“Another attack? The hairless werewolf?”
“Not just the hairless werewolf. You know the Vannadray family? They live outside the city. On the Sneha Hills.”
“Taa talks of them sometimes. Their line goes all the way back to the Ice Kingdoms.”
Elsa nodded. “One of the farmers near there said he heard something strange last night out by his stables. A woman and a man speaking. Arguing. Whispering. Something like that. And then a loud sucking noise.”
She grimaced at my expression then nudged me with an elbow. “Eww Dina, not that kind of noise.”
“What? You said it.”
“A sucking noise like a serpent eating something.” She made a pulling motion with her hand, and hissed between her teeth.
“Snakes don’t get that big,” I said.
“Not here,” Elsa replied, in a tired voice. “But in Jidarth, they get ones big enough to eat a horse in one gulp. And they’re even bigger if you go to the caverns beneath the valleys.” She curled her lips as she spoke for added effect. “Father says they used to hunt them for sport. Him and his brothers and sisters.” She looked down suddenly, and began mumbling something to herself. “Mother says he’s making it up though… having so much trouble killing those garden snakes right near our house.”
“Well I’m guessing it wasn’t a snake here?” I asked, interrupting her.
“The farmer said he crept up to the back of the stables, hiding behind stacks of hay. He followed the sound, careful not to be seen. There was a woman, he said, crouched over a man. She had a green cloak on, deep like emerald, with its hood pulled over her head. Pearl white teeth, and blood dripping from her fingertips.”
“A vampire?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement from my voice.
It’s not that I went out wishing for these things to happen in Chaya, but so long as no one I knew got hurt, it was hard not to feel a little electric when they happened.
“Mmmhmm. And next to her was a bone white creature. He’d never seen the hairless werewolf, but he said he heard enough to know what the creature in front of him was. Said it had teeth like broken glass. And remember last year, Dina—when those two boys were found near the Sneha Hills? Nikhil’s cousins. White as ghosts, with bite marks all over their body and chunks of flesh strewn everywhere.”
“Just before the moon,” I said, nodding. I touched my shoulder absently. “They were out patrolling the farmlands. That was the fifth attack last year. What happened to the woman?”
“The creature and her had an argument or something. The werewolf ran off. The farmer followed the woman afterward. Arad, I think he said his name was. Said the woman left the body and went on her way, as though nothing had happened. Didn’t even bother hiding the corpse. She walked back to the city. Not through shadows or with an effort to avoid the light. She even went into the market square in Center Chaya, through the middle to get to the inns. And mind you, this all happened past midnight.”
“And she didn’t know she was being followed?”
“She had just fed,” Elsa replied. She swayed her head left and right like some faint impulse had interrupted her senses.
“Hmm.” I tried to imagine the scene in the city when the woman had arrived. A few torches lighting the way, empty wooden stands and only a handful of caravans open. There would have been panhandlers and maybe merchants closing shop. At least a dozen people watching. Not that anyone would remember a dark, hooded figure walking past. They would have thought it a traveler, a hunter, an alchemist from elsewhere.
“She went to the Vannadray’s home?” I asked.
“Stopped at the Ox’s Inn for a few minutes, then went back out the city gates to the farmland. Up the Sneha Hills and right into the Vannadray house. Arad said he caught a glimpse of her a few times when they walked through the marketplace. Says she had ice blue eyes, as cold as a winter wind, and a locket, red as blood. A face like snow, almost colorless, and no brows above her eyes. She was nothing, if not a creature of the night. And what’s more, strange things were happening all around her.”
“And no one else noticed this?”
“It wasn’t like daemons were sprouting out of her hair,” Elsa snapped, as though the question had offended her credibility. “They were subtle signs, ones you wouldn’t even notice. Arad said when the woman passed a mirror she wasn’t just invisible like a normal vampire; the world inside the mirror looked different.” Elsa swerved her hands, like she were demonstrating a work of art or the view from a balcony. “And her footsteps were silent. If you didn’t see her, you would hear nothing. Her feet were floating on the air just above the ground.”
“It could have just been dark, and she could have just had soft shoes on,” I said. “Arad may even have just been drunk. If you painted a bronze coin gold, a fool following you might think you were a master alchemist.”
“Are you calling me a fool?” Elsa asked, peering at me suspiciously.
“Not what I meant,” I said, shoving her gently. “Anyway, go on.”
Her expression lightened, and then she continued with a tone of sudden severity.
“Always practical Dina, but no. If you heard Arad’s story from Arad, you would know it too. This lady was no ordinary vampire. And she was prowling through Chaya of all places, and right by our very own market square. With marked fangs, wolfish nails, and eyes that could see in pitch black.” She curled her fingers into circles around her eyes, squinting like she was looking into the distance. “Not to mention she has some kind of relation with the hairless werewolf. Maybe it’s her pet. Would you want to meet someone like that in the dark?”
“No, I suppose not. Did the keeper say how long it took her to get through the market?”
Elsa shook her head, putting her hands back down. “Not really, but it sounded like it all happened quickly. Why—”
“That’s interesting,” I said. “Watch out—” I pulled her toward me before she ran into one of Mother’s plants. They tended to be less ferocious than Taa’s, and far more fragile. We were taking a shorter route through the gardens. It led straight to the exit by the stables, but there were more plants crowding the path here. A line of carriages was always waiting outside to take palace guests where they needed to go. It wouldn’t stop raining by the time we got to the Cathedral, or for the next few days for that matter, but the rain had just started, and if we were quick we could catch the lighter end of it.
“What’s interesting?” Elsa asked, watching her feet more carefully now. The pathway in the gardens was made up of a soft marble, with breaks and splinters where vines and thin stems inched out of it, like the clovers you could find filling up the cracks of old, stone roads. It smelled like fertilizer. A thick, pungent scent, somehow both addictive and repulsive at the same time.
“That it happened fast,” I replied. “She walked through town quickly. Means she was familiar with the place.”
“Ahh,” Elsa said, her eyes dancing with excitement now. “Yeah, it does. She must have been hiding here a while now, or maybe for centuries, asleep in the graveyard, and just now awoken for revenge on Chaya for past crimes.”
“You have something of an imagination,” I said, hiding my grin behind a tousle of blue and black hair. “Arad got a mob together? He told the City Watch?”
“You know how it is, Dina, in uncertain times. Wolves and ghouls running wild in our countryside, stonemen and other daemons spotted within our own back roads. Travelers not being able to move at night. And your father’s words about uniting all the kingdoms against Narkissa. People don’t want to be ruled by vampires. They want their nights back, their lands safe.”
“I know how it is,” I said. “They drowned that soothsayer in the lower kingdom because a patron of the Church declared her a witch. Just because she was selling an elixir. And Nikhil’s uncle is the captain of the City Watch. He’s the one most desperate to find that hairless creature. Last year, after the first attacks, if you told any group of Chayans a few words about a v
ampire in their home city where their children slept, it would turn into a mob hunt in the blink of an eye. People half awake with torches in their hands, setting fire to whatever has the stench of blood. Stakes and spears run through anything paler than a summer’s tan.”
“Exactly what happened.”
“Tell me they didn’t burn down the whole home, Elsa. They’re not all vampires in there.”
“Well, they thought at least one person in the family was a vampire,” Elsa said. “Maybe more. It’s enough for people who are already that crazed. I thought it was mad too. The way they got riled up and were convinced of it. I’ve never seen my father like that, and my mother was egging it on—talking to him about making the city a safer place for me. That it could have been me and you instead of those two boys before the moon.” She paused to take water out of her satchel, undid the cork, then continued to speak without drinking.
“Maybe it was the vampire attacking the family. That’s what I told Mother. Maybe it was the family who needed help. And instead of helping, we trapped them in there and set fire to their home.”
“Unlikely,” I said.
Elsa drank from her satchel while my eyes wandered around the gardens. She passed the bottle to me when she was done. This was my favorite place in all the palace. Only Elsa knew that. Everyone else thought it was the library.
“Unlikely?” Elsa asked.
“If it were a vampire going to kill the family—it wouldn’t have fed near the stables just before going in there,” I replied. “Would have just fed on the family.”
“Right. I didn’t think of that. Strange things always happen around that house and to that family. There’s always a body found in the farmland near there every few months. Started a few years ago, Mother says. It didn’t take much convincing to get anyone to believe there was a vampire living in there, and that the family was somehow taking care of it. Helping it. You know what a mob is like.” She held her fist to her neck and made a twisting motion like a noose, twining her fingers around an invisible rope. “They were bent on burning the house down the moment they heard where the woman had gone. Already they’ve struck out the name Vannadray from all of their records. It’s like the family never existed.”
“I bet all the merchants who owed the family money were only too happy to oblige,” I said. “They were wealthy.”
Elsa nodded slowly, looking down.
“They burned the entire estate down?” I asked, shaking my head. “They had land too. Good farmland.”
“They burned it down. The whole thing, with all the family in it. Even salted the land afterward.”
“My father’s going to be furious,” I said.
“Is he?” Elsa asked. “He’s the one most resolute about standing up to vampires and Narkissa. Isn’t the Royal Court going to declare war against Rhauk tonight?”
“Not burning innocent people,” I chided, more defensively than I meant to. I was speaking with too much emotion. That’s not the way, Taa would say, in moments like these. She was always good at spotting even the smallest bits of sentiment that were wrapped in too many words. I was getting good at spotting them in my own words, but not yet in other people like Taa could. “Did anyone make it out alive?” I asked.
“Their youngest son. Avisynth. You know of him, no? Father Clairmont begs the boy’s father to let him into the Cathedral every other year, but his father always refuses. Says his son is better off not learning alchemy. I heard Clairmont telling Mother Mendhi the boy might be more talented than you.”
“Possible,” I said. “I’m sure if you take all the alchemists in all of Chaya, you’re bound to find one or two just as talented as me.” I smiled, pretending to know more than I was telling.
“I’d bet against it,” Elsa said, with a grin equally mischievous. “Your grandmother was the one who saved him out of the fire.”
“Taa? She’s here?” I asked, surprised I hadn’t heard from Mother. I looked around, as though she might appear suddenly in the gardens.
“Came out of thin air, my father said. Swooped into the house and grabbed the boy. Used magic with water—”
“Of course,” I said. “Taa could do it in her sleep.”
“She would slam a door with her open palms and drain the heat from a room. Stomp her foot in front of farmland and the very earth would move, licking up the fires around her with soil and clay. It’s no wonder why people don’t doubt your blood. Your mother and father are talented alchemists, but your Taa, she’s something else entirely. She knows more than just alchemy, doesn’t she? She knows the old magic.”
“And no one had a problem with her trying to save the family?” I asked, trying to evade the question.
“It wasn’t the family she was trying to save, I don’t think. Just the boy. Not that they’d do anything to your grandmother anyway.”
“Is he all right? The boy.”
“As okay as anyone could be with what happened to his family,” Elsa remarked. “Alive at the very least. He hasn’t said or eaten anything for a while now.”
“Where is Taa taking him?”
“Don’t know,” Elsa replied. “Haven’t heard that much. I’m sure he’s still in shock.”
“Probably the Cathedral. Or right here to the palace. Somewhere where he’ll be safe,” I said.
“They say that the vampire… the woman… was the boy’s mother.”
“Unlikely.” I twisted my lips in doubt.
“Who knows. They have a word for that you know. Half-vampires. Not many exist.”
“Feratu,” I said. “He doesn’t look like it. Aren’t his eyes supposed to shine, then? I saw him once, before the winter solstice last year. Seemed normal. I mean, everyone in that family is a bit odd. Was a bit odd.”
“You haven’t heard the worst of it,” Elsa said, flashing a glance at a vine slithering toward us. We picked up our pace. “As one of the houses in their estate was burning down, one of the older folk ran out, his body and clothes on fire. He was screaming, Saythana comes for Chaya. Saythana comes for all of you.” She whispered the name under her breath. “You could guess why the townsfolk don’t feel so bad now about what they did. They took the man’s words to mean that their suspicions were right all along.”
“Just a mad man bickering,” I said reluctantly.
“Maybe,” Elsa whispered uneasily. “My mother put seven dream catchers in the room where my brothers and I sleep. Woke me up before dawn. Bathed me in holy water, and made me put on cream of garlic.” She sniffed her hands. “As if Narkissa isn’t bad enough for the world.”
“I’m sure that helps,” I said, peering at her through the corner of my eyes. I caught a whiff of garlic, but I was certain that was just my imagination.
Elsa led the way out of the gardens. She stopped short in front of the carriages, letting me look over her shoulders. The one we usually rode in had been swapped for a six-wheeled iron caravan with three guards on the upper deck carrying spears and two standing on a wooden platform that extended from the back. Two alchemical torches were nailed to the sides, their silver colors lapping up into chrome ripples under the sunlight. There were hilts sticking out from the bottom of the caravan, where slots for longswords had been carved into a chestnut cabinet. The whole thing was pulled by only two horses. They were an off-white cream color, with large iron hooves around their feet and long entrails of turquoise hair. The muscles in their calves protruded sharply, then curved downward to their hooves like boomerangs. Two full-blooded Mehrin Shires.
“This?” I asked, gesturing to the vehicle with open palms. “Madam, did my mother say I had to charge into war for forgetting to read to my sisters last night?” I asked the driver. “I can’t just be made to do chores or something?”
She chuckled. A tall, light-skinned Chayan with light brown eyes. I had seen her before, leading the caravan that Father sometimes rode through the city. Her dark hair was bundled together with a loop of silk, held in place with a single brown feather quill.
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“Sorry, Princess,” she said with a frank smile. “Queen’s orders. Heard what happened last night?” She walked over to the horses to check the reins.
“Your sisters went in one too,” Elsa said. “I saw them earlier.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the doors. “Come on, we’re going to be late. You know how much the priests like to make an example out of you.”
“I swear my mother can really overreact sometimes. What could happen during the day? It’s her desert blood that makes her like this.” I twisted a hand in front of me, then bent it low to imitate a wave. “Everything in the ocean is mellow. If only she were a bit more like Father or me.”
“Right,” Elsa quipped, passing me a wink as she stepped inside the caravan. She held a hand out to help me in. The guards sealed the door behind us—even locked it with an iron bar. There was a second compartment in front of ours, where two more guards were sitting inside. A thin wooden board separated us, but there were holes cut into the center of the plank. The inside of the caravan was lit with the dim yellow of two sunlamps. Sunlamps during the day. Another of Mother’s inventions. In the winter, she would have us sit inside the fireplace if she thought it was too cold outside.
“How long has your grandmother been gone for?’ Elsa asked.
“Two months now.”
“To the old continent?”
“Yeah. She went to visit the Serpentine tribes. The Rho, to be specific.” I wiggled my hands in my hair, keeping an ominous, flat tone. “To figure out what their visions tell them about the future and the nether. I think it was the Sisterhood that asked her to go.”
The caravan rustled to a start. Downhill was the bumpiest part, but in an iron and cushioned caravan, you could barely feel the road. Your biggest fear here was that your horses might catch a scare and start sprinting downhill, letting the weight of your wagon crash into the bottom. Unlikely with Mehrin Shires. And knowing Mother’s tendencies, she wouldn’t let my sisters and I ride in a caravan unless the horses were trained well enough to read and write on top of their ferrying duties.
Vermilion Dreams (Book One of A Vampire Fantasy Epic) Page 3