Writen in the Stars - Working Title

Chapter One

Swallowing and rubbing my eyes until my vision blurs with a thousand little stars, I sit up in the bedroom of the apartment and look around. The last beams of sunset still sneak through the window like a ghost, signifying that the vampires would soon be returning from the city they had built around the blood palace. The slums are never safe, but the sunlight offers a reprieve from the fear that stalks its residents, now slowly slipping away. The apartment is as quiet as when I returned to bed just a couple of hours previously. With my roommate on a mission from the King, I had found myself retreating further and further into the depths. With no one around to keep trying for, it became too easy to stop trying at all. I glance at the pocket watch on my bed stand and make a choice. I still have an hour or so of light left, and there is one person I know would be pleased to see me, my best, and only, if we are being honest, friend. So peeling myself from the bed and shoving on a black leather body suit, whilst simultaneously braiding my hair beneath the large hood, I swing myself from the floor all the way up the walls to the ceiling and out onto the roof. The door has long been barricaded and disguised. What use is a door other than to provide easy access for our enemies? From the rooftop, I can see the last of the activity from the market square below. Despite how cruel and dark Sanguard is, I almost relish the chill of the breeze and the absence of the obnoxiously warm sun above. This place can still be beautiful. The buildings are drab and crumbling, but the human and fae who reside here are often seen during the day in every colour of the rainbow. In the summer, where the days drag on for longer than the nights, people will spend entire evenings drinking cheap cider that tastes like piss, gathering around fires to share whatever food rations are available and laughing as if none of the horrors of life even exist at all. Outright rebellion had been punished so publicly, so many times in these streets that happiness has become the only defiance of the Vampire King the people have left. Those stolen moments of joy look all the more precious from my spot on the top of the building, for the horror in which they thrive despite. Even some of the other fae will drag themselves from the woods where they have made their homes, identifiable only by their pointy ears now that magic no longer remains, to join the festivities and socialise with humans.

Jumping down from the roof to the ground below, careful not to allow my footsteps to crunch against the stone, I weave my way into the market square, where only the bravest of vendors are packing up their last unsold items. Continuing to work until the very last few seconds of sunlight in order to maximise their earnings, you can almost taste the desperation as they war between their own safety and the ability to feed and protect their loved ones this week. The vampire will often accept money and gifts instead of blood, but very few have either of these to offer instead. I suppose, as a King's Royal Apointee, I am lucky to live a life of luxury compared to others in the slums, yet it just contributes towards a fear of not belonging anywhere I go, until I can hardly even enjoy any of the few luxuries I have afforded myself. Yet, my earnings mean I stop at each stall, purchasing half rotten fruit at double the price, cigarettes I will only half smoke, even a small, supposedly magical, mirror from a strange hooded merchant who would no doubt be murdered if the King heard of his stall. Only once I have purchased items from every remaining vendor do I take the pathway to the home in which I seek comfort.

All around Elodie's home the world is grey, and not as in grey like the colour, grey as in the absence of colour, like every inch of life has been sucked from the world and nothing is left but a dying shell. I reach the old wooden door with the strange brass knocker and knock, just once. A secret code we had created many years ago, for no impatient vampire would ever bother knocking once, and sure enough seconds later the door creaks open and a bony hand reaches out to grab me and tug me inside.

"Fucking hell Talia, you look like shit. If I didn't know any better I would think you were one of the walking dead with that complexion of yours" Elodie spits out at me with a tone of concern and affection that I will allow from no one else I know.

"Nice to see you too, my delightful friend. Unfortunately, I fear that the grey of my appearance is the only way I might keep our meetings safe. You and your house are more than colourful enough for the both of us, and one slightly pink cheek might be all it took to beacon our location directly to the King" I tease.

And sure enough, Elodie's house is such a beautiful contrast to the outside. The floors are green and the walls are covered in fabrics of gold and pink, a pink settee in the middle of the room, by a small fireplace, and a desk with a sewing machine tucked into one corner. There are paintings everywhere, and the only grey which has made its way into Elodie's house are the grey of my very own eyes, which I painted on her front door the day I made a promise to always watch out for her. On the inside, the glass in the windows is oddly shaped, in a diamond pattern that alongside the small crystal light hanging from the ceiling, captures the last slivers of sunlight and the pink and orange of the sky to leave little, rainbow, droplets of light all over the room. Elodie pulls shut the curtains and tends to the fire, boiling a cauldron of water above it. Behind rows of beads which hang from a door frame, I know there is a small china sink with random shards of mirror hanging above it on the wall, and a bed of blankets and rugs of every shade, as I had often slept here with her when the apartment became a vast void in the early days.

We have always been exact opposites, whilst I am pale, Elodie's skin is bronzed, her honey coloured eyes a contrast from my own silvery grey, she wears her dark hair piled on her head, whilst my golden curls snake between my shoulder blades all the way to my waist. Yet, if I ever have a sister in this world, Elodie would be mine. She radiates magic of her own despite appearing completely human, so maybe she would be my sister in every world. Mine and her own, wherever she came from. I have no way of describing our relationship except that her soul whispers to my own, carressing my fears and my nerves until I feel nothing but peace. Despite the fact I have lost everyone I have ever called a friend, and despite wanting to bury myself in the loss and despair when I became a servant to the King, I couldn't help but make space in my heart for Elodie. It was she that was tasked with my care when I arrived here at the age of eight. Only a few years older than me herself, the vampire King had granted me a warrior to train, but she had saved me, in ways I can't admit even to myself, most of the time. This is why I am careful to hide our friendship now, to ensure the King does not know about her little cottage and our friendship, and I know this means I can afford but a few mere moments with her.

"Here," she shoves a cup of tea into my hands and sits down next to me before bombarding me with questions. "Has Zeke returned yet? Have you heard from him at all? Are you truly alright? You mustn't leave here in the darkness, you foolish girl!"

"I've heard nothing and know nothing. And I'm working tonight. Unruly vampires not following orders" I beam at the thought of my next job. Hunting vampires is my favourite of the tasks assigned to me.

"Can you come back tomorrow? You can always sleep here and I will prepare some stew. You ought not to be alone, freezing to death in that nasty apartment."

"Maybe, but you know the risks Elodie, the King has imposed harsher sentences on the folk here, and I can't risk him finding you."

"Alright, well, at least drink your tea, and I will update you on the latest going ons. The spy crows have been more prevalent the past few days. Do you know if the King is planning something?"

"You follow your own advice and stay away from the crow, you know damn well the King relies on their stories to make accusations against those here, but I haven't heard of any news from the palace at all" I frown "Zeke may know more so I'll ask him when he returns. What else has been happening?"

Half an hour passes in a blink of an eye as I listen to Elodie's chatter, and I soon found myself taking the last gulp from my tea, and sneaking away from the little house I love so dearly. Once I am wrapped in the darkness of the night, I begin making my way towards the blood palace and the vampire city.