‘Implying what? Would you kill me?’ he said, laughing as he plopped back down into his throne. Abhorash’s men moved forwards warily. Neferata ignored them.

‘Kill you? No… You have proven yourself useful in the past, Ushoran. Perhaps you will again. But I am a queen. I do not bow.’ Two can tug on a strand, Ushoran, she thought.

‘And I am a king!’ Ushoran snapped. Ah, there it was. He had lost that mask of servility, at least. He had grown used to being master.

‘No, you are a fool and a fraud, clinging to a throne no doubt won through treachery and deceit,’ she said. His flinch told her that she had scored a point. She grinned. ‘I think it only fitting that you give me your kingdom, since you destroyed mine.’ I see your offer and raise, cunning one, she thought. A nervous titter rippled through the throne room.

Ushoran hissed. ‘Lahmia’s fall was not my fault, woman.’ His mask of civility was gone now too, to join the servility, replaced by a rage that was tinted more than a little with something that might have been madness. The armrests of his throne cracked in his grip, the stone turning to powder. ‘It was your madness! Your obsession with that puling princeling Alcadizzar! That was what damned us!’

It was Neferata’s turn to flinch. Too close to the truth not to hurt. She exposed her fangs and lunged up the steps, claws out. If he wanted her in the web, now was the time to dive in. Abhorash stepped forwards, placing himself between her and her prey as she knew he would. Predictable Abhorash, dependable Abhorash, still protecting her, even if he didn’t realise it. Her claws dug furrows in his mail and he grunted in shock as she sent him reeling. He countered by drawing his sword and forcing her to drop back down the step. Abhorash rose to his feet, the tip of the sword just beneath Neferata’s chin. She backed away slowly, arms held out. She could have pressed the matter if she had wished and he knew it.

‘Get out of my way, Abhorash,’ she said. ‘I would hate to kill you as well as him.’

‘Are you so maddened that you think you could get away with it?’ he said, looking at her with reproach. ‘Do you think that you can win a kingdom this way?’

Neferata looked around. Horrified eyes that belonged to human and vampire alike watched her much like a flock of birds might watch a snake slithering through the grass below them. Her face hardened as an icy calm replaced the only partially false fury that had filled her only moments before. Her own earlier words to Naaima filled her head — seek the advantage. ‘Maybe not hold one, but win one? Oh yes,’ she said calmly.

‘You’ve learned nothing in your years in the wilderness, I see,’ Ushoran growled.

‘Oh, I’ve learned much,’ Neferata said. ‘I’ve learned that thrones are like horses. They always throw their rider at the first sign of weakness.’ She reached up and pressed two fingers to Abhorash’s sword and pushed it aside. ‘I’ve learned that it is far better to be the one holding the reins than riding the horse.’

‘I thought you were a queen,’ Ushoran spat her words back at her.

‘I am, but not all queens sit on thrones,’ she said. She nodded to Abhorash, who stepped back. ‘You’ve given Abhorash a position within your new Lahmia, Ushoran. So why not do the same for me?’

‘You?’ Ushoran said, incredulously. Even Abhorash looked taken aback.

‘You need me, Ushoran,’ she said. ‘You know nothing of ruling a kingdom, nothing of statecraft or diplomacy. If you would be more than a petty warlord squatting in a tomb of stone, you will require someone with… finesse,’ she said.

‘I have more than enough advisors,’ Ushoran said suspiciously. She could see the wheels turning in his mind.

‘Yes, but what you do not have is a Lady of Masks,’ Neferata said, her foot on the first step of the dais. ‘Someone to shape your policy and be the dark left hand of this… paradise you have made.’

‘Strezyk serves me admirably in that capacity,’ Ushoran said slowly, gesturing to Strezyk. The vampire had got to his feet and reclaimed his mace. His face was flushed purple and his fangs jutted from his mouth like tusks. He sweated rage. Neferata glanced at him dismissively.

‘Strezyk is a fool. He insulted the dwarf and nearly cost you a potential ally. He allowed me to get within a hair’s breadth of you. He is foolish and vain and stupid, Ushoran. That is why you picked him. You never could stomach subordinates who were smarter than you.’

‘And you could?’ Ushoran said, glowering.

‘I chose you, didn’t I?’ she said smoothly. The flattery did not go unnoticed. Ushoran stiffened, his eyes alight with speculation. She could almost hear the thoughts rattling through his head: Can I trust her? Is this some gambit? Why? Why?

‘I am tired of the wilderness, Ushoran. I would rule again, even if it is at your side,’ she said, bowing her head. ‘Make me your Lady of Mysteries, if Masks are no longer to your liking.’

Ushoran laughed. The sound started as a low purr that burst out as a rumbling growl. ‘Strezyk might have something to say about that, eh, Strezyk?’

Strezyk’s mace caught her in the hip. Bone crunched and she nearly fell. Abhorash cried out, but Ushoran lunged to his feet and grabbed him. Neferata snapped upright and slapped Strezyk off his feet. The Strigoi slid across the stone floor and scattered nobles who hopped awkwardly aside. He struck a column and lay for a moment, panting. Neferata tested her hip and then faced him, her features lit with a predatory fury.

Strezyk rose, mace in hand, his own face twisting into something bestial. With a growl, he charged forwards, his weapon clasped in both hands, its head trailing behind him. Neferata lunged to meet him. She slid, ducking under his wild swing. Her claws dug into his belly, releasing a spray of sour black fluid. He screamed and gave her a glancing blow on the side of her head. Stunned, she awkwardly dodged his next blow.

His mace thudded down again, cracking stone. Strezyk was strong and fast, like all vampires. But as she had noted with Vorag, he had no idea of his true potential. He saw power only in terms of his human frame. Neferata had evolved beyond such preconceptions.

She had been the first of them. And she was stronger than any pale shadow that had come after. The mace dropped towards her head again and she caught it, her fingers squeezing the stone head so hard it cracked.

Caught up as he was in a berserk fury, he jerked at the weapon and kicked at her belly, trying to dislodge her. She slapped a hand to his leg and swung him into the air, hurling him into the dais hard enough to shatter one of the steps. Strezyk rose with a screech, his head flattening and expanding as hair burst from his pores and his clothes tore. Humps of muscle rippled across his widening frame and the mace looked like a toy in his bulging claw as he came at her again, howling.

She sprang past him, her claws leaving red trails across his hide. He spun, but she was faster. Like a cyclone of teeth and claws, she leapt and circled him, cutting him to pieces bit by bit. Soon he was gasping and the floor of the hall was slick with his blood. His fangs gnashed and he stumbled. In contrast, Neferata felt nothing — neither exhaustion nor even the slightest hint of fatigue. She circled him like some great cat of the veldt waiting for its chosen prey to give in, lie down, and accept death.

No vampire, even one as pathetic as Strezyk, would do that, of course. Persistence was built into them. When the last living breath fled, a will to persist like that possessed by no mortal creature filled them in its place. They could not surrender to death, not willingly.

Neferata stopped. Strezyk’s eyes had gone half-mad and feral and the grave-stink rolled off him in waves. There was something tainted in Ushoran’s blood, some feral weakness it seemed, an inclination to the bestial.