Bitter Bloodlines

Chapter Five

James left his wheelchair in the garden the next morning, choosing instead to walk slowly with an ornate cane as we headed down the wooded path to an area where we could hunt. His dog, an energetic young setter, heeled obediently at his side, and he held a beautiful peregrine falcon on his gloved wrist.

"This is Justina," he said, gesturing at the bird. "The dog is Gretchen. I'm told you aren't much of a falconer."

"You must have spoken to the Duchess."

He smiled, handing me a rod to beat the underbrush, along with my own glove. "I think we will manage."

I had gone falconing a few times with the Duchess when I was younger, but never quite taken to it. Hunting had always felt uncomfortable. But I was happy to follow along with James at a slow pace, whacking the bushes to frighten out wildlife for the dog to spot and the bird to catch.

"You must miss Raverre," James remarked. "But I'm glad we are able to meet, finally."

"I am glad to be back with my family," I replied, choosing my words carefully. "And in my birthplace."

"Of course, this is where you belong. But we all get homesick for our youth."

I looked at him curiously, squinting in the sunlight that came down between the trees. "Have you ever left the castle?"

"I lived in a cottage on the coast, when I was a child. Before the Queen took me as her ward, and I was called back here."

"Certainly you have better care for your illness, here."

He nodded without speaking, his eyes on the dog by his side as he watched for her to alert to prey. I went back to striking the bushes, until he looked up again.

"I read about the tradition of nasferata, before you arrived," he said. "Though I can't be sure all of my reading was accurate. Some authors likened your condition to an illness, like mine."

"I've never been ill, so I couldn't say," I replied.

A small, furry shape darted from the underbrush as I swept over it, drawing the dog's attention. James, alert and ready, released the hawk on his arm. It was a thing of grace - energy passing, seemingly, from the lifting of his arm into the lifting of her wings as she took off, soaring and circling. She swooped down on her prey with the same sudden precision as yesterday's acrobats.

James whistled, bringing her back with a dead rabbit in her claws. He moved it quickly into a leather bag and replaced it with a handful of dried meat, which the bird happily devoured.

"Well done," he whispered, petting the feathers on her head. He glanced at me and asked, "Is it true that you could drink the blood of animals? Like rabbits?"

I grimaced. "I could. But from what I understand, it would be like you eating grass - it would feed you, but not sustain you. I could not survive long that way."

"I understand. I did not mean to offend."

I didn't mind the question - I had wondered it myself. I did not want to tell him that the reason I grimaced was that the question, and the smell of the rabbit's blood, reminded me that I needed to feed again.

*****

On this, my second trip to the dungeons, I found that they had prepared a different prisoner for me: a man my mother's age, quivering with fear, who fainted in his chains at the sight of me. He tasted like nothing.

When I finished with him, I went back to the guard.

"I want the key to cell fourteen," I said, as I handed him back the key to the cell I had left.

"I - that one has not been prepared, your highness."

"I don't mind."

I could tell that he wanted to say no, but I could also hear his heartbeat, the rising pulse. I felt like something was burning - like I was simply waiting, patiently, at the edge of a storm that I could endure but others could not.

He handed me the key.

When I opened the door to her cell, I expected to see her in chains again - perhaps not strung up for me, but still bound somewhere, her power contained. Instead I found her looking up at me from a cot against the wall. There was a torch on the opposite wall that had not been there before, and its orange light reflected in her brown eyes as she cocked her head at me curiously.

"Did you miss me?" she asked, teasingly. "Did I taste that good, blood-sucker?"

I stood frozen for a moment, wondering why I had come. Why did I need to see her again? What had possessed me?

"I...wanted to see that you were recovered," I said.

She stood. The marks of my teeth on her neck were still visible, but faded. The straight line of her back, the sharpness of her jaw as the firelight hit it in shadow, made me feel like suddenly I was threatened by the storm too.

"You must have come here on your own," she said, looking me up and down. "I doubt the Queen would feel that kind of guilt."

"I have no guilt. I eat to survive, just like you do. If I did not feed, I would starve."

"Then you should starve."

I stepped forward, compelled by anger, but stopped short of grabbing her by the throat like I wanted to. The smell of her, standing so close, overwhelmed me.

"You should not speak to a royal that way," I hissed.

She looked down at my clenched fist, then back up to meet my eyes. "I suppose you do have more control than a strigan."

"Strigans feed and kill indiscriminately. I feed on criminals."

She laughed, and stepped back from me, leaning back against the bare stone wall and crossing her arms. "What is my crime, then? Do you know?" She waited for only a second of my silence before continuing, "You don't know. Would you like to guess?"

"I am not the monster you would like me to be, Lady Carmen."

Her expression changed, at that. It was the first time I had seen her drop the antagonism toward me, just for a moment. She was surprised that I knew her name.

"Is that so?" she asked, her mask of mocking fury coming back up again. "Or perhaps not the one your mother was hoping for?"

"Do not speak ill of the Queen in my presence again," I said, striding back to the door. "Goodnight, Lady Carmen."