by Ted Dekker
I couldn’t have kept Sofia’s hands off me if I wanted to. It just wasn’t their way. Pushing her away would be like rebuking a puppy for licking my fingers. But she did not overstep herself, content to keep her fingers on my hair and arms and shoulders and chest.
Naturally there was danger; only a fool would not see that. But the threat was that I might be ensnared by vice, not by any harm they intended.
We talked of Moldavia and the occupation, of the church and of the Russo-Turkish war. They demanded I tell them of some conquest, which I reluctantly did. Then they wanted another story, and another, and they were all quite impressed by my abilities on the battlefield.
Alek and I had just finished a tale about our time in Lithuania, when we’d taken refuge in a harem to escape an army of infidels, when Dasha rose amid the laughter and crossed to the cellar that stored the wine. She returned carrying a dark bottle with a red cord around its neck.
The glass was stamped with the same crest I’d seen throughout the castle, the image of that strange batlike creature.
“My friends, what can you tell Toma about duty and honor?” she asked, approaching.
Simion twisted his neck and kissed his lover’s forehead, smiling. “That duty and honor are the slaves of true affection, not the other way around.”
The words hit me like knuckles tapping on my forehead. “Is that so?”
“It is God’s way,” Dasha said. “We aren’t machines meant to perform, but creatures of love, of emotion. Ultimately we all give our loyalty only to that for which we have true affection. Our dreams, hopes, and desires lead us, not our duty to a master. Unless we have true affection for that master, yes?”
In that moment, perhaps for the first time in my life, I understood the certainty of what they meant. I, like they, was led by my heart, not by duty.
I looked at Alek, who was grinning. “It’s true,” he said. “Only a fool would deny it.”
“And when your affection opposes duty?” I asked.
“Following any duty for more than a few days or years requires a desire to do so,” Simion said. “That is its own kind of affection, the desire to follow a system. But in the end our hearts rule our lives.”
I had never thought of my duty in those terms. For me, this was a moment of epiphany that made me think of Lucine.
“You know, Toma,” Dasha said, “we tend to live in the extreme here.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“We make blood oaths. For us, we must live, really live. But only blood can give any of us life. Cut your wrist, bleed out on the ground, and you die. Without blood there is nothing for the heart to pump, and it goes limp.”
Blood.
“Blood. Lifeblood. Yet so many living, breathing souls on this earth have shriveled hearts and shrunken veins. They are neither hot-blooded nor cold-blooded. They are only bloodless.”
She said the truth, though I was uncertain about her figure of speech.
“Yes?” she prompted.
“Yes,” I said.
“Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, isn’t that what the priests say?”
“Something of that kind.”
Dasha pulled the cork from the bottle with a soft pop.
“Have you ever wondered why?” She stood holding the bottle, waiting for my response.
“I’m not very religious,” I said.
“Why did blood have to be drawn from the veins to cleanse the guilty stains of even the most righteous? Hmm? Why did Christ drink from that cup called death and bleed out for the world? You never think of any of these things?”
“On occasion, but as I said, I am not so religious.”
“Blood,” she said. She lifted my chalice and tipped the bottle as she spoke. “Not a substance, but life itself. One life for another. The wages of sin.” A thick fountain of blood poured into my brass goblet, but she quickly lifted the bottle, leaving only a taste at the bottom.
“Stealing life from one soul to feed the lust of another is eternal death to the thief, I can assure you of that.” She swirled the wine. “And the blood is life.”
“And yet I sense no shortage of lust here,” I said.
“No shortage, no. We do lust. But we don’t steal others’ souls to feed that lust. We take only what is freely given. There is not a shred of infidelity here among our clan.”
I could only take her word for it.
“This is why wine is so important to us. It represents blood. Take and drink in remembrance.” She sat next to me, drew her legs up to one side, and leaned close, sniffing the goblet.
“This wine is our own blend, thicker than most, almost like the blood it symbolizes. It’s easy to confuse sometimes.”
Natasha’s bedsheets.
“It’s strong enough to burn your mouth if you drink too much and aren’t accustomed to it.” The room had grown deathly silent. She brought her mouth to my ear and spoke very softly. “We share it only with our closest lovers.”
Then she handed me the goblet, like a treasured offering.
It smelled odd, not fruity or acidic like most wines. Musty.
“Drink it,” she said.
I looked up at Alek and saw his eagerness for my tasting. He nodded once. So I lifted the chalice to my lips and I drank their wine.
It was lukewarm. And I could swear that it did indeed taste like blood, with only a hint of grape juice to cut the flavor. But it did not revolt me.
I took only a sip, then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. It came away bloody red. Dasha took the goblet from my hand, pushed me back against the couch, and brought her lips to mine.
A soft tongue licked at my lower lip to taste what I had left behind. Her mouth hovered over mine, her breath warmer than the wine. I started to lift my hand to push her away.
“He is mine, Dasha,” Sofia said.
And it was enough. Dasha withdrew before I could remove her. Her eyes were fired and her mouth parted. She pushed off me and collapsed back on the couch beside Simion.
Alek leaned forward. “Well?”
But my eyes went to Dasha first. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I am not your private chalice to drink from.” Then back to Alek. “It tasted a bit rotten.”
He laughed and slapped his knee. “Of course!”
“Of course, what?”
“The finest wines always do.”
They do?
And then they were all laughing. Even Dasha, who’d been rebuked. Even I, who’d done that rebuking, chuckling.
Dasha’s face suddenly fell flat and she bored into me with fierce eyes that cut to my bone. “I will drink from whomever I wish,” she said.
Only a beat of silence.
Then she laughed again and the rest with her, as if this was a ridiculously funny statement.
It was then that I first felt my head start to spin.
The room began to bend.
FIFTEEN
Lucine stared out the only window in Vlad van Valerik’s round tower library, lost in thought about all that Natasha had told her—in part because much of it made no sense, in part because it all made perfect sense.
Hearing of Natasha’s nights up here had filled her with a sense of regret. Once again she’d missed out, even though on nothing that would normally draw her. What was revelry but an invitation to debauchery?
But there was more to Natasha’s descriptions of the Russians’ tireless pursuit of pleasure, a kind of wonder and mystery that was born out of true love, not the typical abuse of one party for the gain of another.
One might be convinced Natasha had stumbled upon the truest vein of nobility, not a den of vain conceit.
Could such pleasure be a good thing? They were Cantemirs, of course, known for extravagant balls and unabashed celebration. But next to these Russians, they would all be called prudes.
Lucine had spent half an hour watching Natasha twirling about the library as she spoke of Simion and magic and love, such a ridiculous obsession w
ith love. Natasha was curious as a cat, bounding about, daring to touch the paintings, sniffing the candles, sitting in Valerik’s chair, and running her fingers over the desk. After all, this was where Vlad sat. This painting might actually have been painted by Vlad himself—he was a painter, did Lucine know? And these books surely contained Vlad’s secrets, whatever they might be.
The room had grown quiet behind her. She turned and saw that she was alone.
“Natasha?”
Alarm flashed down her neck.
“Natasha!”
“Shh!”
Lucine spun to her right and saw that the door at the back of the library was open.
“Natasha?” She hurried up to the door and peered through.
Natasha stood at the foot of a large canopied bed, gazing around at the furnishings in a richly appointed bedroom.
“This is his bedroom!” she whispered. “He sleeps here.”
The hide of a large bear lay on the wood floor beneath Natasha’s boots. She ran her fingers over a silk bedspread the color of red wine. More portraits on the circular walls, spaced out in perfect order. Swags of red velvet that draped from ceiling to floor framed each painting. Tall golden candlesticks holding a dozen flaming candles stood on either side of the bed.
Lucine was sure she’d stepped into a king’s bedchamber. It was utterly magnificent.
“Have you been in here?”
“Never,” Natasha said, turning. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though?”
“I can’t say.”
“Then hear it from me, Lucine. There would be no greater honor, no finer pleasure, nothing so intoxicating as spending one night alone with this king.”
“Now he’s a king?” She said it as much to distance herself from the idea as to ask a serious question.
“Haven’t you been listening to me? A king, an emperor, what’s the difference? This place calls to me like the blood itself.”
“Blood?”
“Life. It’s our way of talking about life.”
“Wine. Blood. Life. And now it’s our way, not their way. However innocent it may all be, you’ve gone too far, Natasha. Surely you can see that.”
Her sister ignored the challenge. “Stefan and I are to be wed,” she said.
Lucine wasn’t sure she’d heard it right. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we will have our wedding. I am going to stay with him.”
“But . . .” She was appalled by the idea. Mother would be furious.
Natasha closed the distance between them in two long steps. “It’s a bond to royalty, Lucine. Mother will be delighted!”
“You were just talking of throwing yourself at Vlad, but you plan on marrying this—” She stopped cold. “Stefan, did you say? He was killed.”
Natasha caught herself. “Well, no. He wasn’t as dead as we all thought after all.”
“How is that possible?”
“You’ll see. Don’t worry about it, Lucine. You must join me! We could join them together. You with Vlad, me with Stefan. Mother would be ecstatic; you know how much she loves Moldavia. It would be a match made in heaven!”
“Please, no, you are moving too fast! I haven’t even agreed to allow the man to court me. I know so little about”—she flung her arms at the walls—“all of this.”
The idea of it was dizzying.
“I have to speak to Toma!”
“Toma? What does he have to do with this?”
“He’s the voice of reason in my head now. You and Alek are crazed and half bewitched for all I know. Mother is hardly better. Please, we have to find him and sort all of this out.”
“There is nothing to sort out. You either desire Vlad or you don’t. And Toma is no match for Vlad, not in any kind of way. I can’t believe you even think of him.”
“He’s sworn to protect us!”
“He’s a servant!”
“He’s the reasonable one.”
“He’s at the mercy of another.”
That whore again. And the reminder of it stung Lucine more than she cared.
“Then show me. Show me that Toma agrees and I will reconsider it all.”
Natasha looked at her for a long spell, then gazed at the room one last time and sighed.
“Fine. Follow me, dear Sister.”
I knew that something was wrong with my senses, but the nature of that wine’s intoxication was such that I was hard-pressed not to enjoy it.
No . . . no, it was more than that.
I was quite sure that something other than wine was in that goblet from which I had sipped. The feeling of rapture that engulfed me came as a delightful surprise despite my knowledge that my state of dissociation could not be entirely healthy.
But as my world began to bend, I longed for it to bend even more.
I managed to push myself to my feet. “I think I should be going now, Alek,” I said.
“So soon?”
“I think I’m seeing things.”
To this they said nothing.
Sofia was up and I could feel her whisper in my ear. “Don’t push it back, dear Toma. It will help you accept love.”
Other than bending my world, the drink freed my heart and loosened my tongue. Restraint fell from me like severed chains.
“I am in love with another woman, Sofia,” I said. Tears sprang to my eyes.
“Yes, but we aren’t made for just one.”
“You don’t understand,” I cried. “I haven’t told her! I am bound by an oath to my empress, Catherine, so I haven’t allowed myself to love the way my heart longs to love. But I love her! And the world is gone from me now, bending and twisting away because I’ve lied!”
“No, Toma,” I heard Dasha say. “Your world is bending under the power of the blood.”
“I drank your blood?”
“Not mine.”
I walked to the fireplace and faced them, overwhelmed with emotion, tears wetting my cheeks. “But I love Lucine, Alek! And I haven’t told her.”
He sprang to his feet, then rushed to me and wrapped his arms around me. “Don’t worry, Toma!” My man was weeping with me. “All’s well. She knows.”
“I have not told her!” I cried.
“She’s seen it in your eyes!”
“I denied it.”
“She knows, Toma!”
“My heart breaks when I see her because I am bound by duty and I cannot tell her.”
I stood bellowing like a bull, forcefully convinced that I must return to her. That I had to confess my unabashed devotion to her.
“I love her, Alek!” Clever words failed me entirely. “I will die . . .”
Then I was moving, pushing him off me, striding for the door, through the library, into the tunnel and left, toward the entrance. Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I strode in long steps. The hall was bent before me.
The others made no attempt to stop me, but they were beside me, behind me, like a pack of wolves. I could feel their breath and their eyes on me.
“Let it take you, Toma,” Sofia said. “Let his blood take you.”
I began to run, a stumbling gait that threatened to propel me to the floor or throw me against the wall. But I kept my legs and I ran, down that hall, into the atrium outside, through the outer door, up the curved stone stairs.
When I reached the main floor, this blood they talked about had reduced me to my most fundamental instincts.
“Where is the way out?” I cried, lost and directionless.
“Ahead, Toma. Through the doors.”
So I lunged forward, through those doors, into another room, the one that had been filled with others an hour earlier, now vacant.
But I only made it halfway through the room before my mind started to shut down and I forgot where I was going. I stopped by a couch and I wept.
Arms were around me. Whispers in my ear. “I love you, Toma.” I heard only Lucine, though I can tell you I knew it was not her. I knew it was Sofia.
I sat heavily, emb
raced by a warmth of love like I had never known. I felt fingers pulling at the ties on my shirt. Lips on my neck and face.
“I am here now, Toma.”
Then my sight faded and I let myself go.
The room went dark.
“Where are we going?” Lucine asked.
“To find your precious Toma,” Natasha said.
“You know where he is?”
“No. But he’s here somewhere, that I can promise you.”
They walked through the grand ballroom, emptied of any human. The scope and beauty of this castle were enough to draw the interest of any architect, raise the eyebrow of any ruler, knowing that another ruler lived here.
“What if he’s left?” Lucine asked.
“No one leaves so quickly. You fail to grasp how powerful Vlad is, Sister. How irresistible love can be.”
And you fail to grasp how strong Toma is, Sister.
But she didn’t say it. Instead she wondered what about Toma had convinced her of his strength. Perhaps because she was no fool and knew even by his side glances, by his running off to tend to frivolous tasks, by his silence in her presence, that he loved her. Which could only mean that his refusal to demonstrate that love was caused by his loyalty to duty.
But she could be mistaken.
“For all I know, he’s in the tunnels with Sofia and Dasha,” Natasha said, leaning into a door that led out the back of the ballroom. She pushed it. “But he’s here somewhere. I can promise . . .”
She stopped.
Lucine stepped up to her sister. “What is it?” And then she saw.
Toma.
She knew immediately it was him sprawled out there on the couch with his shirt half undone and his head in the lap of that whore, Sofia. She saw the truth, but she rejected it out of hand. The sight did not align with her understanding of him.
They were alone on the couch, washed by a low orange glow from the candles. Sofia looked up and stared at her as she ran delicate fingers through Toma’s hair.
“He is mine,” she whispered.
Rage blazed through Lucine with those words. Insane jealousy. And utter shame.
She’d been wrong about him.
She’d held out a standard for Toma that now shattered like a crystal chandelier loosed from its chain. A thousand shards sliced through her.
