Blood & Shadows

Nineteen

It takes a week to fully recover from the spell. I eat the dried meat and cheese from the winter stores in the larder. No new memories surface and the home seems like some tavern once visited long ago as opposed to my family home. I have a vague recollection of where things are but nothing tied to it.

It's just after dawn when I choose my dress for the day. The heavy black velvet clings to my body and flares at my sleeves. The hem and square collar are lined with golden embroidery and little pieces of garnet, ruby and jet arranged to make tiny roses. The thick black wool cape is perfect to keep out the cold. I summon shadows to bathe me, dress me, and brush my hair.

Melancholy lingers at the edges of every action I take, and fleeting thoughts of the love I cannot recall brings heartache a new.

A fine dusting of snow covers everything; the red clay seeps into the show turning it the color of fresh blood on the ground. There's nothing about Shademore that doesn't whisper GO AWAY in a mournful cry of warning. What does it say about me that I'm spawned of it?

At the end of the carriage path, I pause at the dismantled gate pillar turned sarcophagus. With a twitch of my finger, the stones fall away, exposing Orys's body.

He looks like he's sleeping with full lips, slack, and muscles loose and relaxed. Those loose silver curls are edged with dried blood, and his doublet is starting to mold--but his body is pure and pristine.

I can't move; breathing is difficult as I stare at the corpse. His lips aren't blue they're bloodless pale in a way I imagined a vampire's to be before Vrythien.

It's not how I imagined it would be. It's not as easy as portaling his body to the crypt and using shadows to move him into the sarcophagus.

"I love you, I love you, a thousand times, I love you. As empires fall and castles sink into the sea. I'll still love you, too. When coated in blood and flush with power, gloating over sweet demise, I'll still love you, too. When standing at the head of a horde as shadows swallow the lands. I'll be the light to bring your shadows to life, and I will still love you." Orys whispers in my ear as we lay in each other's arms, and I giggle, my cheeks flushed.

"Stop."

"When this shipwrecked heart is torn apart, and you find yourself alone as you do. Have ne're a fear because I'll still be here walking beside you. And even then, when love comes again, I'll still love you, too."

"Don't," I whisper as he kisses my bare shoulder.

"Tell the truth?"

"I don't want to think of your end."

He sighs, and the sorrow in that small gesture bathes me in waves. My fingers play in his curls, and he nuzzles against me.

"Don't forget what I am to your father. I'm his catamite, not merely a slave but a slave with a purpose, and he's made it very clear my end will come at his hand when he's finished with me."

"He loves me too much." I shake my head, and he nods slowly.

"You are so beloved by him, as you should be. But I think in this, we're crossing a line that should never be crossed."

"I'm a Lazthien. The line is what I say it is."

He swallows. "But I'll be the one to pay the price. Considering all I've been through, I'd gladly pay it. Do you remember when he first brought you below?"