The Price of Blood

Chapter 18: The Missing Piece

Giselle drummed her fingers rapidly against the arm of her chair by the fireplace in the study as she waited for Auguste and Klen to return from town. Jean sat beside her, staring off absently out the window. A few silent tears were streaming down the side of his face as he anxiously bounced his leg up and down. He'd officially bore witness to the brutality the cult was capable of. Despite her urging that he get some rest, he'd insisted on staying up with her.

"Why would that vampire call Valerie by a different name?" Jean asked, keeping his gaze focused out the window.

"Because she lied to us, Jean. She wasn't who she said she was." Giselle leaned forward burying her face in her hands. All of the signs had been right in front of her: the rare horse, the sigil of Clan Boucher plastered on just about everything she owned; the way she walked; and how she talked to everyone around her like she was born to command."Remember the rumors that swirled in the wake of Halaafin's destruction? How they all swore that Princess Victoria had fled her homeland the night of the attack, and was still out there somewhere?"

"Yes. What are you trying to say?"

"Jean, Valerie is Princess Victoria. She didn't serve Clan Boucher—she was the heir apparent." Giselle couldn't believe it was true, but there was no other way to explain it. Which meant she'd just let a missing princess get carried off by a hoard of vampires on her watch.

"You saw what I saw, right?" Jean asked. "She was turning into a werewolf when the undead attacked her. I saw her claws, and the fur growing from her skin."

"She is not a werewolf. It's... terribly complicated, I'm afraid." The sound of Klen's defeated voice behind them in the doorway made both of them jump. He and Auguste came around to sit by the fire with them.

"How bad is the damage?" Giselle asked. Once the wyrz had flown off with Victoria, the undead hoard had turned and fled rapidly back into the grasslands to the east after their master, leaving them with little else to do but extinguish burning buildings and rescue trapped civilians.

"The bulk of the reports will have to be done in the morning when it's light. There are at least a dozen deaths confirmed, but there are undoubtedly more." Auguste groaned as he took his seat. Giselle hated seeing him look so weary. His usually neatly-kept silver hair was askew, and the fine lines around his eyes and brow looked more pronounced than ever before.

"We just let the princess of Halaafin get captured by the Hands of Death on our watch. When Her Majesty finds out, she'll be outraged. We have to get her back, and quickly." Giselle stood from her chair and walked over to her desk, rifling through the folders in her desk drawer. "What resources do we have from Her Majesty to call in on short notice?"

"Well, we have the Knights," Auguste said. "And, Her Majesty recently sent a battalion of two hundred men to be stationed at Fort Ynnez for us to distribute where we see fit."

"How long until they reach the Fort? We can meet them there and depart immediately." Giselle took a seat in the chair on her desk as she continued to flip through files, pulling out any document that remotely mentioned troop movements.

"About four days. It would take us about half as long to get there."

"And what about our banner-men? We could see what men can be pulled from the nearby town. After this attack, I'm sure there are many eager for revenge in Alize alone.

"You don't even know where they are taking her, though," Jean said. "We can't just run blindly into this. We need a plan. What if two-hundred men and whatever additional troops we can pull in aren't enough? We can't leave Alize undefended. The Empress has to know of this. We need her help."