After Victoria left the Lone Horse, Sebastian had taken it upon himself to hunt around in the hidden storage room to see how much of this brandy was left. Perhaps he’d take the rest back to London, or wherever he thought he might settle after things were done with the Midiverse Portal, and open another establishment.
Having ascertained that there was, in fact, a nice store of various libations hidden away, Sebastian finished his last drink and left the tavern.
Though it was late in the afternoon, once he was outside of the dark place, he had to blink rapidly in the glare of sunshine. The great towers of T?n Church rose in the distance, high over the city across the river. He looked away. Victoria hadn’t given a reason for leaving the Lone Horse, but he knew where she’d gone.
As he made his way back to their inn with nary a stumble, he wondered when Wayren and Brim and Michalas might arrive in Praha, or whether they would all attempt to meet up on the way to Muntii Fagaras. Sebastian had no desire to visit Lilith’s mountain lair in Romania, but in the last year, he’d become accustomed to doing things he preferred not to do.
Staking vampires, including his grandfather, was one.
Loving a woman who had to be coaxed into a kiss-or more-every time.
Fighting his arse off against paralyzing demons.
Even seeing Katerina poof into a pile of dust had raised melancholy in his mind.
Or perhaps it was the brandy.
No. It was more than the brandy. For all her faults, Katerina had been kind to him once upon a time, and it had been Sebastian’s fault that her husband was no longer living undeadly by her side.
At least now they rotted in Hell together.
The thought made his belly swish. Maybe he had had too much of the brandy.
Giulia in Hell. Sent there by his own bloody hand.
Was there no way to change that? To save her soul?
Of course not. He’d wondered and wished and hoped for years for some way to change that. What was done was done. Ashes to ashes… and in this case, ashes to ashes to Hell.
Damn. The brandy. Bitterness rose in the back of his throat, and Sebastian had to swipe the back of his hand over eyes that watered from the bright sun.
When Wayren had given him the papers written by Rosamunde Gardella, Sebastian felt certain they would contain something important… something that he needed to know. Some kind of message for him. After all he’d been drawn to them so strongly, there had to be a reason for it. And all the dreams, coming stronger and clearer than ever.
Was it just because he’d lost Victoria that Giulia had come back to haunt him? Had his relationship-such as it was-been simply a distraction from Giulia and her memory?
But so far, though he’d pored over them night after night so that the words seemed to be burned into his brain, there’d been nothing that spoke to him on those brittle, cramped-character pages.
Rosamunde prophesied Eustacia’s death in Rome:
The golden age of the Venator will find rest at the foot of Rome.
She’d foretold of Victoria’s near-turning by Beauregard:
&n
bsp; And the rising daughter shall find herself blemished, and malevolence will fight to reign within. Yet the strength of a pure heart may overcome this test.
There was another passage that seemed to stick deep within his mind, but it meant nothing to him:
And in the new world shall be a savior who carries the deepest taint. A long promise shall the savior make, and in the end those for whom he lives will be saved.
In his sober moments, and in those early-morning hours when the words slipped around in his mind, Sebastian thought that perhaps it spoke to him for a reason. Might he be meant to go to America-the New World? He certainly carried a deep taint.
But a savior?
That couldn’t be him. Pesaro, perhaps-the damn hero who never shirked from his duty. The man who hadn’t a sensitive bone in his body.
Perhaps Pesaro was the savior and he would go off to America for some “long promise. ” And leave Victoria for Sebastian. He smiled grimly. Then the bloody bastard could be as heroic as he wished, an ocean away.