Bitter Bloodlines

Chapter One

My mother had me turned before I was old enough to remember the process. This was, I've been told, a great kindness.

I did not meet my family, to my memory, until much later, after I was fully grown. My mother had me ferreted out of the castle while I was still an infant, as soon as the change took place. They tell me the screams from my nursery stopped so suddenly that everyone outside believed I had died. That was the prevailing theory for years, before I returned, though they never found a body, nor held a funeral. Mother would not reveal where I'd gone, and no one could guess that a frightened and grieving queen would have the forethought to create a shield from a newborn daughter.

I was born in the midst of my family's fall from grace. The sudden death of a king, leaving his untrusted foreign queen pregnant and alone; his only son, my half-brother, still young and sickly, and a bastard of lowly birth. The country was left vulnerable, my mother dependent on an heir to keep the monarchy from falling to the wolves. I arrived, not the needed son, but still a loyal body. My mother saw my potential to be her savior.

When I returned to court, my family rose.

******

I was raised in Raverre, my mother's home country, across the water from my birthplace in Aveline. The abbey where I was hidden as an infant was on the shores of the channel, overlooking the ocean that separated me from my rightful title. When I grew old enough to train and civilize, I moved inland to live with the Duke of Aegis, an old friend of the monarchy. The Duke saw that I learned reading and writing, politics and history, the geography of the land and the customs of court - everything I needed to be a Princess. His nasferata - my mother's distant cousin - saw that I learned my more relevant purpose.

Phoenix, the nasferata, taught me to use the skills that my transformation had given me. To track a person by their scent; to cleanly break bones; to defend a vulnerable target against enemies, animals, armored soldiers. He taught me how to kill prey and how to carefully injure, when more diplomacy was needed. How to tell a target from a trap, to sense when a person's blood was poisoned, to feed without leaving traces on my clothes.

"You will protect your mother, the Queen," he told me, gravely and often. "By all accounts, you may never need to use these abilities - you will be provided for, and the threat of your presence will often be enough to prevent any attack. But your mother is a foreigner in a land where the people have no love for her, and she will need you, in case her position starts to crumble."

I would often ask him if I was ready to go to her, and he would smile, pleased with my eagerness.

"When you are bigger," he would tell me.

I had dreams of her, as a child. There were several large portraits of her at the Duke's estate - two from her young years in Raverre, and one made in her late teens, just before she left to marry the King of Aveline. She was beautiful: dark hair and dark eyes against sun-kissed golden skin, a softly freckled nose and shy smile. I would dream of her, still eighteen in my mind, surrounded by wild beasts and dark, scheming Avelinian men, trying to tear her off the throne.

Once, after a particular nightmare, I asked Phoenix if he would go and protect her himself, until I was old enough.

"I am Raverian," he replied. "My presence at court would only put your mother in more danger. The people would accuse her of installing a foreign government. But you - you are an Avelinian nasferata, the daughter of their beloved king. They will have to respect you."

*****

I was bottle-fed at the abbey, when I was small - fresh blood, still warm, donated by the nuns in turns. I did not require much then, and the ones who cared for me considered it a part of fosterhood. When I moved inland, still a small child, the Duke's servants would bring me warmed mugs when I needed to feed. I wasn't told where it came from. I asked my nursemaid, on the first day, if it was hers, and apparently frightened her enough that she had to be replaced, but I hadn't meant it that way. I just wanted to thank her.