by Nathan Spain
“I can guarantee you,” Thanatos said in his silky-smooth voice, “she finds you just as insufferable. If she can stomach your presence for courtesy’s sake, surely you can find the strength of will to return the favor, at least for a little while.”
Brone snorted dismissively. “Wonder what kind of crap she’s going to try and feed us tomorrow. All this ‘fate of vampire-kind, the world is changing and we must change with it’ nonsense. I don’t know about you, but the Blackwings are gettin’ by okay. Prey’s a lot thinner now, sure, but we make do.”
“For now, perhaps. Surely there’s room for improvement in your situation. Show a little ambition, Brone.”
“Oh, I’ve got ambition.” Draven didn’t need to see Brone’s face to sense the sneer on it. “Maybe not quite like you, Thanatos, you crazy bastard, but I ain’t settlin’ for less, don’t you worry. I’ve got some ideas of my own for the future of vampire-kind, and I don’t think Selene will like them much.”
Brone laughed, an off-putting chortle, and while Thanatos refrained from such a display, Draven could hear a smile in his next words. “Well, I do believe Selene intends the debate to be an open exchange of ideas.”
“Oh, we’ll get the chance to say our piece. And we’ll see who comes out of that exchange with the better deal, won’t we?”
“Indeed. The only wildcard at this stage is Lady Rosanna.”
Brone scoffed. “There’s a reason the Stormfangs are the smallest clan. Rosanna acts tough, but she doesn’t have the guts to expand her reach. She’s young and foolish. Just watch, Selene will paint a pretty picture of the future and sway her to the side of compromise.” His voice dripped with contempt at the last word. “But we aren’t compromisers, are we, Thanatos? When we see a stake in the future up for grabs, we take it.”
“Certainly,” Thanatos said, his voice the even keel to Brone’s greedy fire. “But you must have patience. Don’t make any rash moves until we’ve heard what Selene and Rosanna have to say.”
“Why?” Brone snapped. “What’s the point?”
Draven thought he heard a note of frustration creep into Thanatos’ calm tone. “Haste breeds mistakes. You must learn to take the temperature before you take the plunge.”
“You had better not let me down,” Brone growled. “I’m counting on you. And against my better judgment, I might add.”
“Don’t worry,” Thanatos said. “I’m prepared to do whatever must be done. But come, there’s nothing left to be accomplished today. When the sun sets, and the Stormfangs arrive, then we shall see what the new night brings.”
Their voices gave way to footsteps, and with a sudden lurch of his stomach, Draven realized they were heading toward the very door he was standing behind.
There was no obvious place to hide within sight, and no time to get very far away. He would be spotted for sure. In a panic, he did the only thing he could think of and transformed into his bat form. He quickly fluttered through the air and down behind a nearby couch.
A split-second later, the door opened and Brone and Thanatos stepped inside.
Immediately, Brone halted, holding up an arm in warning to Thanatos. Draven heard him inhale. “You smell that?” he whispered.
Thanatos sniffed the air as well. “I smell something, but there have been a lot of people here today.”
“Not since sunrise,” Brone said. “No…this is fresh.”
He crept forward, following the scent. Draven, pressed against the floor under the couch in bat form, tried hard to stay as still and quiet as possible.
Brone’s footsteps grew closer, until Draven could see the Blackwing lord’s boots standing right in front of his precarious hiding place.
“Brone!” Thanatos hissed. “Leave it. We should return to our rooms.”
Brone stood in silence for a moment, and then his feet retreated.
“I’m telling you,” Draven heard Brone whisper, “someone was here.”
“Perhaps, but that’s all the more reason not to linger. Come, we shouldn’t risk being seen together. Someone might jump to conclusions.” It seemed to Draven that he said the last part a little more pointedly than was necessary.
Draven waited until their footsteps had long since faded away before he came out. He crept cautiously back upstairs and down the hall of the Wineblood’s wing of the lodge, not relaxing until he was back in his room and safely in the clear.
He paced back and forth, trying to sort out the implications of what he had just heard. He wasn’t sure exactly what Thanatos and Brone were conspiring about, but the fact that they met in secret, in the dead of day, wasn’t a good sign.
He considered going straight to Selene, but hesitated. He knew she wouldn’t be receptive to being disturbed while she slept, certainly not without news more specific than ‘Brone and Thanatos were talking in secret.’ Hell, he’d be shocked if she wasn’t already suspecting such plotting. Brone had a reputation for being a schemer; it was reportedly how he came into power in the first place. It would be more surprising if he didn’t have something up his sleeve. And from what Draven had heard, it didn’t sound like there was any immediate danger. Thanatos had advised patience, after all.
So Draven stayed put, but resolved to discreetly inform Selene at the first opportunity after dusk. And, he thought, to caution Ariadne and Damian that Thanatos and Brone were not to be trusted. They could probably guess as much themselves, but it wouldn’t hurt to tell them what he’d heard. He would keep a close eye on the lords, and watch his friends’ backs.
It took a long time before sleep finally came for Draven that day, and as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky, he remained firmly in slumber’s embrace.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ariadne rose early, at the crack of dusk. She and Damian went down to the dining hall and breakfasted together on a bottle of blood. It tasted of peppermint and was quite delicious, but she sipped at it absentmindedly. She was busy rehearsing in her head what to say the next time she saw Draven.
More vampires filtered in looking for a drink to start the night, Winebloods, Blackwings and Nightcloaks alike, though they tended to stick to their respective groups rather than mingling. Every time someone entered the room, Ariadne’s eyes glanced up and then fell again.
“Looking for Draven?” Damian asked.
Ariadne wrinkled her nose. “Is it that obvious?”
Damian took a sip from his glass. “Call it an educated guess. I don’t think he’s up yet, though.”
“I didn’t hear him return to his room last night. Did you?”
Damian raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t waiting for him.”
Ariadne frowned, looking down at the glass in front of her. “He was with Lady Selene, I think. I saw them leave the main hall together, after the Blackwings arrived.” She let out a short, frustrated sigh. “Anyways, he won’t be able to avoid me for long. I won’t let him.”
“That’s the spirit,” Damian said, without a hint of sarcasm, as he sipped his glass of blood.
Ariadne forced herself off the topic. It did her no good to stew in her anticipation. “But enough about Draven. How are you feeling, Dad? This must be so exciting for you. Tonight’s the night!”
“So it is.” Damian’s aged eyes lit up with a flash of eagerness. “It’s an exciting moment for us all.”
“But for you especially. I know what this summit means to you, how much you advocated for it.”
“Oh, I didn’t do that much,” Damian said modestly. “Lady Selene’s the one who put the whole thing together.”
“Only because you encouraged her. This wouldn’t have become a reality without you.”
“Come now, I just whispered in the Lady’s ear a bit. It’s just fortunate that she respects me enough to listen.”
“You’ve earned that respect,” Ariadne insisted. “And if this summit goes well, you’ll have earned some of the credit for that, too.”
Damian smiled warmly. “I appreciate that. But I don’t care that much about
who gets the credit. It’s the results that matter.”
“I know,” she said, reaching for his hand and giving it an affectionate squeeze. “And that’s precisely why I’m proud of you.”
Another figure entered the dining hall, and Ariadne’s gaze snapped up once again. For a second, she almost didn’t place him; he looked different in a fresh Wineblood shirt and vest than he had in his ragged, travel-worn clothes the night before. Much more like the man she remembered.
She nudged Damian. “Look who it is.”
Draven scanned the now-crowded room before his eyes settled on them. He strode straight to their table.
“Have either of you seen Selene yet tonight?” he asked, by way of greeting. He seemed agitated; he kept clenching and unclenching his hand.
“She hasn’t been through here yet,” Ariadne said. “Is there something wrong?”
His gaze flicked toward her, but he didn’t maintain eye contact. “It’s important that I speak to her.”
“Then you’ll have to search elsewhere, I’m afraid,” Damian said amiably. “But what’s so urgent?”
Draven opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. He glanced around the room, and Ariadne followed his gaze; to the group of quiet Blackwings seated two tables away from them; to the Winebloods clustered around the long table, filling their glasses from large pitchers of blood; and finally, to a trio of Nightcloaks leaning against the wall with drinks in their hands. Ariadne noticed them stealing covert glances at their table.
Draven noticed it, too. “Not here,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Meet me outside on the back terrace and I’ll fill you in.”
He didn’t wait for a confirmation, but turned heel and left the hall, leaving the puzzled pair in his wake.
“Well,” exclaimed Damian under his breath. “I wonder what all that was about.”
“Don’t look at me,” Ariadne said. Her frustration with Draven’s blunt behavior was tamped down by a growing concern.
“I think we had better go talk to him, hadn’t we?”
Ariadne glanced at the Nightcloaks by the wall, but only for an instant; just long enough to confirm the other vampires’ eyes were still on them. A strange unease welled up in the pit of her stomach. “Yes, I think we should. But don’t get up yet.” She put a hand on his arm and a warning in her eyes. “Let’s finish our drinks first.”
----
Draven was leaning against the stone patio wall when they arrived, clearly trying to look casual. His back was turned to them, but Ariadne could see the tension in his stance.
Damian spoke first. “So, what’s this all about, Draven?”
Draven glanced around nervously, although the only other vampires in sight were a small group of Winebloods at the other side of the terrace. “There are too many ears here,” he whispered. “Come, follow me.”
Ariadne raised a suspicious eyebrow at him, but Damian nodded and said, “Very well. Lead the way.”
The three of them transformed into their bat forms; Draven’s large, black bat, Ariadne’s smaller, golden-furred one, and Damian’s gray one with the torn ear. With Draven in the lead, the three bats flew down the slope of the hill and across the water’s surface to the little cinder cone island in the middle of the lake.
They alighted in the round, caved-in crater of the island’s peak, a small, desolate-looking patch of rocks, dirt, and tiny, scraggly trees. There they changed back into their human forms.
“Okay,” said Ariadne, “why are we here?”
Draven paced back and forth across the rocky ground. “I need to warn you about something, and I didn’t want to risk being overheard by the wrong pair of ears.”
Ariadne shared a glance with her father, but they let Draven continue. “I couldn’t sleep this morning,” he said, “so I took a walk through the lodge, and I overheard a conversation between Thanatos and Brone. They were standing in the shade on the terrace, right where we just were, while everyone else slept. Clearly, they didn’t want to be overheard, either.”
“Interesting,” Damian murmured. “Very interesting indeed. What do you suppose they’re plotting?”
“I honestly couldn’t say,” Draven admitted. “I didn’t hear anything concrete enough to give away their plans, but it’s obvious they have some agenda of their own.”
“That’s not exactly surprising, is it?” Ariadne pointed out.
“Just because a thing is unsurprising doesn’t make it any less serious,” Damian said sagely. “This was always a potential downside of getting everyone together, but I didn’t expect alliances to be drawn up so soon. Thanatos and Brone could be a dangerous combination. Brone, by himself, is unpleasant but not too hard to deal with. He’s an odious autocrat, loved by no one, trying to cling to his ill-gotten power by any means necessary. The only interests he acts in are his own, which makes him predictable.”
“Thanatos could be a problem, though,” Draven said.
Damian nodded in agreement. “Thanatos is a different breed. He’s a harsh ruler, but under his leadership, the Nightcloaks have not only survived, but prospered. He has the fierce loyalty of his clan members, and they give it willingly – he doesn’t have to demand loyalty like Brone.”
“They both give me the creeps,” Ariadne said bluntly. “The more I hear, the more I’m getting worried about us trying to negotiate with people like them.”
Damian sighed. “I never claimed reaching an agreement would be easy. But Thanatos and Brone control half the country, so we’re forced to deal with them, like it or not.”
“What about the Stormfangs?” Draven asked. “Brone seemed to think Lady Rosanna would be easily swayed toward siding with Selene’.”
“It’s possible,” Damian mused. “It could go either way with her, to be honest. Rosanna and Selene don’t share borders, and so relations between them have never been as strained, but from what I’ve heard, Lady Rosanna is a bit…well, she’s a free spirit, put it that way. I suppose we’ll get our first indication soon.”
Ariadne kicked a rock in frustration; it sailed high over the ridge of the crater and disappeared down the other side. The apprehension she’d been feeling for days threatened to boil over. “This summit is looking more and more like an uphill battle. What if we’re just wasting our time out here playing at doomed diplomacy? Maybe we should just implement our own sustainability policies for our clan and let the rest of them sort out their own problems.”
“And what do you think will happen,” Draven said, “if the humans grow scarcer and scarcer and the Blackwings and Nightcloaks begin to run out of food? Trust me, their problems will become our problems in due time. They’ll start eyeing our territory, and before you can blink, we’ll have a war for resources on our hands.”
“I thought your opinion was that the summit was a lost cause,” Ariadne retorted. “Isn’t that what you told Dad?”
“Yes and no,” Draven admitted. “I agree with you that we’ll be hard-pressed to find solutions that everyone can agree on. But I’ve begun to see Damian’s point of view about why it’s necessary to at least try.”
Damian interrupted them. “If I may butt in for a moment, I suggest we find Lady Selene and tell her what you found out, Draven. That was your original intent back in the dining hall, was it not?”
Draven nodded, but before he could reply, Ariadne seized the conversational reins again.
“Great,” she said. “Can you go tell her, Dad? I want to stay and talk to Draven.”
Damian glanced from Draven to his daughter. “Very well. But try to go easy on him, Ariadne. I would like him to remain in one piece if possible.”
The corner of her mouth curled upward. “No promises.”
Damian transformed and flew off, back toward the lodge. Ariadne and Draven were left alone at the center of the rocky crater.
He sat down on a rock. “Go on, Ariadne. What did you want to talk about?”
“I want to know why you chose to come here,” she said, keeping her tone co
ol and her voice level. “Was it for Dad? So you could take Selene up on her offer to end your exile? Or did you come for another reason? For –”
“For you?” he said, finishing her thought. “Is that what you’re hoping I’ll say? That I rejoined civilization because I wanted to see you again?”
She stood with her back straight, holding her breath for a moment before asking, “Well, did you?”
Draven laughed. “Never one to mince words, were you?”
Ariadne rolled her eyes. “Answer the question.”
He raised his head, looking her straight in the eyes, and she held his gaze, determined not to look away.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I suppose that was part of it. At the time I chalked it up to a nagging discontent, a feeling that it was time for a change. But now I think I know what, specifically, I wanted that change to be.”
Now she did look away, her breathing heavy, her head pointed toward the ground as she bit down on her lip. She closed her eyes, inhaling and letting out a long breath. She had been prepared for anger, for another argument, but now she found that the only emotion she had room for was something softer and more truthful.
“You could have done something sooner,” she said after a moment. “You didn’t have to wait so long.”
“My exile –” he began, but stopped himself. “No, you’re right, that’s a poor excuse. I could have stayed in contact with you somehow, if I’d really tried to. It’s just…the more time passed, the easier it became to convince myself that you had probably moved on. If I had known that my absence still weighed this heavily on you…”
“Oh, stop, before you flatter yourself,” she scoffed. “It’s not like I spent thirty years pining. You might be my sire” – her face crinkled in distaste at the word – “but you weren’t my last relationship, you know.”
“You’ve been with other men?”
She thought she detected a hint of envy in his voice, but he was trying hard not to let it show.
