Dead King's Sword (Old Draft)

45. Rotten

Erin

***

At the top of the list of things I feared was my mother. I had once seen her kill someone with only a glare. He had come into her room to threaten her; unknown to him, I had been hiding in the closet. Mother looked at him once, then he choked, blood poured out his nostrils, and he fell dead. Without so much as a sigh, mother waited for her maid to finish tightening her corset, put on a black ballroom dress then called a manservant to get rid of the corpse. Her voice had been even, unshaken by the gruesome death that had occurred. She had looked at the closet as if seeing me through the crack and said, "Erin, honey, it's time to get dressed. We can't keep the king waiting. Getting invited to a royal ball is a rare opportunity after all."

"You killed someone," I said, pushing the door open, revealing myself.

My mother smiled. "He's not dead. He's just taking a nap, I promise. Now come here." She held out her hand; I strode over to her, pressed my palm to hers, and gazed at the manservant as he lifted the body and hauled it away.

***

Lately, I found myself thinking of Zeren. If she knew what I was—what my family had done. The things I turned a blind eye to and pretended never happened. If she knew those things, would she still be able to look at me with such loving eyes?

I sighed.

I hated coming home. At school, I could be someone else. Someone innocent. Pure. But, here I was my mother's daughter. Her knight: the one that gladly followed her into darkness. The one that willingly broke the law to make her happy. I touched my stolen earring and told Zeren, 'Out of the two of us, you were never the evil one.'

At midnight I was roused from my bed by one of my mother's maids. The lady's face was covered by a black cloth, with slits only for her eyes. She was indistinguishable from the others. Insignificant. Replaceable. Yet, she performed her task with dedication. Her hands clasped before her, she led me down the hall into Mother's bedroom, then, through a set of grey doors, into the bathroom.

Hundreds of candles burned in white holders, filling the room with warmth and casting shadows in areas their light couldn't reach. Surrounded by dark grey tiles, Mom reclined in a small round pool filled with blood; her black hair had been tied back into a messy bun; a few escaped tendrils draped her neck. I winced as I thought of how many had died to feed her thirst. How many of the poor who roamed our streets had been abducted and culled. She saw nothing wrong with killing the homeless as they provided no benefit to society and only leeched off others who worked to feed themselves. According to her, we were doing the world a favour by killing them.

Mother motioned for me to disrobe and join her. As I hesitated, there was a slight tightening of the skin by her lips, the beginnings of a scowl. A test to see if I had forgotten what I was.

Rising to meet her challenge, I removed my clothes and handed them to the maid that stood waiting. The cold air chilled my body as I entered the pool. The blood had been mixed with chemicals to keep it from clotting and smelling. When my feet reached the bottom, the warm red concoction covered my breasts. I could feel it sticking to my skin, staining my hair, sliding across my flesh as I stood opposite to her.

Mother studied me quietly, then said, "You seem unhappy about the war with the nonmagi."

"I don't understand why we must go to war again after losing so many in the first. Shouldn't we learn from the past? When we fight, both sides suffer."

"Oh, honey. You're too young to know this, but peace achieves very little; it allows our children to grow fat, and complacent. War keeps us all on our toes, challenges us. Besides, we benefit a lot from this arrangement. King Alexander limits how many people we can kill per year, but the Trents promised to increase our annual allowance if we supported them."

"I understand why it's beneficial to side with the Trents, but...." Mitzy is evil; she hurt Zeren. They might be leading us all to our deaths.

"Honey." Mother walked over to me and pressed her bloodied hand to my cheek. "This is not a time for you to be weakened by emotion, compassion. The nonmagi outnumber us, but they have few talents. If we focus, we won't have any trouble defeating them. There's nothing to fear. You trust me, don't you?"

Her eyes searched mine for any trace of dissent.

My chest tightened.

"I trust you. You can always count on my support, Mom, you know that." But, despite my words, there was an uneasy feeling in my stomach. To get to the nonmagi, we would have to go against the king and kill our own people. We would leave a trail of a thousand broken hearts: a thousand orphans. Mother continued to observe my eyes, then, not liking what she saw in them, said, "It's time you become a full-fledged vampire. Your ceremony will take place on Sunday. You will drink Shovek's blood and finally become one of us."

That was three days away. "So soon?" I asked. I wasn't prepared to lose what little humanity I had and become a clan elder.

"And you will go with your cousins on their next hunt."

Knowing I would face her anger if I protested, I bowed my head and said, "Okay." A part of me wished I had stayed at the academy a few days more, convinced Zeren to run away with me, and found somewhere where we could both live in peace, then I wouldn't have to do whatever horrid things my mother had planned. Then I could remain as me.

Mother snapped her fingers.

Another servant entered, bringing two tall glasses of blood. Mother kept one for herself, then handed the other to me. I accepted her gift and took a sip; the warm concoction slid down my throat, warming me. My core pulsed and grew, absorbing the mana from the blood. We were drinking the blood of a mage. As for where my mother had gotten it from, I had no idea. A tear slipped down the left side of my face, mixing with the blood. If my mother noticed, she said nothing.

The only way to leave our clan was by dying.

If I betrayed them, they would send assassins after me.

But, as flawed as my family might be, they had raised me, and I loved them. I would never abandon them. I had always dreamed of being more than Shovek's rotten descendant, but unfortunately, this was the role the gods had given me.

***