Page 53 of Hallowed Games
With my eyes closed, my mind slid back to Maelor, his mouth on my throat. I could almost smell him now, that sandalwood scent enveloping me. He’d told me he wouldn’t hurt me.
Did I actually believe him?
The wind whistled through a little crack in the glass that sent a chill into the room.
The door swung wide, and my eyes snapped open. Without another word, Maelor crossed inside, and the door shut behind him. He tugged down his cowl. “There are a few things I should mention.”
“About being a vampire?” I whispered.
He stared at me, and the shadows slid through the air around him. “You cannot tell anyone what I am. Do you understand? It will be incredibly dangerous for both of us.”
“I’m not sure if you noticed, pretty boy, but my life is already in danger. What I want to know is why did you take such a risk by saving me? And what exactly is your angle in helping me? What do you want from me?”
“Because you’re the type of person who should be saved.” A line formed between his eyebrows, and his eyes shone as he studied my face. “I knew it from the first moment I saw you.”
I stared at him, confused. “At the Dome of the Archon?”
He shook his head, and he turned away from me. “Long before that. I heard you in the forest. You were in Briarwood, by the stream. It was such a heartbreaking sound, the crying…a sound of unimaginable loss. Of course, that’s how it was when Pearl went…” He trailed off, his gaze on the floor as some private torment seemed to consume him.
I stared at him. “You saw me crying in the forest?” It must have been after Father died.
He glanced at me, as if surprised I’d been listening. “I wanted to reach out to you because your grief seemed so familiar to me. It’s my oldest companion. But I didn’t. Because I’m not myself anymore, and I haven’t been for centuries.”
I swallowed hard. I’d seen the name Pearl written on his papers. “You said Pearl left. Who was Pearl?”
He took a deep breath. “She was my daughter, a long time ago. And when the Archon returns and brings souls with him to the heavens, hers will go with him. But I will not. I’m not sure what happens to my kind at the end of time. I’ll be here or in the abyss, I imagine.” His mournful eyes flickered in the candlelight, and he seemed lost in his own memories.
“What was your life like back then? When you were alive?”
Silence stretched out over the room before he answered at last. “I was a viscount on the Isle of Lirion. Pearl died of the plague when she was only three. We lived a long time ago, before the Harrowing. The war that raged in our kingdom back then was the Anarchy. A battle for the throne.” He ran a hand through his hair, staring into the fire. “Pearl was my first great loss. The second was my soul. And the third was my wife, Epona.”
The world felt unsteady beneath me as I mentally calculated his age. Long ago, King Ambrosius had died without sons. Ambrosius had named his daughter as his heir, but half of Merthyn was unwilling to accept a woman’s rule. A bitter, brutal war had raged across the kingdom for nearly twenty years.
“You’re over four hundred years old,” I said breathlessly. “You look like you’re thirty.”
“Vampires don’t age. Something about the loss of our souls keeps us always looking young. But yes, I was alive long enough to fight for Queen Onora’s army. The Anarchy erupted after Pearl died, and my loyalty was with the dead king who’d wanted to leave something for his daughter. Because I wished I could have left something for mine.”
My eyes stung. “I’m sorry about Pearl. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child.”
“I still carry the loss, even after all these years. Being a vampire doesn’t erase her memory. Sometimes, I wonder if it makes it all worse. Our emotions can be very intense, and I think many vampires find a way to smother it. That’s what Sion does.”
“How did it happen?” I felt a weight on my chest. “In Lirion, they worshipped the old gods longer than anywhere else in Merthyn. Was that why the Archon cursed you?”
He frowned. “No, that isn’t how it works. I don’t think there’s necessarily any divine reason why anyone is cursed. The vampires were created in the ancient world. It was really by accident, when the Tyrenians first invaded. Merthyn’s sorceresses had been trying to create indestructible soldiers to fight the invasion from the east. They used powerful magic, and it worked. We were created to be stronger than mortals. We see better. We hear better. We’re as fast as the gods, and we can kill just as swiftly. We can seduce mortals to their deaths and sometimes enthrall them. But magic comes with a cost, doesn’t it? And it turned out we were not very good soldiers at all. The newly created vampires lost control on the battlefield; they smelled blood, and they killed their own. It’s part of why Merthyn lost to the Tyrenian emperor.”
“Why have I never heard of this?”
“After the invasion, the Tyrenian emperor banished most vampires to Sumaire, and he built a wall to keep them from invading Merthyn. Most are now locked in mountainous cities with the wild Pretanni tribes, and only a few vampires remain south of the wall. That’s a good thing. In Sumaire, the blood drinking is controlled.”
“How?”
“They have thralls. Mortals who enjoy giving their blood to vampires. And they know if they kill all the mortals in their kingdom, they’ll die, too.”
I stared at him. “The Pretanni enjoy vampires drinking their blood?”
He shrugged slowly. “Many mortals derive an intense sexual pleasure from it, as do vampires.”
Heat flushed in my chest as I imagined him drinking from an enthralled woman, both of them lost in the throes of passion. Strangely, jealousy flared at the thought.