence Batman and a couple hundred others. And so did everybody else who’d snagged a seat. Our senate had expected that, and had somehow fi
gured out places to stow them all when they weren’t working.
What they hadn’t expected was everyone else who kept turning up.
There were senate members from foreign courts who were not on the new body, but who had finagled positions assisting those who were. There were functionaries out the wazoo, because everybody seemed to need a phalanx of aides for everything from taking notes to running back and forth with trays of booze, because the new arrivals drank like fish, from what I’d heard. Then there was the army, with troops pouring in from all over, accompanied by commanders who seemed more worried about the style of their armor than the discipline of their men. And finally, there were the hangers-on, vampires itching to move up the usually rigid hierarchy and seeing the war as an opportunity.
The result was thousands of vamps showing up all the time, and while the majority were not being housed here or even let in the door, there were plenty of sufficient rank that somewhere had to be found for them. I’d heard that from my bodyguards, who’d heard it from others in the family who’d been assigned here. Vampires gossiped like magpies, being constantly in each other’s heads, and nothing stayed secret for long.
Yet I hadn’t heard about this.
Caedmon and I swanned down the huge corridor, and I decided that I’d been wrong. It was longer than a football field. Above our heads, the ceiling arched high enough that I was surprised I didn’t see clouds floating around, and was inset with panels of what looked like hammered gold. They covered the interior of the arch, while more gold coated the finials on huge marble columns supporting the roof. Even more gold covered what looked like massive picture frames on the walls between the columns, inside of which was—
What the hell?