Victoria is given by her father, the King of the Barren Lands, to the Vampire Duke Sadisman as a hostage. She is a gift from her people as a peace offering. As part of the bargain, Duke has promised, "She will not be sired, she will not be fed upo...
I emerged and caught my breath. The open night sky had disappeared; I found myself standing in a vast hall, surrounded by towering columns that seemed to stretch endlessly into the shadows. The air was heavy with an ancient, oppressive weight, and the grandeur of the room struck me with awe. It was unmistakably the throne room, a place of both reverence and dread.
As I watched, the Duke strode purposefully towards the nightmarish throne that dominated the chamber. His shoes moved richly on the ornately decorated marble floor, etched with my symbols and pentagrams. As he strode, the echo of his steps in the chamber gave a solemnity to the act which made me unwilling to speak.
At the apex of the hall stood a strange sight. There it was, an ominous sentinel of power and darkness, its cold, unforgiving presence casting an eerie pallor across the room. Thousands of bleached skulls adorned its base, their hollow sockets seemingly watching over the proceedings with silent, macabre vigilance. On top was a throne. Near the main high throne stood a number of lesser thrones, numbering seven.
Where the columns reached the vaulted ceiling, they broke into many complex, ornate white carvings. The detail and craftsmanship were beyond what one could imagine being performed by human hands. The ceiling's vaults were hidden by more complex and macabre chandeliers.
Above, between the huge columns, hung heavy flags, immense and as black as the feathers of a crow, adorned with ghostly, ethereal flowers that appeared to bloom in spectral hues. The flags billowed in the dimly lit hall, their ominous designs adding to the foreboding atmosphere that permeated the throne room. To one side the walls held a number of huge canvases which had pictures with no identifiable image on them.
The entire scene was reminiscent of a nightmarish tapestry woven from the darkest recesses of the imagination, a place where the line between reality and the macabre blurred into an unsettlingly beautiful dreamscape. From the echo of his shoes on the floor, this was the room where I had first heard him speak to his vampire coven.
I walked to the edge; on the walls hung large painted canvases, each different, but nothing I could recognize. I looked at the artwork high on the walls.
"I don't get vampire art. It doesn't show anything?" I said. "Why do vampires never make things simple?"
"It's not vampire art," said the Duke, looking at the picture. "That's a Jackson Pollock - human. That's a Rothko - also human, and it shows everything. Before the fall, this art commanded prices that would make even your father wince."
"The night sky over water is nice," I said, trying to be positive about something.
"It is. I actually met Van Gogh once when I was in Paris..." The Duke's attention wavered, then returned.
"Lucius," I said. He looked at me as if we had met in some past life. Memories dropped like sleep's dust from his glance.
"So you looted it?" I had heard stories of streets full of looters during the collapse before the vampires rose.
"No, I bought it before the fall," the Duke said, approaching his own throne, walking up the steps, and sitting down. "I wanted to preserve the high achivements of the age of men. There are more in the vaults, carefully preserved. These are too big for my apartments. I keep these here; they move me. Speaking of beauty, show me how regal you can be. Walk as if the room was yours, approach and join me here on the throne."
The Duke, with an encouraging smile, indicated the smaller, lower throne to his left.
"If the Duke commands," I said.
I stood tall and walked towards the skull throne that the Duke had installed himself on.
"Beautiful. Feet in line, good; hips swaying as if to invisible music, good. Now up, and sit down here, remember grace," the Duke ordered me to walk down the central aisle towards the throne. I did so with as much grace as I could muster. The seat was below and to side of the Duke. I sat, looking out, wondering what it would be like with a room filled with onlookers.
"So, who sits here?" I asked.
"That's for the consort, currently untenanted. On important occasions, my sister sits here. It looks well on you," the Duke said, looking down.
"Why, my lord, are you so fastidious about how I walk?" I asked. I called him lord; these vampires were such victims for flattery.
The duke tilted his head. "Lucius remember Victoria ? I am fastidious about how everybody walks."
"That's hardly an answer," I smirked.
Looking down, I noticed the chair I sat in was not made from skulls, but looking closely, it was carefully carved in every detail with patterns and vampire writing.
"My soldiers must goose step; nothing puts fear into an enemy's heart more than Stechschritt. It is difficult and takes practice and coordination; it turns gutter trash into elite troops."
"Mary said it meant you could spot infiltrators and spies, that Defiance men can't do it right," I said, remembering a conversation.
"That sounds like Mary. Full of useful and dangerous information. She's right, but she doesn't understand that sometimes war is more than war; it's theatre, and sometimes you should do things with style, even kill. The transience of beauty is the only thing that truly endures. So, as for the men and women of the coven, I couldn't let them slouch around. Everything in the coven has to be marked with sensuality, or it should not be done."
The Duke smiled and paused.
"You walk very well, but there is something slightly wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it. Indulge me. Go out and walk down. Keep walking, walking, stop. Come back and turn around. Follow that midline there; this is the path the queen must take at the coronation. Walk up and sit on the consort's throne again. Again."
I followed his orders. I ended up facing him backwards and felt his eyes move over me.
"Got it. Come, we have one more location to visit on our night's journey," he said, moving off.
As we left, I got the feeling that being brought here was not of some slight significance. I could not think why just yet, and that frustrated me.
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