“Such eyes, Richard,” she said delightedly. “Perhaps I have finally discovered the key to your heart that you would look at me so.”
Richard struggled to put his face back into place, and when he spoke he was ashamed to hear how his voice wavered. He remembered how her glamour had twisted his heart, how he had become lost in her eyes and forgotten her viciousness. “Why must I go there, my lady? Would a servant not suffice?”
Without answering, the countess pushed Richard aside and put her own head out of the window, leaning much further than Richard had dared until she was balancing on her front. Her dark hair caught on the wind and billowed about her like tendrils drifting in water, but she didn’t seem to notice or even care. She was hundreds of years old but she was also prone to the strange moods and passions of someone much younger; she sometimes became distracted by things the way a child abandons a toy in favour of a new one, completely forgetting the old thing in a matter of seconds. Richard wondered if she did it deliberately to stoke the fires in him or simply to confuse him and keep him eternally questioning. She was a cat that enjoyed playing with its dinner, and sometimes the play alone was enough to satisfy her. Her tiny feet, encased in shoes of the finest red leather, lifted off the ground as she balanced precariously from the window sill. She tilted her head back, white throat extended like a swan as she gazed at the darkening sky outside. Richard clenched his hands and kept them closely by his side. He could push her and end this now, but he suspected that falling from a great height would not be enough to kill a thing such as her. Instead, he watched in grave silence as she spun onto her back, her hands pushed up against the stone of the window frame. Now she sat upon the sill, her eyes fixed back on Richard’s face.
“You will go down there,” she said carefully, “and you will return with one of them.”
Richard stepped back from the window, aware of a sudden coldness in his gut.
“I said that I owe you something,” the countess said. “And I do. But I also said that you owe me something as well, Richard.”
She landed delicately back on her feet. Her face now mimicked his: no emotion passed across her features now.
“This is part of it,” she said. Lifting her arm to her face, she quickly dragged her nail across the back of her hand and watched the blood sluggishly bubble up from under the skin. “My blood for your blood, it is an ancient ritual. But we must also have blood for us both. Blood that will sustain us and join us together as one.”
Richard didn’t understand, but he was afraid of what it would mean if he did. His eyes dropped to the countess’ bleeding hand and he wrinkled his nose. The smell still bothered him, no matter how far from him it was. He could taste that familiar, metallic tang on his tongue and longed to wretch. The countess’ own eyes flicked to his face and a chuckle erupted from her child-like bosom. She licked her wound in one long stroke with her pink and pointed tongue, and the flesh instantly began to knit itself back together.
“You have been a good student to me, but our time is not yet over,” she said. “There is a ritual that we must obey, and you must go into the village and you must do as I tell you.”
Richard went to speak, unsure of what he would say, but the countess halted him.
“You knew that this day would come,” she chastised.
He felt numb, but when he finally spoke his words did not reflect that numbness. “I did, my lady, and I thank you for it.”
She was appeased by that, even if what he said barely rang true. She appreciated his obedience and his contrition, which he gave to her to convince her that he was faithful. She went to him and stroked his face with something approaching tenderness, and he allowed her to.
“Then go into the village tonight, Richard. Go there and bring someone back. It matters not so much who you return with, just that their heart beats and that their blood flows.”
Richard closed his eyes. Her fingers left icy trails on his cheek. “Not a child, my lady.”
“No, not a child,” she crooned, like she was trying to placate him. “If that is what you wish. Just remember that we shall share in it, and that some things will make the blood sweeter than not. I want you to enjoy your first, Richard. It is my gift to you.”
He wanted to balk at the absurdity of it. He wanted to flinch, to run away from her, but he remained rooted to the ground. He realised just how deeply his hatred ran through him; he could continue to push it down and pretend that he had forgiven and forgotten but those feelings would always remain inside of him. It wasn’t just hatred for the countess, not any longer. Richard had come to hate much of the world because so much had been denied to him. She leaned in closer, pressing her soft, powdered cheek to his.
“When the moon is high, go to the great door of the castle,” the countess whispered in his ear. “You may pass without hindrance. But if you do not return to me, Richard, I will find you. And then, I promise you, all of this will truly be over.”
She moved away from him then, turning back to the window where she stared fixedly up at the sky. The sun had descended behind the peaks of the mountain and the inky blue expanse was dotted with emerging stars, twinkling like diamonds upon a lady’s finest gown. She sighed heavily, and Richard was reminded that this was nothing more than an ingrained human action that she had failed to forget. He knew that no real breath passed her lips, only the dead air of tombs and other resting places. Soon he would be as she was, and even though he had years to consider this future that had been carved out for him he still struggled to accept it.
He watched her and contemplated what he must do. She was letting him leave whilst denying him freedom, and it pained him to think that the first steps he would take out of this castle would be towards nothing but horror.
“Do you feel it?” the countess asked, her back still turned to him. “Do you feel the wind and the cold running through you?”
When Richard spoke, his voice was quiet: “Yes, my lady. This place is always cold.”
“I wish I did,” she said plaintively. “The cold I feel is of a different quality, one that permeates through the whole of my body. It is one thing to feel a cool breeze upon your skin, but it is another to have ice in your veins and wrapped around your heart.
“Soon, you will come to adore and loathe the night as I have done,” she said. “You will feel its call and you will try to resist it, but there will come a time where you will no longer care for the light; no longer will you crave the sun upon your skin.”
She was silent for a while. Then the countess looked at Volkov from over her shoulder, her eyes dark and her mouth fixed in an angry snarl.
“Would that I could pluck the stars from the sky,” she said bitterly. “Would that I could extinguish them in my grasp and snuff them out forever.”
4
As the countess had promised, the huge door that led out of the castle was unmanned when Richard went to it later that night. He could not help but approach it with hesitation, waiting for the moment when some of the countess’ faceless slaves would appear to cut him down and drag him back into his room for another countless set of years. But when no one came, he dared to take the handle in his grasp and pull with all his strength, marvelling at the great groaning sound that it made when it finally began to shift. He opened it far enough for him to slip through, and realised that his heart was thundering and his throat was drier than a desert. He had dreamt of this first step countless times, where he wondered how the ground would feel beneath his feet and what it was like to move about in a place with no walls, and now it was here right in front of him he found that he could barely stand it. It pained him to know that his first experience of the real world that he would be able to remember would also be cast in undeniable and overwhelming darkness. And it pained him even more to know the purpose of this sudden, albeit brief freedom granted to him.
He moved slowly, and when Richard finally stepped outside the door he took note of how the stones impressed themselves upon the soles of his feet
through his thin shoes and tried to calm his heart. He could barely see; all around him were indefinable shapes, the jagged lines of the mountains that surrounded the castle forming a dark silhouette against the night sky. The path before him was unclear even under the light of the moon, which seemed dimmer to him than it had seemed from the windows of the castle. The air was sharp and clean and he breathed it in deeply, relishing its freshness and purity. It was so different from the air of the castle, where it always seemed dead and stale. A thrill of excitement shot through his body, but he remained rooted to where he stood. He realised that he longed to run carelessly and free through the darkness, but then he remembered that he was not free and this road alone bore more dangers even than that which lay inside the castle behind him. A single wrong step could send him careening over a precipice to be dashed over the rocks below.
As he walked, he sensed that something was following him. The night was deep and very quiet, but he could hear footsteps that weren’t his own echoing around him as he made his way down the winding path of the mountain. They were light and too fast for human feet, but they followed his path and they ceased whenever he stopped to look about, like it was following him. His mind turned instantly to the countess, but he cast the thought away just as quickly. Someone might have been watching him and he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease, but he could at least try to ignore it while he groped his way down the mountain. He tripped and stumbled more than once, twisting his feet painfully against wayward stones along the path that he could only just make out in front of him. He longed for a torch to guide him, but then there was much that he longed for and would never have.
The light that came from the village was meagre, but strangely warm and inviting. Richard was hesitant to enter, standing uncertainly at the edge of the village with warmth and light in front of him and cold darkness behind. No one would recognise him and they would undoubtedly treat him with suspicion; he couldn’t afford to make a mistake, not when he was so certain that something was watching him. He ducked behind a rock nearby and sat on the hard ground, trying to steady the rapid pounding of his heart and figure out what he would do next. Checking again, squinting his eyes in the gloom, he realised that there were not many people about and many of the huts were dark, presumably filled with sleeping families exhausted by the long day’s toil. It was quiet too, punctuated only by the sounds of livestock; chickens clucked and strutted about freely, while the few fat pigs grunted and snuffled as they rolled happily in the mire of their pens. The air was thick with a smell that Richard didn’t recognise, but he knew that it was not a good smell. It occurred to him that he would have known a life like this if his destiny had been more ordinary, but it was something that he couldn’t really understand. Though he had read much on peasant life, his skin remained smooth and his hands were unmarked by signs of labour; it was not a world that he was meant to know much of, beyond this. Then Richard saw the girl.
She was young and fair, but her mouth was fixed in a grim line as she swept the dust and hay from the doorway of her home. Her features were stony and serious, her hair the same colour of the straw strewn upon the ground, and the bridge of her nose was dotted with freckles. Richard swallowed nervously as he watched her sweep back and forth, repeating the same simple motion again and again until he felt transfixed by it. He wondered if they were the same age or not, whether she had a family inside waiting for her to return safely, and he was struck by a sudden, acidic feeling of envy that made him feel sick and uneasy. As he watched the girl, he found himself thinking about her as more than just a person that he didn’t know in a village he had never been to. She would have a name and a life and people that loved and cared for her, and for the first time in his life Richard dreamed that he might too be loved and cared for, just for a moment. He dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands as hard as he could, to numb the pain of knowing that those dreams were foolish and pointless.
He turned his focus to the jealous feelings that had risen in him before.
He heard someone call to the girl from inside the hut, a faint, gruff sounding voice that Richard assumed belonged to her father, perhaps even her husband. The girl did not reply, instead closing her eyes for a moment and taking a steadying breath as she leant on her broom. She placed her hand on the small of her back like her weight had become too much to bear, and stretched until something cracked in her spine. A look of relief spread across her face. After a moment she moved, this time propping the broom against the wall and bending down to pick up the large bucket that rested by the doorstep. Richard shrank back automatically as she hefted the bucket around the back of the hut, disappearing into the deep, dark night around it. He quickly turned things over in his mind, trying to ignore his mounting heartbeat and how difficult it was becoming to breathe as adrenaline pulsed through his veins.
As he waited, staring at the spot where she had been, he wondered what he was to do with her. He tried to lay out a plan but the lines of his thinking refused to connect with each other and he couldn’t foresee an outcome no matter how hard he tried. He had never felt more aware of his body and his being than he had in that moment, waiting for the girl that would be his victim. He wanted to run away, his legs itching beneath him, but he couldn’t. Even now, he could feel unseen eyes watching him. The countess would never let him be truly alone ever again and he knew it.
When he saw the girl returning, he did the first thing that came to mind. He picked up a pebble and threw it in her direction, where it dashed against the ground not far from her feet. She jumped with fright, almost dropping the bucket, but he certainly had her attention now. She peered in his direction and narrowed her eyes, her mouth slack with confusion. Richard threw another pebble, his skin prickling with fear. It went straight over her head this time, but she instinctively ducked to avoid it. Her brow crinkled.
“Is…” her voice was quiet and uncertain. “Is there somebody out there?”
Richard spoke before his mind could catch up and stop him. His voice came out strangely reedy and weak, but loud enough that she should hear: “Please help me.”
The girl’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “Are you hurt?”
Richard frantically tried to think. “Yes… yes, I fell. My leg… I can’t move it.”
The girl approached hesitantly, stopping to glancing quickly over her shoulder at her hut like she was wrestling with herself to do one thing over the other.
“Please, I just need someone to help me stand,” Richard pleaded, louder and more desperate now. “I’m a traveller, you see, and these mountains are so dark and treacherous; I fear I might have lost my way.”
It worried him how much easier the lie was becoming. Her eyes turned down in what looked like sympathy, her slender shoulders slumping in resignation. “I would help you, sir. But my father…”
“Your father need not know. All I ask is that you come and help me up. You sound a good girl; would you not do a kindness for someone in need?”
After a moment, she sighed heavily. “Yes sir. Though you must tell me where you are or I shall never find you.”
Richard reached in the dark and ran his hands over the ground. His fingers clasped around a large, heavy stone that just fit the palm of his hand. His heart was beating so loudly that he felt faint, but he held fast to it. “Just follow the sound of my voice. I am not far. Please, I can reward you.”
At this promise the girl left the warm circle of light and entered the darkness. Richard appeared from behind the rock and, before he had time to think, struck her across the head in a single heavy, clumsy movement. He heard a sickening crack, stone against flesh, and watched as the girl collapsed at his feet in a twitching heap. There was silence punctured only by the sound of Richard’s ragged breathing; he felt faint, bile rising in his throat. The sharp, metallic stink of her blood filled the cool night air as it pooled from the gash in her temple. Richard gasped, the rock falling from his shaking hands. He dropped to his knees and tentatively laid a hand on t
he girl’s head, feeling the shredded flesh and hot, sticky blood that soaked into her fair hair. She moaned softly, a gurgle of pain that set his nerves alight.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely, hoping she would hear and, somehow, forgive him for what he was about to do.
A sound behind him sent him jumping back to his feet, hairs on the back of his neck rising in fear. It was a low, rumbling growl some distance away from him, and he knew that he was being called. He looked to the village quickly and found the place still quiet and unsuspecting; the girl’s father hadn’t yet come looking for his absent daughter. He grabbed the girl by the ankles and dragged her, clumsily, further into the darkness where there was no chance of being seen. It exhausted him quickly; the girl was surprisingly heavy and he was not a strong man by nature, but only when he felt far enough away did he release her and fall back against the rocks, breathing heavily and wiping at his brow. He waited for his heart to slow, eyes shut tightly. The girl did not stir.
“Well done, Richard,” the countess whispered in his ear, and when Richard opened his eyes she was there, clear and beautiful under the light of the moon. She was smiling, her pointed teeth glowing eerie white in the darkness. She reached out and laid a cold hand on Richard’s cheek, and he let her, too weary to turn away.
“She will be a fine sacrifice,” the countess said, turning her sharp eyes to the girl upon the ground. She kneeled beside Richard, her skirts clouding around her, and traced a finger over the girl’s face; when she brought it back, it was dark with blood. The countess wrapped her tongue around her finger and languidly licked the blood away, her eyes hooded with pleasure. Her throat rumbled with little purrs of satisfaction as she did this, and Richard wondered if he would ever relish the taste of blood like that. He felt a lurching dread at the thought and pushed himself off the rock, refusing to look at the hideous spectacle before him.
“May we take her back to the castle, mistress?” Richard asked without emotion.
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