by Elena May
Myra stared back at him. Her heart was hammering, and her throat grew dry. In the blink of an eye, the Prince stood in front of her, his hand at her throat. Before she could push him away, he pulled down her collar, exposing the unhealed wound.
A large grin spread across his face. “I see.”
She yanked her collar back up. “It was necessary.”
“Of course. It was your idea, then? I would have a word with him if he did it before you were ready.”
“Yes,” Myra said. “It wasn’t Tristan’s fault. I wanted this.”
He stood up and grabbed her chin, lifting her face and staring into her eyes. “And you still want it.”
“What? No.” Myra pulled away. “When I said I wanted it, I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted to help him.”
“And what about now?” Vlad said silkily. “He is all right, you claim, and yet you still want it. Do not try to deny it. Yes, Myra, I believe you are finally ready.”
A ball of lead fell inside her stomach. “Ready for what?”
A wide smile spread across his lips. “For a whole new world.”
She stood up from the armchair and took a step back. “I’d stake you before you try turning me.”
He laughed. “Oh no, my dear. I never said you were ready for that. Not yet anyway.” He turned away from her and walked to the window. Clouds had started to gather in the sky, their edges soft pink with the breaking dawn. “My guards will escort you to your room. Next nightfall, they will take you and your companion to the place where you will meet your friends. Go back to your Resistance, and tell them what they want to hear.”
Myra frowned. That was it? He was sending her away and had no intention of seeing her again before she left? She had hoped that—what exactly? That she would read him stories and he would give her advice? She wanted to slap herself.
“Vlad,” she said. “I continued working on your book. I have it with me.”
He did not turn around to look at her. “Good.” His voice was flat. “Give it to Tristan once you set him free. He will bring it to me.”
Myra stood up and stared at his back, framed by the clouded morning sky. He turned around. “You are still here?”
“I was just hoping,” she started, but the words caught in her throat. She fisted her hands, and her nails made small crescent-shaped cuts on his palms. “I hoped that we would talk.”
“Talk?” He raised his eyebrows. “About what?”
Myra blushed and bit her lower lip. “Just… talk. Like before.”
“You mean, like before you ran away?” he said, his voice cold.
She glared at him. “Are you seriously blaming me for running away? I was your prisoner. I didn’t escape on the very first night only because of lack of opportunity.”
“You mean to tell me you never enjoyed your time here?”
Myra walked behind the armchair and placed her hands on its backrest. “Vladimir, you’re a tyrant. Yes, you are classy and charming, and I did enjoy spending time with you. But did you think I’d ever forget that you committed a genocide?”
“You are forgetting yourself,” he said icily. “You, of all people, dare call me evil? Then, please, tell me, have you ever heard of an Italian revolutionary called Giuseppe Mazzini?”
Myra blanched. He knew. Of course he knew. “What about him?”
“You know of what I speak. You either do not know he lived after Armida was turned, which makes you not as smart as you think you are, or you do know that, which makes you not as noble and righteous as you claim to be. So, which one is it?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but she already knew there was no use.
His gaze darkened. “You dare deny it? You put a reference to his activities in Armida’s story because you wanted to give me a sign that she wasn’t the one who wrote it. You wanted me to know it was you. Why?”
He paused, his eyes boring into her. Myra swallowed hard, not trusting herself to speak.
“Vanity, that is why,” he continued. “You were proud of your story and wanted me to know you were the author. Did you ever consider the consequences? It was easy to deduce that Armida was the one to help you escape. If I were half the monster that you think I am, what do you think I would do to her? But you never thought about that, did you? You never cared. All you cared about was that I knew the story was yours, and the rest be damned.”
“I never thought you’d hurt her,” Myra said shakily. He was right about everything. “Did you?”
“Of course not,” he said sharply. “She doesn’t even know I have figured it out. I have said not a word of this to anyone, not even Tristan. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable she would feel if she knew that I know this.”
“And now you’ll pretend this never happened,” Myra said. “How noble. But you’re quick to blame me. Did you ever wonder why she felt the need to deceive you in the first place?”
“She has always been insecure,” he said. “Armida spent her life in a very oppressive society, and it left a mark on her that she is still struggling to erase. Many vampires go through this, and while many overcome it, others are always haunted by their past. Even now, with all that Armida has seen and experienced, she still finds it hard to see her own worth.”
“You blame me,” Myra said. “Then you blame society. And still, you refuse to see why she really lied to you.”
The Prince looked back to the window. The sun had risen higher beyond the clouds, and they were burning in bright red. “I see you are about to burst with the desire to enlighten me, so please, go on.”
“She thought you didn’t love her enough. And I can see why—you don’t have a history of treating your partners well, do you?”
He turned around slowly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His face was frozen, and his eyes had turned so pale they looked almost yellow. “Explain.”
“Why did you leave Callisto?” Myra asked. She expected some reaction, but the Prince remained still as a stone statue.
“What do you know about Callisto?”
“Tristan told me how he met her. He said that you and she grew apart.”
“And you don’t believe him?”
“You know what I believe?” Myra took a deep breath. “Tristan was in love with her. You sent her away because you didn’t want him to suffer.”
“And your point is?” he said calmly.
Myra’s heart skipped a beat. She had expected him to deny it. She had not even been sure her guess had been right. “My point is, that’s insane. You and she loved each other. I assume you had a good relationship and were happy together, and you broke it off for someone else’s peace of mind. That makes no sense. It’s not what people do.”
“I see,” he said. “So this is what the problem is. I did something more noble, more human, than what a man would do, and you cannot accept that.”
“Noble?” she said. “You call that noble? You destroyed a loving relationship, you hurt the woman you had loved for centuries, for the sake of a newly turned vampire. You hurt Callisto, and you hurt yourself. The only one who benefited was Tristan, and even that is doubtful.”
“He wasn’t newly turned,” Vlad said. “Callisto and I separated a couple of centuries after he joined us.”
“Still,” said Myra, “why was Tristan’s happiness more important than hers? And Armida? After Callisto, did you specifically look for a woman you knew Tristan wouldn’t love? Did you ever truly love any of the women you were with?”
His eyes grew dark like burnt amber, and he took a step towards her. “I loved my wife. And now it is time for you to go.”
Myra shuddered. Perhaps she had at last crossed a line she was not even supposed to come near. And yet, for the first time, she had managed to unsettle him, and she was not about to turn back. “Your daughters were killed,” she said, “and now you can father no more children. What’s Tristan to you? The son you never had? Or is he the only good deed you ever did?”
“The only goo
d deed I ever did?” He snorted. “I have done many good deeds, from my point of view. Even what you call a ‘genocide’ counts as a good deed in my book.”
“Fine,” she said. “But I hope you don’t count sending Callisto away as a good deed.”
He sighed. “I admit, that didn’t work out so well.”
Myra sat back in her armchair and looked at him, challenging him to tell her to stand up and leave the room, but he said nothing. “But why was Tristan’s love a problem at all?” she asked. “Vampires keep telling me that you’re all polyamorous and there is no jealously and all that.”
“It wouldn’t have been a problem if Callisto loved Tristan,” he said. “Honestly, I hoped she would, but she could never love him the way he loved her. He was treating her like a goddess and putting her on a pedestal, and, understandably, it made her uncomfortable. And, most of all, to her, he always remained a child.”
He walked to his own armchair and sank into it. “I suppose you will not leave until I have satisfied your shallow curiosity?”
Myra smiled and nodded, and to her surprise, he smiled back. “Then let us get this over with.”
Chapter Fourteen
Conviction
“Callisto and I had been together for a few centuries,” he started, “and, at first, we were happy. We were traveling around the world, discovering new places, new people, new tastes. For some time, we traveled with a third companion, Lucien, but one day we parted ways forever.”
“Lucien?” Myra gasped. “Count Lucien? The one Izumi mentioned at the Audience? Why did you separate?”
“He is a monster,” Vlad said.
Myra raised an eyebrow. “If the vampire who destroyed the world calls him a monster, I wouldn’t want to meet him. But why did you make him a noble after the Nightfall?”
“I had little say in what Lucien became. Anyway, after we parted ways, Callisto and I continued on our own. And, after a while, we both felt that something was missing.
“I had never turned anyone in my life as a vampire, and she had turned only me. We were traveling by ourselves, sometimes joining with other vampires for a while, but most of the time it was just the two of us. And so, after some time, we decided we wanted to adopt someone.
“We decided we would choose a young human. A girl or a boy—it didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered—the human had to be extraordinary, had to be special, had to be the one. We would turn them and teach them our ways. And so we traveled the world, looking through towns and villages, searching for our perfect creation.
“The vampire we wished to make had to be pure perfection, in looks and mind alike. And so looks were the first criterion we considered, for it was easier to judge. In our travels we encountered some stunning women and men, and we carefully observed them, trying to decide if any of them was the one.
“We watched each for many days before we made a final decision, but the verdict was always the same. They were happy the way they were and didn’t yearn for darkness. Perhaps if we turned them, they would learn to like it. And yet, while each of them would have made a decent vampire, none of them was born to be one.”
“And so you let them go?” Myra asked.
“Let them go?” He laughed. “What do you think we are? We ate them without turning them, that was all. After a while, Callisto and I decided to part ways, so that we could cover more ground. We decided on a time and place where we would meet again, and we set on our separate paths.
“It was during one of my single searches that I found Tristan. He looked different back then, unkempt and unrefined, and yet his perfect features were obvious to anyone with eyes to see. I started watching him, and it was only a day after I first saw him that I noticed something striking.
“He could read and write. You see, for that time and place, it was practically unheard of for a commoner to read and write. What effort this must have taken him, what thoughts must have passed through this peasant boy’s head to make him believe the skill was worth learning. It was extraordinary, and as I watched him more and more, I decided that even if he didn’t turn out to be the one, I couldn’t simply drink him and kill him as I had done with the others. Even if Callisto and I decided he was not to be our perfect creation, I would still turn him and let him find his own way as a creature of the night.
“I went on watching him, and every day my hopes grew. He didn’t belong in the village. He was unhappy and didn’t feel at home. He couldn’t connect to his fellow humans and yearned for something more, something bigger. That, I could give to him.”
“So you decided to spend months, perhaps years, stalking him like some creep?” Myra said.
He smiled. “I prefer the expression ‘watching over him.’”
“You think he needed watching over?”
“Oh, definitely. I am not saying this to diminish his skills. But the times were harsh, hunger and disease plagued the people too often, and humans needed each other to survive. Tristan, however, had done everything in his power to push everyone away. He was a lone wolf, and, unfortunately, the lone wolf rarely survives winter. But I was there, watching and taking care of everything that threatened him. I hunted a stag for him when he was starving, and I took care of the ruffians that dared bother him.”
“You drank them.”
Vlad looked at her calmly. “They got what they deserved.”
She snorted. “So, mugging should be punishable by death?”
“Of course not,” he said. “But hurting Tristan is punishable by death.”
Myra shuddered, wondering if she had to wait until Tristan’s wounds had healed completely before she attempted to plot his escape. “This was all a game to you,” she said. “You and Callisto wanted to create a masterpiece, a work of art, and you were simply looking for the right raw materials.”
“At first, it was a game,” he admitted. “After Tristan started writing his vampire poems, there was no doubt in my mind I had found what we had been looking for. I showed him to Callisto, and she approved. And then, all I had to do was wait for the right moment to present myself. But the choice was taken away from me when, on a cold winter night, the poor boy was on the brink of death.
“And as I talked to him and helped him get better, I grew to care for him in a way I had never anticipated. We had set out to create the perfect vampire—beautiful and refined, educated, quick-witted and graceful. That was all we had wanted. But then, what I wanted more than anything was for him to be happy.
“Waiting for his consent to be turned was never the plan. Callisto and I had always thought we would find our protégé and turn him or her on the spot. But as I grew to know and respect him, I realized I couldn’t do this to him. I would wait until he was ready. And this was the biggest mistake I ever made.”
Myra shook her head. “Tristan is grateful you respected his choice enough to not turn him until the end. This was the last time you didn’t treat him like a child in need of care. It means a lot to him.”
“I would rather forsake his gratitude and have him be healthy,” the Prince said.
“None of this would have happened if you had made it clear you never meant to leave after you made him a vampire. You know,” she added, “you need to work on your communication skills.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
She hesitated. “You claim that you love Armida, and yet she feels the need to resort to lies and deceit to keep your affections. And Tristan—it’s obvious he has doubts you’re staying with him out of pity and guilt, and because he needs your blood to soothe his pain. Maybe that’s not the case, but he thinks it, and you’ve done nothing to reassure him. And this fit nicely with his theory that before he was turned, you spent time with him only because of his poems.”
The Prince snorted. “Of all the stupid ideas he could have gotten, this one is the most ridiculous. His poems were nothing spectacular. They were not bad, but I had read the finest literature in the world; the scribblings of an angst-ridden peasant boy could ha
rdly impress me. What did impress me was his raw need to write. His feeling of isolation, his desire to be something more. I pretended to like his works only as an excuse to approach him and assist him with money and services. He was too proud to accept any help otherwise.”
“Have you ever told him that?”
He stared at her. “You want me to tell Tristan his poems were nothing special?”
“He’ll be happy to know you spent time with him because of who he was himself.”
“Either that,” Vlad said, “or he would be mad at me and say I was patronizing and treated him like a child.”
“Fair point,” Myra conceded. “Does he say that often?”
“Too often,” the Prince admitted. “The first time was after Callisto and I separated, and he kept finding excuses to say it again afterwards.”
“So after he was turned, you left Callisto to spare his feelings?”
“More or less,” he said. “Though this is a simplified way of looking at it. Another rift had been forming between Callisto and me for some time, and I believe we would have separated one day anyway. But Tristan’s unrequited love certainly sped things up.
“The centuries passed, the three of us traveled together, and we lived through incredible adventures, but this always hung around us like a cloud of grief. His pain was palpable. I broached the subject with Callisto once, and she said she had noticed it too, and it hurt her, for she loved him dearly.
“She agreed with me that this could not go on forever. However, her idea of how to handle things was completely different from what I imagined. She said we had to encourage Tristan to part ways with us and find his own path in life. Then, he would hopefully forget us, and we would make ourselves another child.
“I told her this was unthinkable—Tristan had suffered enough, and he needed us. My blood was the only thing that could relieve his pain.”
“And here you do it again,” Myra said sharply. “You make it sound like you chose to stay with him because he needed you, and your choice might have been different if he had been in perfect health. If that isn’t the case, I suggest you choose your words more carefully, especially when you talk to him.”