by Emma Glass
“Yes,” I nodded thoughtfully.
“What kind of… dream was this, then?”
“Well,” I bit my bottom lip pensively. “It was more like a horrible nightmare, honestly. I dreamt that I was running for my life in a dark forest at night, chased by… something vicious.”
“And that vicious thing was my son?”
“No,” I smiled in fond recollection. “No, it wasn’t like that at all. Elliott always came to save me, bathed in shadows and fighting on my behalf. I could never really make out his face, but those eyes…” Interlocking my fingers in my lap, I smiled to myself. “I never forgot those eyes, especially not when finally seeing them in real life for the first time…”
“And you are convinced that it was my boy.”
“My savior had the same voice.”
“Your savior?” Lorelei smirked at me. “What a fascinating way to put the sentiment. Now, when you say, ‘Always’…”
“Oh, right,” I frowned. “Well, I’m so confident saying that it was him because I had a lot of time to study his shape. That dream haunted me for three weeks straight before I came here.”
“Interesting…” It was obvious that she didn’t believe me, but the matronly vampire seemed satisfied enough at that answer. “Do you still have this dream now?”
“No, not since arriving, funnily enough. I was just thinking about it the other day. It’s hard for me to remember now, it’s been so long…” I shook my head with a small smile. “Strange that I could always remember having the dream before, but I’d never think to check if I was asleep during it.”
Lorelei smirked. “What did you try to do?”
“Remember to pinch myself,” I chuckled.
“That never really works. Your mind remains conditioned to react how you’d expect; pinching is no different,” she noted aloofly. “Generally, you feel the pain, or a version of it.”
I turned to her. “Do you have a suggestion?”
“Sure. Learn how your palm feels as you run your finger down it. It’s far subtler. Mimic that in your dreams, and see how the sensation feels.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I noted as I tried it out. The feeling almost tickled; it brought to mind one of the other details from the dream. “I guess that it’s kind of a shame that I never got to figure out that island, though. The dream always cut off before I could ever get anywhere with that.”
I felt her stiffen next to me. “Island?”
“Yes, a distant island under the starry sky. The dark forest stopped at a cliff over the ocean; Elliott always came to my rescue before I fell. He fought off whatever vicious creature was chasing me and ordered me to try and reach the island.” I scrunched up my face. “It was quite a fair distance away, though. I would have never made it…”
Lorelei Craven remained conspicuously quiet.
“Is… is everything okay?” I asked her.
The former vampire lord rose up from the concrete bench, silently standing for a moment. Together, we watched a magical bird swoop down to alight on the pond’s surface.
“Does my son know about this dream?”
“It’s never come up,” I admitted.
“Good. Don’t tell him about it.”
I frowned in complete surprise. “I don’t think I get it. It’s just a dream right? Unless…” I looked up at Lorelei. “Is there something more to it?”
The vampire crossed her arms solemnly. “Do you honestly know very little of how you arrived in this world?”
“Just that weird, threatening gypsy woman. But if you heard the rest of the conversation, then you know about her. That’s literally all I know about it. Well, except…”
“Except?”
“The dream… at the end of the dream, I dove into the water every time. When she was chasing me, I kept thinking of the dream. Since she was coming after me around a lake, I took the hint and leapt into the water….”
“And that brought you here,” she replied.
“Yes. I had a hunch that I was thinking of it at the time for a reason, and my body just… reacted without me, now that I think about it.”
Lorelei looked in the distance sternly.
“But what does it all mean?” I asked. “I get the feeling that you have an idea.”
Her expression hardened gravely.
“There is quite possibly something powerful at foot here, Clara Blackwell. What troubles me is that I can’t decide if you were meant to be here, or if a trap was left and you were merely the fly who wandered into it…”
“Something powerful?”
Lorelei hesitated briefly. “I’ve been reading up on our history. Elliott considers the old stories to be just that – ‘Fables and nothing more.’ He does not believe in the old legends: the Sanguine Ones, the First Vampire War, or even the Cataclysm…”
“The Sanguine Ones? The Cataclysm?”
“Tales for another time,” she shook her head. “It would be too long to explain, and I admit to having no interest in telling the stories.”
“Does Elliott know them?”
She scoffed bitterly. “He doesn’t care. My son is a being of solitude and unquestioning logic. It’s useful sometimes. Other times, not. His taste for seclusion is what makes me so curious about how well he has adapted to keeping you around. But alas, his greatest strengths are his greatest faults… he is blind to what he cannot prove. In his eyes, I am a fool for putting faith in the myths.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t think all that.”
“Strange,” Lorelei replied in her usual aloof way. “You must not know him very well, then…”
I stared over the water. The Knightly Trio was still wandering absentmindedly along the shore, keeping a faint eye in my direction. If the vampire in my company planned to strike at me and drink my blood, they were too far away to stop her – but I figured that it would be a losing battle even if they stood with us here. Perhaps their distance from her is wise, then.
“Such a shame, in the end, that I couldn’t convince my foolish Elliott to view things from a different perspective,” Lorelei sighed heavily.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
Lorelei didn’t answer.
Instead, she fidgeted absentmindedly with dark curls of her hair, gazing off into space. It was as if she’d forgotten she even said anything. In the meantime we sat together in silence, watching the beauty of her gardens.
“The black wind howls…”
The words stuck in my head: the black wind?
Lorelei’s voice dropped into an ominous tone. “This world I’ve worked so hard to protect will soon plunge into a great and terrible darkness. My time draws to its close; there’s nothing more I can do to stop the changing paradigm that threatens us all. But from the charred ashes of my many failures, perhaps my progeny can fight…”
I’d never heard her speak like this before.
“Is the reason why you abdicated the throne?” I asked fearfully. “You sensed coming danger, and you thought that only Elliott can stop it?”
She kept her aloof gaze in the distance.
“My reasons were many, naïve little human; you will never learn them, not until my grave.”
Without another word, she left me alone at the side of her beautiful slice of handcrafted Eden. My guardians quickly made their way across the bridge towards me as I sat on that bench, silently contemplating her warning.
The black wind howls…
23
Elliott
Deep within the castle library, I sought the sage.
“My Lord,” Sebastian glanced up from a tome as I arrived in his office. “Sincerest apologies. I must have been too caught up in these notes to notice your presence.”
“It’s no bother,” I assured him. “But you know why I’m here. As the ruler of Stonehold, my duties will soon require me to leave the castle for days at a time. I need a progress report on our mission to keep Clara safe while I’m away.”
“Ah yes,” he nod
ded. “Your timing’s good!”
My eyebrow rose. “Oh?”
Sebastian rose from his desk and scooped up the open hardcover book. He carried it under his arm as he led me to the back room of his study, carefully brushing aside some open scrolls to lay the tome out before us.
“I believe I’ve found us a temporary solution. This is an ancient spell book that I discovered in here a few days ago, and I’ve been pouring over its contents…”
Briefly, I glanced over the handwritten text; it was scrawled in a magical language that I didn’t recognize. “What do you have in mind?”
Sebastian flipped pages. “The main problem here is that we have a transplanted human being, trapped in a world full of vampires. From what I can tell, there’s nothing I can do to make her less appealing to us. I’ve spent ages studying all kinds of possibilities, but nothing’s feasible. So, I turned to casting something on her, instead. Let me show you a little thing I’ve dug up here…”
The sage glanced around quickly; he lit up at the sight of a small bauble on a shelf, and quickly snatched it over.
“What is that?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, this old thing?” Sebastian lifted up the trinket for me to see. It was a small glass dome filled with swirling purple smoke, with a thick crack running up the side. “This little device is an old instrument of mine, from long before the days of chrysm.”
I tilted my head at it. “Tell me more.”
“Centuries ago, I used this contraption as a short marker. It was half of a set; I’d leave one on a particular bookcase with a tome of interest, and the other would stay here. When I needed to see that book, this would remind me where in the library its brother was.” The sage cheerily gave a small chuckle. “Used to have a ton of these things, had a whole system for them. But thanks to the rise of chrysm, I don’t have to rely on these old markers anymore…”
“Interesting,” I remarked casually as I studied the swirling smoke. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“Nope!” He gave it a small shake, watching how the murky gas spun with agitation. “No idea what causes it, either. As was so often the case with our older technology, this broke with age.” He looked at it fondly. “Why, this is probably the last one I have left, come to think of it…”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I noted. “It seems so obsolete now.”
“Everything has its place and time,” Sebastian offered respectfully. “At one point, even simple fire was a revolutionary gift. Such is the case of all inventions, at one point or another.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Right,” the sage took charge as he placed the glass dome down on the table in front. “So, let us see what happens when I try to cast this spell on our little marker here…”
While he scoured the text, I took a small step back to grant him space. Sebastian was muttering silently under his breath as he read the text, his fingertip sliding down page after page.
“Here we are…”
He took a small step away from the table and held his palms over the glass marker. “Watch very carefully now, my Lord…”
The sage’s voice boomed with spiritual power as he recited an incantation: “Vidis venum! Vidis carnum! Vidis pasidentia von kali korrum!”
His hands began to tremble as a whitish-blue glow slowly overcame them. “Because I am not a trained magic practitioner,” he explained over the steady thrum of his shining hands, “I have to prepare with an infusing charm. Now, we can try the proper spell…”
I couldn’t ignore how drained the sage looked. “We can stop this if you need to,” I spoke loudly.
“It’s fine, my Lord!” He nearly gasped out the words. “The charm I chose is technically cheating. It takes a few years to learn the right one, but our friend doesn’t have that kind of time! This one is a highly expensive shortcut. I can only get away with one try before it saps me for today!”
“Carry on, then. I won’t distract you.”
Sebastian nodded gruffly. He slowly moved his glowing hands closer to the marker, hovering them just over the cracked glass dome. After a few moments to catch his breath, he gazed over the text one last time before blurting out syllables of ancient magic.
“Horrudus verzoni kast! Pavik katro deisto! Vile hayvor kon pellek du vong!” Sebastian gasped for air and I nearly stepped in to stop him. Sensing my concern, he merely shook his head, then took a deep breath and shouted: “Kraket nestro lon passeck satchee kahn dellis!”
His hands shook violently, glowing brighter.
To my astonishment, the whitish-blue aura around his hands moved to the marker in a burst. I steadied Sebastian as he swayed in place; he held onto me and wiped his brow with his wrist.
“Look!” He pointed at the table. “There!”
I followed his finger with my gaze.
The glow had left the marker. It still sat in place on the table, but the device was slipping in and out of blurriness. I could barely focus on it anymore; the marker seemed to shift in visibility. Had I not known it was there, I might not have been able to see it at all. Only for a second at a time was it clear to my sight.
“What on earth…?” I gasped.
With great effort, Sebastian steadied himself. “That, my Lord… that is how we will keep your guest safe in this castle.”
“You plan to make her invisible?”
He shook his head, catching his breath. “No, the effect is quite different on inanimate objects. In her case, it should simply mask her whatever insatiable allure her blood has. It will dull her to our senses.”
I turned to him. “Are you telling me that you mean to cast this directly on her?”
“Of course not!” He smiled reassuringly.
“Good,” I noted. “Because that would–”
“Somebody else will have to do that.”
I paused in my tracks. “What?”
“In a perfect world, we would simply use this spell to enchant something small – like a locket, perhaps – and give it to her to wear. However, it would need to be enchanted repeatedly to keep the spell’s strength. Over time, the effects would rapidly diminish. It’s just not worth the effort.”
“So you suggest we enchant Clara instead?”
“From what I’ve read, living creatures seem to keep spells like this perpetually going. It wouldn’t cause her any harm; it would sustainably feed off of the natural energy around her and maybe even reinforce it.”
“You’re sure this won’t harm her...?”
“My Lord, this is the only solution I’ve got,” he noted as his lungs finally stopped heaving. “As far as I’m aware, this will work. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem.”
“You need someone else,” I recalled.
He nodded tiredly. “A weak demonstration on this level wipes me out, my Lord. My restrictions make it impossible for me to cast this spell on her myself. Even if I tried… miscasting it could spell disaster for her. No, with its difficulty level, this is going to require a skill level far beyond anything that I could do. You will need to conscript a proper, powerful wielder of magic to perform a spell like this on a live human…”
I considered this for a moment.
“But it should mask the human wherever she goes,” he nodded with exhaustion. “From all that I’ve read, this is the answer to your problems…”
“Should,” I repeated bitterly. “That is no way for me to protect her, is it now? Should? How am I supposed to guarantee Clara’s safety in a world of people who want to feast on her blood when all I have at my disposal is based upon should?”
He lowered his head in dejection.
“I… I’m sorry, my Lord. I’ll get straight back to work deciphering the texts.” Sebastian pulled himself back down into the chair, reaching for the tome again. “Perhaps, somewhere in here, I can find a deeper guarantee…”
A reluctant sigh left my chest. “Sebastian, I’m sorry. You’ve done plenty enough already. Take the rest of the
day off and get yourself some rest.”
“That’s quite gracious, my Lord.”
“Nonsense. You’re exhausted.”
“Well… maybe after I read a little more…”
I shook my head. “No. I won’t hear any of it. Resume your work later. In the meantime, I’ll see about tracking down someone capable of casting this protection spell for you…”
Very nearly, I thought he smiled as I left.
An hour later, Lorelei was my side as I sat in the throne. Before the two of us knelt my finest and fastest couriers. Between them all, I expected the kingdom to be canvased with the information within mere days. There were eight couriers in total: more than enough for the task at hand.
“All of you will be sent onto the mainland,” I instructed them. “There is an important message that I need spread throughout the land: Stonehold Castle is in great need of a powerful magic-user to perform a challenging spell. Beyond that, I don’t have any other specific qualifications. But this is an urgent matter, and I need someone capable as quickly as possible.”
The couriers all nodded in tandem. They all served in this role for their reliability and speed; a solid courier could swiftly and safely rush across the kilometers, no matter the terrain.
“Good. Go then. Contact every last settlement, every city within the kingdom. Divide the work however you see fit. Return when you are done.”
The group rose and gave their respects before leaving for the altered chrysm node that would teleport them to the mainland. From there, they’d spread out in every direction and take my message to the winds.
“A powerful spell?” Lorelei noted.
“Yes,” I leaned back in the throne, folding my fingers together to resting my chin over them. “It seems that Sebastian has found a way to help Clara after all. But the solution requires greater skill in magic than he can offer.”
“Well, that’s certainly a shame,” she replied indifferently. “But I do wonder: is it wise to be so obvious in your hunt?”
I glanced up at her. “Go on…”
“Assuming that it’s true the other vampire lords know about Clara,” she wondered aloud, “is it a good idea to so conspicuously ransack the kingdom for a formidable magic user?”