Sweat trickled down my temples. “You would train me out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because you’re not an easy creature to read,” I said.
He stopped, his brow furrowed as his blue eyes darkened. I wasn’t sure what to make of his reaction. Had I insulted him? Had I pointed out an uncomfortable truth, perhaps?
“Nothing in this life is easy,” he replied and kicked the wooden dummy so hard, it bumped into me. I lost my balance and focus.
It was all it took for Kalon to move like a flash of lightning as he jumped over the fallen dummy and pushed me against the wall. Before I knew it, my swords were on the floor, and his forearm pressed into my throat, while the tip of his blunt sword poked me in the stomach.
For a moment, neither of us dared to move, paralyzed by what had just happened. His face was inches from mine, and I had a hard time making sense of anything. Sweat dripped from my eyebrow, forcing me to shut one eye. His breath brushed against my skin.
The face I made with one eye closed must’ve been funny, because Kalon laughed as he pulled back and offered a polite bow. “My apologies, Esme. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and eyes with the back of my sleeve, my cheeks ablaze and my limbs trembling from the adrenaline. Kalon packed a solid punch, for sure. There was delightful danger lurking inside me, and I’d merely gotten a glimpse of it.
“I, for one, hope you didn’t go easy on me,” I said.
He shook his head. “Not at all. I wouldn’t have wanted to offend you.”
“Hah. That’s considerate. Thank you.”
“The offer stands,” he said, his eyes glimmering with anticipation. That black leather looked wicked on his athletic form. My mouth was dry. “I can train you. Help you improve certain skills. Your speed is exquisite, and your technique is certainly varied, but you need to tie it all into something more fluid.”
I thought about it for a moment. For as long as I was here, I could certainly spare an hour or two a day training with Kalon Visentis, one of the Blood Arena’s highly acclaimed champions. I had nothing to lose, only to gain from such an arrangement.
“Is there an endgame here?” I asked him, tired of all the guessing I’d done from the moment we’d met. If I was to trust him with my training, I had to be able to look at him and not see a potential enemy.
Kalon grunted, a shadow settling between his eyebrows. I’d made him angry, and I almost regretted raising the question, but it had to be done. Like a band-aid, it had to be removed quickly. The pain was sharp, but it would only last a split second before the benefits emerged.
“I resent the implication,” Kalon said, his voice rough and low.
Had I been paranoid this whole time? He was clearly offended, and the last thing I needed was Kalon Visentis holding a grudge against me.
“No offense intended,” I replied. “But, like I said, you make it difficult for me to trust you. After all, we’ve only just met, Kalon. If I’m to trust you with anything, my training included, I need to be able to… you know, trust you.”
As if suddenly enlightened, Kalon seemed to relax, his shoulders dropping slowly. His expression changed, and a faint smile danced across his face. “Sometimes, taking a chance on someone is all it takes to change your life for the better,” he said. “I made it clear last night that I value honor above anything else. I see potential in you as a fighter, and I wish to amplify it, that’s all. You can choose to say no, or you can pick up your swords and get ready for another round, Esme. It’s pretty simple.”
Kalon didn’t feel the need to justify himself. This was the best I would get out of him regarding his trustworthiness. Then again, what should I have expected? I had never trusted anyone outside my family who’d ever told me to “trust them.” Anyone who said that raised a red flag in my book. So what more did I want from Kalon, in this instance, in terms of reassurances?
Nothing. Settle for what you got.
And I did. With a brief nod, I picked the twin swords up and took my defense stance.
“All right, then. Show me what you’ve got, teacher,” I said.
Tristan
I lost track of time in the library. Having planned to only spend the first part of the day in here, I was quickly absorbed into the dozens of leather-bound volumes that documented the Black Fever and its devastating effects in painstaking detail. Derek and Sofia were busy with Amal in one of the study rooms, having collected enough Aeternae blood to begin their tests and analyses, while Nethissis was busy compiling a more comprehensive report of our first couple of days here.
Esme had mentioned something about the training halls, and I didn’t mind her keeping busy like this at all. I did appreciate the freedom we had as guests in the palace. Of course, I knew everyone was watching us—servants, valets, handmaidens, gold guards. They all had their eyes on us, as did the nobles living in the many other rooms of this enormous building. But we were respectful and didn’t bother anyone. From that angle, I didn’t see anything wrong with my scholarly endeavor. Besides, I needed something to wipe away the memory of the bloodshed I’d witnessed last night in the Black Square.
Everything in this place was meant to be read. I assumed the more delicate documents were kept separately, in a secure and secret location.
Reading about the Black Fever was more emotionally ravaging than I’d imagined. It was one thing to hear about it killing millions of Aeternae every ten thousand years, and something else entirely to take in the accounts of doctors and shamans who had fought tirelessly against the disease’s rapid spread.
It was late afternoon, and I’d reached the fifteenth such document, enclosed in a third volume surrounding the Black Fever. Its author, Merus Corinth, had been on the forefront of the outbreak five hundred thousand years ago—though, to be honest, I had already lost count of those before him. There were just too many.
Merus talked about the first symptoms, which he’d witnessed in his own daughter. The fever set in at first. The Aeternae girl’s skin had become pale, and she’d begun to lose weight while she burned on the inside. Eventually, she could no longer get out of bed.
By then, fifteen more cases had been identified in the capital city, and many more in the provinces and even in the principates, where thousands of Aeternae were stationed as part of the government forces and administrative personnel—the Aeternae might’ve conquered and subdued Rimia and Nalore, but that didn’t mean they could just let the locals handle their affairs. No, the Aeternae were deeply embedded in the core of each principate, approving laws and regulations, signing treaties and trade deals with Visio and on behalf of Visio. Personally, I found that a little shady, but it was still none of my business.
“By the third week of fever, Clara’s skin was almost translucent, the veins black as they spidered across,” I read from Merus’s account. “I put a needle in a thicker one. My daughter didn’t feel a thing, too weak to protest, anyway. Blood came out, but it was no longer of the crimson color. Instead, it was as black as ink, and as thick as oil.”
Flipping the page, I found an illustration in which Merus had done his best to describe the extraction process with a large, metallic syringe.
“In her fourth week, Clara could no longer consume blood. I’d barely managed to feed her a few ounces every day, but she couldn’t stomach that anymore. I tried giving her water, and, while she did take a few sips, it resulted in a violent fit of vomiting. Everything that came out of her was black and gooey.” I kept reading but was forced to take a pause, breathing deeply. “You poor thing.”
“Tristan?”
Valaine’s voice echoed through the library. For a moment, I thought I’d merely imagined it, though I would’ve welcomed her presence to soothe some of the gloom that had taken over. Reading about the effects of the Black Fever was downright heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and everything in between.
It made the Aeternae’s decision t
o keep drinking Rimian and Nalorean blood all the more difficult to stomach, given the risks that they subjected themselves to. It dawned on me then that maybe part of the reason they allowed the consumption was knowing that the Black Fever would break out every ten millennia. Maybe they did it to prevent overpopulation? No, that didn’t make sense. The Aeternae’s birth rate was low, anyway.
“Tristan,” Valaine said, tearing my attention from the yellowed pages. She was standing next to my study table, watching me with a mixture of curiosity and concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying much attention to the world around me,” I replied, offering an apologetic half-smile. My mood was already elevated, merely upon seeing her.
She’d settled for a simple red dress with a black bow at the base of her neck. It softened the contrast between her pale skin and her dark-as-night hair. She pointed at the chair next to mine.
“Mind if I sit?” she asked.
“Not at all, please,” I said.
“Where are the others?”
I thought about it for a moment, as if catching up with reality. Merus’s writing wasn’t just compelling but also surprisingly engaging. I’d imagined losing myself in a good fantasy story, certainly not in a paper describing the effects of the Black Fever outbreak from five hundred thousand years ago.
“In one of the study rooms, with Aeternae blood and all that jazz,” I replied, smiling. “My sister’s probably trying out all the weapons in the training hall.”
“And you’re here, all by yourself,” Valaine said.
I shrugged. “I like books.”
Perhaps I should’ve come up with something wittier, but to be honest, I had a hard time focusing whenever Valaine looked at me. She leaned over the book, frowning as she recognized the text.
“Merus Corinth,” she murmured. “You’re reading about the Black Fever.”
“I admit, I’m fascinated. Though I wouldn’t want to witness an outbreak of it, myself,” I said. “I’m just trying to understand how it’s been going on for so long, and why you’re all still drinking Rimian and Nalorean blood, despite the risks.”
“We’ve already explained why. You’ve experienced it yourself.”
“Even so, I’m sorry. I have a hard time with the concept. Every ten thousand years or so, the Black Fever comes back and kills a million Aeternae, if not more, and yet you keep drinking the blood, even though you know the risks.”
Valaine nodded slowly. “It’s hard to accept, I know. I suppose we simply prefer the risk—given the long windows between outbreaks—to living an eternity without tasting the blood of Rimians and Naloreans. And then there’s the question of weakness. Animal blood does not give us the strength we’ve grown accustomed to. The strength we need to keep the empire united and unbreakable.”
“Yeah. You’ve mentioned that. I just… It’s an obvious cultural difference,” I said. “Have you lost anyone to Black Fever, yourself?”
Her gaze lowered, lingering over Merus’s swirling capital letters at the beginning of each long paragraph describing Clara’s descent into darkness and death. “My mother. Shortly after I was born. She was one of the last victims of the Black Fever five thousand years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. Losing a loved one like that had to be one of the worst things anyone could ever experience. Even so, Valaine spoke in favor of drinking Rimian and Nalorean blood. “I can only imagine how hard it is to grow up without a mother.”
“I wouldn’t know, since I didn’t have one,” she said, wearing a sad smile. “But I appreciate your kind words.”
We didn’t say anything for a while. My gaze wandered across the remaining two pages of Merus’s account. Valaine noticed, pointing at the last passage. I read it out loud.
“After she stopped eating, Clara began to wither. She was down to the bone, her skin cracking. Black blood began to seep through, and soon she was coughing it up, as well. Everything inside her was liquefied and corrupted, beyond repair, beyond healing. All I could do was give her essence of the yellow poppy, which eased her pain and let her sleep. By the eighth week, she was gone, and so was my bloodline, for I had already lost my wife, and bringing Clara into the world had been a miracle.” I paused, taking a deep and almost painful breath. I could practically feel his grief piercing through the words and stabbing my heart. “Poor Merus.”
“If you can help us beat the Black Fever, I think Visio will forever be in your debt,” Valaine said. “I believe your resources are greater than ours, where scientific development is concerned. Our magic has done little to nothing against the outbreaks. Yellow poppy has been the only improvement over the past two million years.”
“I would love nothing more, but we’re still about five thousand years away from the first symptoms, aren’t we?” I asked. “From my understanding, the Black Fever goes completely dormant for ten millennia, and it is almost impossible to identify during the off periods. Or am I missing something?”
Valaine nodded slowly. “You are. Can I trust you?”
I blinked several times, surprised by her response. There was just so much to unpack in just a few words. But I had to be honest with myself on this, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to be honest with her. Could she trust me? Would I even think to betray her?
What if I’d have to choose between breaking her confidence or that of my team? I’d have to figure it out, eventually. For the time being, I settled on being honest in the short term. “You can trust me, Valaine. I wouldn’t do anything to deliberately hurt or jeopardize you,” I said.
She got up, motioning for me to follow her. “Then come with me. And promise you won’t tell anyone about what I’m about to show you, until I speak to the others. You need to see this, in the meantime.”
“See what?”
She didn’t answer.
We left the library and moved through several narrow corridors I hadn’t even known about. They were part of a restricted area of the palace, I realized, noticing the absence of servants. Gold guards patrolled the hallways, but they didn’t engage with us. They frowned at the sight of me, of course, but Valaine was quick to give them brief nods, as if to say, “It’s cool, he’s with me.”
We went down a spiraling staircase, and the lights dimmed, reduced to mere amber flickers on the dark limestone walls. Eventually, we reached the underground of the palace’s south side, where a sprawling infirmary had been set up. The hall itself was huge, filled with beds that had been neatly lined up in tight rows.
The entrance was reinforced with black steel gates, on which a lock hung, clasped between the links of a thick chain. Valaine produced a key, which she used to get us through. Only as we got farther did I fully understand what I was looking at.
“There is something the high priestess didn’t tell you,” Valaine said. “To be fair, barely anyone knows about this.”
“About this room, you mean?”
At the far end, three Aeternae were unconscious, lying in their beds, with wet cloths on their foreheads. A Rimian nurse cared for them, wiping them down and trying to keep them as comfortable as possible. It didn’t take long for me to quickly recognize the symptoms.
“About them,” Valaine said, nodding at the Aeternae.
Their skin was pale, almost white as a sheet of paper. The glow of life was gone from it, replaced by the pastiness of a sickly nature. Black veins traveled down their slender bodies, which had been partially wrapped in delicate, white silk ribbons, probably to make them more comfortable. The Black Fever victims—two young males and a female—were in and out of consciousness, barely aware of their surroundings.
“Wait, I thought…” My voice trailed off. “This is what you meant. It’s starting earlier, isn’t it?”
Valaine sighed as we reached the three beds. The nurse offered us masks, which we used to cover our mouths and noses. “These are the first,” she said. “They fell last week.”
“Is this any good?” I asked, pointing at
the mask on my face.
The nurse nodded, looking stern and pensive. “The Black Fever usually spreads through touch and blood. The mask is more of a precaution. Make sure to keep your distance,” she warned me, then scowled at Valaine. “You shouldn’t have brought the foreigner down here.”
“He and his people might be able to help. Just don’t tell Petra or anyone else about our visit yet. I’ll need to consult with my father before I speak to the Lord and Lady Supreme about this,” Valaine replied.
“So, they know,” I breathed.
“They know. Petra is trying some new mazir spells to slow the Black Fever’s progress, but the results have been minimal, at best,” Valaine explained. “We need your help, now more than ever, while it’s still early. While we can still beat it, before it becomes unstoppable and claims too many lives.”
Amal would certainly have her hands full, I thought. And so would Nethissis. Based on what I’d read about the symptoms and how the disease manifested, it was a complicated project to undertake, one which required both the scientific advances of Strava and the power of the Word. Maybe a combination of these could finally bring the Black Fever to a halt.
“Have you identified the source yet? The carrier?” I asked.
The nurse shook her head. “No. But we are doing health tests this week,” she said. “We’ll use it as an opportunity to see if the carrier is in the palace.”
“I take it the Aeternae are from here, then,” I concluded.
“Young maid and two squires,” Valaine said. “Their parents have yet to be notified. We will have to tell them soon, but they will be sworn to secrecy, in order to avoid mass panic.”
“Why is it happening sooner?” I replied. “The cycle seemed pretty specific.”
“We don’t know.” The nurse sighed. “But we are not prepared for this.”
A Shade of Vampire 78: An Origin of Vampires Page 24
