Immortal Defiance

by Laura Maybrooke

  It would not benefit her to yell for help, either—anyone capable of such stealth could act quicker than it took her to dispel the soundproofing magic on her tent. She would need to save herself. Dulcea would have preferred her Golden Staff’s powers to enhance her own, ensuring a quicker success, but she was a master enchanter with or without it. She searched her mind for useful enchantments with which to face her attacker: Sleep, Blind, and Paralysis, and pictured facing her assailant with them.

  A shadow flitted across the mirror’s left pane, sliding into the main panel. Startled by its appearance, Dulcea watched in horror as it gathered substance, the near-finished illusions fading from her mind. Darkness pooled around her, obscuring her image at the edges. It was as if the mirror had gone dull and could no longer reflect, and yet her own mirror image stood in clear contrast to the surrounding darkness. It did not spread to fill the mirror like smoke or liquid ink might have done; instead it stood contained behind her back, shifting like a living thing.

  And somehow, she knew. It had to be him: the vampire.

  She flushed but kept her chin up, inhaled, and turned around.

  Krath was as she remembered him: tall and imposing, and in the harsh light of her tent he looked even paler than usual. The tips of his inky black hair fell to his shoulders, and his clothes followed the impeccable dress of the country’s nobles: layers of white ruffle under rich brocade. At least as tall as Hai’Mezene, he towered a head over her. He was handsome by any standards and as deadly as the starkest poison. Krath grinned, the slight sardonic smirk curving his lips baring a glint of sharp fangs.

  Dulcea was not pleased to see him. He had saved her, but he was still a dead creature who drank blood for nourishment, and she could not associate herself with the likes of him.

  “What do you mean by coming here? I thought—”

  “What do people normally mean by coming to see someone?” Krath bowed to her. “I hope I am not interrupting a lady’s eventide, that she would bid me welcome.”

  Dulcea crossed her arms.

  “This is unacceptable. You cannot just appear here like this, whenever you feel like it,” she said. “What if I had been sleeping, undressing, or been with someone?”

  Krath smirked, neither sorry nor vexed by the insinuation that maybe he should not have been in her tent after sundown—or at any other time.

  He laughed. “I was under the assumption that maidens did not do that.”

  Dulcea did not like his tone of voice, nor did she appreciate that smug smile.

  “You misunderstand me.” The provocation was on purpose, but she could not ignore the challenge. “I meant the company of one of my generals. I am not in the habit of entertaining any male guests in my tent.” She hoped he would take the hint.

  “It must relieve you then that I have only come for conversion.”

  She pursed her lips. “I am perplexed. Conversation of what? The weather? Or the yield of crops this year? The number of stars in the sky? How lovely it was to be your prisoner? I do not know you. You cannot come here at this ungodly hour and demand conversation. You cannot order me around anymore. I am no longer yours. I won my freedom.”

  Krath took a few steps closer. “Be careful now, my lady.” Despite the words’ warning tone, his expression was not unkind. “You may be back with your people, but you are not safe yet.”

  He withdrew, turned around, and considered his surroundings. In front of him, a narrow path formed between wooden partitions and cloth hangings led to the private part of her tent. To his left was the tent wall and to his right, half hidden behind wooden screens, the public work and study area. Krath walked to a set of chairs and seated himself. He gave her a slight, derisive smile.

  “Have I not been generous to you? Does that not earn me your hospitality?”

  “I do not mean to deny your generosity, but it does not mean I owe you.”

  “Are indebtedness and hospitality interchangeable, then?”

  She sighed. “No, but what have you to recommend yourself to me at this godforsaken hour? Why do you insist on my company? What do you want from me?”

  His smile grew wide. “This conversation is a good start. You are not afraid to talk back to me. You are strong and opinionated; did it ever occur to you I might find your honesty refreshing?”

  “I was not aware what some call impertinence, others might call refreshing honesty.”

  Krath shrugged. “I am unlike many men.”

  Not knowing what else to do, or how to get rid of him, Dulcea took up a chair with him. The gap between their seats was considerable, but he looked more amused than offended by it.

  They exchanged trite pleasantries, the way distant friends who had not seen one another in years might. It was awkward and too polite at first, but with every spoken word Dulcea grew a little more comfortable. Their discussions in Gwyndoorn had pleased her, and although his presence was unwelcome, his intelligent conversation was not.

  She tapped her fingers on her thigh, feeling emboldened. “I ask again: why have you come? I think you owe me an explanation.”

  “An explanation?” The vampire quirked an eyebrow at her. “I think not. You already know the answer.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He scoffed. “What do you want me to say? You are not a fool.”

  “… You are lonely,” she said, realizing the truth of it.

  “Yes. Wouldn’t you, after fifteen hundred years?”

  There was no want for pity in his manner. Rather, something told her the vampire would have detested it. Dulcea kept her expression neutral.

  “I am a man of my word. You know this. I have never lied to you. You cannot therefore doubt my desire for company. I recognize in you an intelligent person. You can hold your own in a conversation, and I crave that kind of connection with someone. I’ve too many lonely centuries behind me, and I want to change that. Apart from an old friend or two, you are the first I consider worth talking to in these last six hundred years.”

  That could not have been right. Dulcea frowned. She understood about the thralls: Mey, Violetta, and Lucindra were all nice girls, but that was all. The male servants must have been the same. You could talk to them, but to converse with them was to converse with a history book. They all had pasts, but none of them had a future. But the heroes of old? Kings? Lords? He must have known some in his long years.

  And had he not once had companions, friends of his own kind?

  “That’s absurd.” She looked him straight in the eye. “I cannot imagine it. Why would you hold me in such high regard? I am but one enterprising mortal, and you were once kin to other vampires.”

  Krath leaned forward in his chair, crossing his legs and resting his chin on a supporting arm. His gaze was direct and unapologetic. Dulcea somehow got the impression he was considering her worth. A little flustered, she leaned back in her chair. Nervousness fluttered in her stomach.

  His lips twisted into a wry smirk. “You think so? What gave you that idea?”

  “What do you mean? You said it yourself.”

  It had been in the middle of one of their Dominion games, both focused on the match at hand but making small talk. She had asked him then, curious to know if there were others of his kind. No, he had said, eyes on her sovereign. He was the last.

  “You said you were the last of your kind. Do you not recall? In the solar.” Dulcea raised her brows. “Not only. Last. Had you always been alone, you would have used a different word.”

  “You are clever, my lady.” Krath tapped his cheek. “I did not realize I had given this away.”

  “You are alone now, but it was not always this way. How long now? How many decades can it have been?”

  No sooner had the inquiry left her that Dulcea realized he had already given her the answer.

  Six hundred years. The figure ghosted at the edge of her consciousness. That was when Caeryn had fallen under Sarusean rule… Was it so that his kindred had perished in the wake of Gr
om’s invasion, and he had been alone since? Something almost like pity swelled in her heart.

  No one should go through life without a friend, no matter how wrong they were.

  “Sixty, by any math.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “But you know this already, don’t you?”

  Dulcea hesitated, wondering if she dared to ask him the true question weighing on her mind.

  “Why have there not been others since?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Tell me, Lady Dulcea, how do you think vampires are made?”

  “I guess necromancers have nothing to do with it?” She gave him the one explanation she knew.

  “Right. Those things are soulless, rotting monsters.”

  “Are you… born?” Dulcea jumped to the next logical conclusion.

  His eyes crinkled in unconcealed mirth. “In which manner?”

  “Y-you know…” Heat crept to her cheeks. “The way anyone is.”

  “As progeny? No. I could bed you every day for a whole year, and you still would not get pregnant. No, that is not how.”

  Dulcea swallowed and could not find any reply.

  He smirked, amused by her visible anxiety. “This is how I have always looked. Vampirism is not some trait passed to you in birth. It does not lie dormant in your blood and then turn you undead upon reaching adulthood.”

  There was only one thing left to consider, but she almost did not want to say it out loud.

  “The bite. When you bite somebody…”

  “Almost, but not quite. This world is not full of vampires, is it?”

  Dulcea worried her lip with her teeth. “When you bite somebody… and they… they…”

  “Yes. I bite them, I drink their blood, and… they what?”

  “… They drink yours?” Dulcea said in a breathless whisper.

  Krath grinned. “There. Not so hard, was it?” He straightened his posture.

  “That makes no sense. If that is how it transmits, then where did the original vampire come from?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it? Some might say his creation took place on purpose…”

  “By whom? A necromancer? But they don’t possess that kind of power.”

  “I do not think it was a necromancer,” he said, a note of something pained in his voice.

  They were silent for a moment then. Dulcea pondered her next question to him.

  “Your kindred… Were they your sires and elders, or your own progeny?”

  “They were my… progeny,” he said. “My sire is… Well, she is not of this world.”

  She wanted to ask what that meant; how he had died and by whose hand, but Krath’s manner invited no questions about his fate.

  “I will not say I am sorry. You would not want my pity,” Dulcea said, feeling ever surer in her opinion. He was a proud man—and they were all alike in some ways. “But my question still stands. You can create offspring, and yet you have been alone for six centuries. Why is that?”

  “Do you think it is easy?” He drew his chair closer to hers, fingers creeping up her arm to land under her jaw. “What would you say if I asked you to let me kiss you to death?”

  She snorted, even as her heart danced to a mad beat in her chest. “I would decline.”

  “I thought you would.” He let his hand drop.

  Relief made her tart. “What you say is absurd, though. You cannot mean the reason you have been alone all these years is because no one wanted to share them with you. Are you not a predator? What care you about that?”

  He sneered. “You think I take random people off the streets and turn them into vampires?”

  “I find it incongruous to think anyone would choose it.” She raised her chin. “I mean, did you?”

  “No, my lady, I did not.” His turquoise eyes narrowed. “And neither did most of my progeny, but it does not mean that just anyone qualifies. I suppose you would not be wrong to call vampirism a curse. I do not want to create an army of monsters, like the necromancers do. That is why there can never be too many of us. We are territorial and possessive by nature. I govern myself with an iron fist and expect the same of others. A vampire must possess integrity—a certain inborn nobility that keeps them from becoming a plague on the world. There are beggars, mercenaries, riffraff, and rabble aplenty on this earth, but the person who would make a moral vampire is hard to find.”

  “I- I think I understand…”

  “Do you? Do you understand what would happen were I to make the wrong choice?”

  “Yes. I understand.” Dulcea repeated the words with less hesitancy and more conviction this time.

  “Good. Let us abandon this dreary subject then.” The vampire got up from his seat.

  “Oh. You are leaving?” Even to her own ears, it sounded a little too eager.

  “It would not be proper of me to keep you any longer,” he said.

  Dulcea resumed her feet, and Krath bowed to her.

  “It has been a pleasure, my lady.”

  “My lord.” She dropped her gaze. “Forgive me if I do not thank you for your visit.”

  “Too improper?” He sounded amused.

  Dulcea scoffed. “Only people with something to hide meet at this hour.”

  Krath laughed. The sound made her stomach twist in a way that was not all unpleasant.

  “Might it please you more to thank me then, were I to come a little earlier tomorrow?”

  Dulcea swallowed. “Tomorrow? You want to… Well, yes. I mean—”

  She did not know where to look. She had not an inkling of the words coming out of her mouth.

  He seemed pleased. “Until tomorrow then, my lady. I wish you a pleasant night.”

  He bowed to her again, his eyes not leaving hers this time, and then he vanished.

  She stared after him, unsure of what had just happened. To her chagrin, she had enjoyed their conversation—despite him having forced it upon her at this late hour. And now, he had somehow invited himself for another visit.

  Dulcea had the distinct impression that every word said had played exactly to his favor.

  Chapter 17

  Hunter and Prey

  The ongoing search for the traitor Delbin and his accomplices had brought Hai’Mezene and a handful of his most trusted trackers to West Ford. The Hunters, as the chief called them, were a curious group. Most of them were barbarians; sons of the plains with years of experience of tracking game in arid regions, but with them were also a few rather more unconventional characters. The most prominent of these were an old dwarven sleuth who went by about thirteen different names and an elven lady tracker from Avarea. No one could remember recruiting her to The Hunters. One day she had just been there, and now she was one of their best.

  Hai’Mezene had gone to meet with a widowed relative of one of Delbin’s servants and was yet to return. Dulcea sat with two of his best trackers in the Audience Tent. They were the Blaze Elf, Mishana, from Avarea and the human hunter, Ekram, from Miranma. The chief had bidden them to start without him.

  Dulcea tapped her fingers on the table, considering the pair before her. It was the first time she had met either, but the camp gossip had already reached her ears. Someone had caught them kissing behind the Hospital Tent like two hot-blooded teenagers. Dulcea was not at all certain what to think of it. She did not want to interfere in their personal lives, but she was not a fool. Fraternization had its dangers, hence why relationships within the same chain-of-command met with a lot of criticism. Friendship and romance could both lead to partiality, which could then undermine good order, discipline, morale, and authority. She supposed she might have to discuss the matter of Ekram and Mishana’s relationship with Hai’Mezene before long, to make sure they were on the same page about it.

  A sudden realization hit her: perhaps that was the reason for Myoden’s silence on the matter. Even if she had been in love with him, it would have been unprofessional of them to engage in anything. She had dreaded the eventuality of his House approaching her, but she had not considere
d what they both knew. Had he proposed, and she accepted, it would have meant the end of their collaboration as generals in battle. To discourage people from thinking she rather had his back than theirs, they could never have fought side-by-side again. Battle moral was important, and to squander it away was a grave offense.

  ---

  Dulcea gestured for Ekram to speak. “So, how much do we know, and where are we losing trail?”

  The barbarian stroked his chin. “Around midnight on Second Sun’s Day, not even half a day before your return, the traitor Delbin Surinquel accepted a letter from an unknown courier. We suspect this man was either a Caerynian accomplice or a Sarusean in disguise. We have unearthed a witness to this affair whose credibility is not in question, as attested to by General Nemnyan.”

  “Yes, one of his apprentice armorers, I think.” Dulcea scribbled down a few lines in her own notes. “Onward then. How goes it from there?”

  “That is where the findings conflict,” Mishana said. “Lady Galenna, who looks after the camp’s horses, recalls Delbin asking her about a certain white gelding. As the horse has now gone missing, we may suppose these incidents have some relation to one another.”

  Dulcea frowned. “That is… unexpected. Delbin has always claimed a certain aversion to horses. I remember it because once he complained about it to Myoden for a good quarter of an hour, and to my regret I was there to witness it. I suppose it could also be a tactic on his part—taking the horse, I mean. He may have given it to one of his accomplices and gone by foot himself.”

  “That is possible, too,” Ekram said, glancing at his partner. “You had three horses missing, but two of them have since returned on their own. Either they were let loose by accident or got abandoned by their runaway riders. It is difficult to say which.”

  Dulcea continued to write in her book. “What are your current lines of investigation?”