by Ted Dekker
So I wrapped my pistol in the leather bag and slammed the butt against the glass. The window shattered inward. Thankfully there was no wind to blow the rain in. With visions of Vlad or one of his subjects pushing me back while I was only halfway through, I slapped the leather bag on the windowsill and threw myself into the tower, uncaring of what lay beyond.
Thinking back now, I realize how disastrous that leap would have been if I’d entered an open stairway and fallen to my death. Evidently God hadn’t abandoned me when I’d killed Alek. I landed on a hard floor and rolled into a ball, tearing the curtain down with me. It took me a few seconds of frantic motion to untangle myself from that cloth and get to my feet.
A bedroom. Not just any bedroom, mind you. A magnificently appointed chamber with a huge canopied bed and velvet drapes all around. Outrage overtook my good senses, and I blotted out any imagination of what that beast might have done to her in this chamber.
Thunder shook the tower.
I stood shaking and dripping on a large bearskin rug, knowing that even this hesitation worked against me. But I was suddenly afraid of what I might find if Lucine was indeed in the next room.
I could not take any time to deliberate. So I strode to the door and shoved it open.
Lucine stood in the middle of the room before a full-length mirror as none other than Sofia attended to her. She wore a white gown, reddened around the neck by what appeared to be blood, though I could see no blood on her flesh.
Her hair was long and dark as I remembered it, but her skin . . .
Her skin was a translucent white. Her lips were pale. Her eyes were dark. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. I could not move. Of course, Lucine could have had unwashed, knotted hair with bugs crawling in it and I would have undoubtedly felt the same.
They both looked over at me and gasped when my frame filled the entry. Here were the two women most immediately in my life. But the only one I had eyes for was Lucine.
I stood rooted in the doorway, overwhelmed by her presence after so much conjecture and longing on my part. There she was, standing like a ghost, but I saw only an angel.
“Toma?”
Her voice was frail. Her dark eyes round. Her lips pale, parted with surprise. She had said my name. Not with malice or any side of disparagement. Just Toma. And I heard it as the voice of one calling to me in the wilderness, begging me to come to her if only so that she could know that I was real, not just the lover in her dreams.
I stepped into the room and stopped. “Yes?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I . . .” Words failed me.
“How did you get in?”
Sofia stepped to one side, glancing at the door behind her.
I gestured behind me with a heavy hand. “I . . . the window.”
“You broke the window?” Sofia asked.
“Yes.”
“But you can’t be here!” Sofia cried. “He’ll kill you if he finds you.”
Vlad. So then, we were alone for the moment. Surely we had enough time to get out!
“We don’t have much time,” I said. Then quickly, gaining my thoughts: “I have a way down the wall and a horse waiting, but we have to hurry!”
“Go? Go where?” Lucine asked.
It occurred to me only then that I was playing the fool, speaking nonsense. She might be a prisoner here, but what alternative had I given her? She didn’t even know that I loved her! I had spent so much time cherishing my fantasies these last few days that I had begun to assume she believed them too.
Win her, Toma. Be her Immanuel.
I hurried forward, addressing Sofia. “Please, Sofia, I must have a moment with her. It’s of the utmost importance that I speak to Lucine alone.”
“Whatever for?” Lucine asked.
My heart began to fall.
I grabbed Sofia’s hand and kissed it. “Please, I beg you—”
“I can’t leave her, she’s my charge.”
“She’s first my charge!” I blurted. “But I have to tell her!”
“Tell her what?”
It wasn’t working out as I’d imagined. But the thought of that fire burning out and Vlad returning pushed me to a less tactful approach.
I faced Lucine. “That I love her,” I said, and my voice shook with deep emotion. Her eyes remained wide. I said it quickly. “That I have loved her from the first time I laid eyes on her, but I couldn’t speak it because I was under oath not to love her, from the empress herself. I am bound by duty, but I am now bound by a love for you that has plagued me day and night. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I can only drink from my own imaginations of whatever love you can offer me. I will treasure you and save you, and no man, no beast, no power in heaven or hell will separate me from my oath to waste my life for you.”
Neither moved. Neither spoke. Neither so much as blinked.
Why had Sofia not pounced on me or spread a warning? Was there a seed of goodness left in her that longed for more than she had in this living death?
I looked at her, pleading. “Please, before it’s too late. Is there no light left in that dark heart of yours? You must allow me to vie for her heart.”
“It’s too late,” she said. “You will only get yourself killed.”
“Then let me die trying.”
“But you’re only being a fool,” Lucine said. And she said it as if this fact was the most certain thing in her mind.
Her words shattered my world. It was as if the sky collapsed on me, crushing me with suffocating weight. Because I knew that she was right. In her eyes I was a fool, and surely anything I said would only reinforce that opinion. Her mind and her heart were owned by another lover, and I was only throwing away my words like a blithering fool.
It all crashed in on me: the days of escaping the estate so that I wouldn’t have to face her; the nights around the table trying not to be caught watching her; the pages in my journal where I had confessed my undying love; that first fight with the Russians in my feeble attempt to rescue her; my confession to her mother, Kesia, telling all; the dungeon into which I’d been thrown for the confession of love; the charge given to me by Saint Thomas, to win her; the death of Alek by my hand; the heroic rescue of my lover, who was now rejecting me as if I were nothing more than a silly boy.
I could not breathe. The blood drained from my face. Tears welled in my eyes. The world began to spin. Heat flushed my cheeks and spread down my neck. There was a hell and the flames were burning around me already.
Lucine just watched me.
I turned away and walked three steps without direction, then stopped, uncertain what to do next. But my course, however foolish, was already plotted. I hung my head in my hands and struggled to maintain my composure.
I tried to speak, to apologize for my reaction. I couldn’t bear the thought of imposing on her a moment longer. But my throat was locked up.
And now the emotion dammed up in me broke through the thickest wall that I had erected to protect my heart. Sorrow and anguish flooded me, and I began to panic.
I couldn’t do this, not here in front of Lucine; no good would come of it! I would rather pull my hair out by the roots.
But my body wasn’t listening to my reason and my shoulders began to shake with sobs. I was screaming at myself to stop this terrible display, and the more I commanded myself, the more my heart revolted.
It took the last reserves of my self-control not to throw myself on the floor and groan. Instead I stood with my back to them, shaking silently with unremitting sorrow. I had to rescue her! I had to leave. I had to beg the empress for forgiveness. I had to walk off the end of the earth into a black void. But I could do nothing.
“Take a moment,” Sofia said quietly behind me. She was speaking to Lucine.
“But what will Vlad say?”
“Don’t worry about that!” She spoke in a quick whisper. “Listen to what he has to say; you owe yourself that.”
“I—”
&
nbsp; “There are things you don’t know, Lucine! Eternal death is something you cannot imagine. I will watch the stairs. The man loves you. Just hear what he has to say.”
A door opened and closed and we were left alone.
The rain pelted and thunder crashed and Lucine stood beneath it all suffocated by confusion. Not by nature’s booming voices but by a small whisper deep in her mind that called her to Toma’s side.
But she had given herself to Vlad. She was to be queen! She had found her place by his side, and she knew that if she moved even one step away, he would crush her and it would be well deserved.
And yet Sofia spoke of eternal death, and upon hearing it Lucine felt a deep well of sorrow open beneath her breast. The half-breed’s blood had changed her, stealing her memory of life, she knew that. But she couldn’t feel that life.
Toma loved her?
She could barely remember him, much less love him the way she loved Vlad. Yet there he stood, sobbing. Confessing a love for her that made no sense. How could any man love as he professed to?
He’d stilled and now he turned to face her. For a while he just looked at her with teary eyes. Her sorrow grew, empathy for dear Toma, who’d come to rescue her not realizing that she didn’t want to be rescued.
Dear, dear Toma, I am sorry for you. And I am sorry for what Vlad will do to you when he catches you here, trying to steal his queen.
“Lucine,” he began. Then he said nothing for a while. More tears streamed down his face, and she felt her sorrow return like a slow tide.
“Lucine, I am so sorry. I should have told you. I wanted to, but I . . .”
Then he was stumbling forward, falling to his knees, gripping her hands, pleading as he stared up at her face.
“I vow my eternal love for you, Lucine. I have loved you since I first knew you. You ruined my world with your first glance, and I have coveted the slightest gesture, the smallest acknowledgment. To know that you know I exist is enough. To return my love is my deepest longing, but if you would only kiss my hand I would know that you have seen my love.”
A tear broke from her eye and slid down her cheek. He kissed the back of her hand, then spoke with even more passion.
“You have been my waking obsession. You haunt my dreams. I am utterly preoccupied by you. I beg you to give me a single chance to win your love, to wake you from this living death that has stolen your heart. It is evil, Lucine!”
His face was red and his lips trembled.
“You are to wed a monster from hell who will ravage you for eternity! But I can offer you life.”
It was more than she could bear. Lucine pulled her hand away and turned away. “No, Toma, you can’t. I have his blood now.”
He was there, at her back, with trembling hands on her shoulders, speaking quietly close to her cheek. “Then I will find you new blood. You will take God’s blood.”
Revulsion rose into her throat and she stepped away. “Stop! You’re going to get us both killed!”
“No, I will bring you life.” His hand was on her back, warm and strong. “And if I can’t, then return here and live with him. But I will show you such love that you will never leave!”
“I am dead!”
“I will love you anyway!”
She whirled to face him. “No one can love the way you speak of it!” she snapped. “There is always a price, and I have paid mine.”
“Then let me pay the price for you. Let me love you, Lucine, I beg you. Give me one day, just one, and if you are not delighted I will bring you back.”
His words hammered her mind like an avalanche of boulders; she was at once overwhelmed and terrified by them. Who was this hero of all Russians who would save her from the Russians?
“Toma.” She spoke his name aloud.
Her memory of him flooded her. His steady breathing as he followed her around the castle that first night, his frequent glances in her direction, his unwavering loyalty to duty. But even more, Toma was a warrior with scars to mark his body. A savage fighter who had killed a thousand men with his bare hands, now here trembling with love for her.
“Toma.”
For a brief moment she wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to take her away from this hell.
But as quickly as the desire swelled, it was washed away. By Vlad’s blood, she thought. And then she didn’t think about it.
There was life inside of her. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. A warm ember of hope glowing deep in her heart. And I was sure that my words were coaxing that ember to flame.
No sane person could choose death with Vlad over the hope of life outside this place.
She said my name. “Toma.” As if she were tasting it for the first time. Then she said it again. “Toma.” This time with desire. But the light in her dark eyes was fleeting and she quickly averted them.
“I’ve heard you,” she said. “So now you must go.”
You cannot know how deeply those words spoken by Lucine cut me. I wanted to grovel on the floor and beg her mercy. I wanted to show her my strength and whisk her to safety. I longed to kiss her on the lips and tell her that I would be the only food she would ever need, that I would satisfy her deepest need and delight her wildest craving.
But I wasn’t winning her with impassioned pleas. I had to make her listen to simple reason! So I shoved the ache in my heart aside and spoke to her plainly.
“It’s all plain if you could only see, but you’ve been blinded by this blood, and I don’t blame you, I drank some as well. I was here, drunk on that ancient blood, and I lost myself to it. You’re deceived, Lucine. You’ve been drawn into a passion play in which both God and the devil are vying for your soul. Now you are with the devil, an unholy union between a fallen angel and a woman. I’ve—”
“You know this?” she interrupted, turning.
“And more,” I cried, sparked with hope. I quickly told her about Thomas and the book, pacing before her like a schoolteacher, desperately hoping to appeal to her mind, which seemed stable enough, even if misplaced.
I told it to her and she listened, but my mind was only on her. On Lucine. And with each passing moment my love for her seemed to grow. Perhaps because she finally knew of it.
It was surreal. I was there as a hero to rush her away from the ruthless beast who could be climbing the stairs as we spoke, yet my mind was wholly distracted by the pale woman with dark eyes before me. By the way she watched me, the way her lips spoke, the way her fingers moved, the way her delicate feet crossed the wood floor, by all of it.
But even more by those attributes that had first compelled my affection. Her tenacity and directness. Her integrity and laughter and delicate nature. The passion in her eyes.
And yet even more by the hope that Lucine would share herself with me and allow me to share myself with her. I was a lonely man for all my bravado, and in Lucine I had found a desperate need to belong, to know, and to be known.
I finished my tale, leaving out Thomas’s insistence that I woo her. I was hopeful, however, that having failed through impassioned plea, my appeal to reason was doing just that.
She looked at me for a long time.
“Is that all?” she finally asked.
“It’s not enough?”
“Even if what you say is true and Vlad is who you say he is, neither you nor I can change it.”
“You can leave him. You must!”
“And choose you over him?”
I hesitated. “If you could find it in your heart, yes.”
Tears welled in her eyes again. I saw her pale, delicate throat move with a swallow.
“In another life I might find you and beg you to love me if I would be so fortunate.” She looked away and held her chin level. “But in this life I am bound to another lover. I have his blood and am a slave to his love.”
“Then tell me what I can do to woo you!” I blurted, hating the words as soon as they left my mouth. But I was desperate, so I barged ahead. “What kind of ent
icements and seduction can he offer that I can’t? What food or drink or passions?”
I wove my fingers into my hair and paced. “Am I not man enough? Would you want me to kill a thousand more infidels?” I flung my arms wide. “Is he stronger than I?”
“Yes. But that has nothing to do with it. Please, Toma, leave me.” She said it with a biting tone, but her tears betrayed her.
“I can’t! You are the only reason I would live.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you like my own flesh.”
“I am diseased.”
“And I am your healer.”
“I am bound to Vlad.”
“Then I will kill him!”
She uttered one restrained sob, then turned her back to me and gathered herself.
“Leave me, Toma. Leave now if you want me to live through tonight.”
I was crushed. Neither confessions of love nor rational argument sufficiently moved her. I didn’t know how else to woo her.
I rushed to her and I threw my arms around her in an awkward embrace from the side and I laid my head on her shoulder. I intended to offer some words, but my emotion had choked me off again.
“Please,” I finally croaked. “Please, love me . . .”
It was utterly pathetic, I knew it already, but I was past any cleverness.
“Toma . . .”
I lifted my head and kissed her hair. “I’m so sorry . . . Please, Lucine, I beg you.”
“Toma . . .”
“Please . . .”
“Toma!” She pushed me away and glared at me. But I wasn’t convinced by that cruelty in her stare. She was only doing what she felt she must.
“Leave me. Go back out the window and leave with your life. Never return, I beg you. Never.”
She was enslaved in the prison of Vlad’s devices. He was the cruel dungeon master, and he held her in his grip! It wasn’t Lucine, it was Vlad van Valerik who was to blame for this.
Heat spread through my face as rage welled up like a flood.
I had been given the book to slay this beast. My earlier words came to me: I will kill him. And then I knew that I must. The only way to release Lucine from this scourge was to put my fifth and last stake through Vlad van Valerik’s heart.
