Reborn in Blood: Stories of Transformation

Ivory Tower

Ivory Tower

There she sat a prisoner and a princess, a master and a slave—timeless:  Day after day, never changing, never aging—eternal youth and beauty hers.  Her master’s Nubian prize, one of many locked in this tower, sorted and stored away like a child’s play thing.  Her only solace to the banality of her day:  A window.  It offered a view into nothing, fields as far as her eyes could see, on a good day a traveler might pass by with his wares or meager possessions.  Despite the emptiness, the window and beyond acted as a gateway to her past, one that seemed to slip through her fingers like sand—it seemed like ages since she had last saw it.

Though there was no measure of time in her small stone room, she was sure that it had been years since she had last set foot on the fertile soil of her homeland.  It was a meager existence, the lived in a single room with the animals, but they were no worse off than the neighbors.  She was to help her family out of their poverty; a local prince had chosen to take her as his bride, her parents were overjoyed.  So was she, a bright and hopeful young bride of twelve.  The dreams of wealth and a future, though, died quickly and harshly.

She still remembered her wedding day, the entire town turned out to see her off, she smiled even though it might have been the last time she would see her home; if only then she would have know how right she would have been.

Sitting on a pale white horse, she was saying her final good byes to her family when they came.  They rode like thunder, the people had no chance to even put up a fight, within the hour the town was in ruin.  The entire population was slain, with the exception of her—she would have been better off dead, better than this life.  She listened from her hiding place as they rode through the streets paved in blood and flesh shouting about the superiority of their god.

A knock on the heavy oaken door, the only escape from her prison, roused her from her thoughts.  Glancing up, she heard the heavy locks slide open.  Rising from her velvet seat, which had over the many nights she had spent in it it had conformed to her body, she moved towards the door expectantly.  Her nightly meal had arrived.

A young boy, of no more than fifteen entered into the darkened room; he wore a sheepskin that barely covered his nether regions.  Master’s new toy, she thought watching his nervous footsteps.  Did he know the monster that she was?  In his small trembling girlish hands, he bore a chalice encrusted with precious stones.  She could hear the beast inside her head, as he moved close to her, she could almost smell his hot blood pulsing just beneath his fair skin.

Take him, the voice told her, he is young and fresh, untainted.  She contemplated the beast’s seductive whispers for several seconds:  What would it be like to drink from a living vessel, to feel the hot blood flowing freely.  Banishing the thoughts almost as quickly as she had them; she had seen what her master could do, and it was only through his good graces that she was still alive—never again did she want to she the rage she had seen the day of her rebirth.

Shaking with hunger, fear, and bloodlust, she took the goblet from the boy.  Examining the viscous liquid for several seconds, she felt her hatred for life grow, as it did every night at her feeding time; others had to die so that her enslavement could continue.  Suppressing her bitter thoughts she brought the cup to her lips and drank deeply of it.

As the red liquid filled her mouth and coated her lips her, she savored the thickness and sweetness that slid down her throat and into her belly; the beast was sedated.  The dark thoughts that had occupied her were now replaced with draining the goblet at her lips.  She stuck out her small pink tongue, licking any of the remnants of the lifeblood that still remained.  Finishing, she threw the cup at the boy who flinched as the struck him, the disgust had returned to her—one vicious cycle.

She watched the boy scurry to pick up the expensive cup, and then run from the room before returning to her seat.  Dawn would come soon; her last dawn was spent hiding.  Hiding from the monster that took her family and her future, and for what, it was all futile.

In retrospect, hiding was useless.  His spirit found her first, and then he did.  He smiled when he found her; he knew that she had watched it all.  She still vividly remembered his cold lifeless skin, his sharp teeth, and most of all his smile—the smile of a conqueror claiming his bounty.  He pulled her from her hiding place; she was a feather in his mighty arms.  Speaking a language she did not know, he laughed as he gave her his damned kiss.  He took everything of her former vessel, everything except her will.  After sating his hunger, he fed her his blood turning her into his eternal prisoner.  She felt her blood burn in her cheeks even now, miles and years away from where it had begun.

Looking up in surprise as she heard the locks being slid open again, she stood quickly.  The heavy wooden door swung open with a mighty groan, and there he stood—her master.

The smell of blood and sweat rolled from his muscular frame.  He stepped forward embracing her small frame against his much larger one.  Kissing her hair lightly, he stepped from her moving to her window.  Pushing back the velvet curtains, he stared at the distant mountain range and the lightly pink sky.  He inhaled his world deeply.

She stepped behind him, wrapping her arms under his armpits and holding his shoulders.  Her mouth began to water as she drew in the smell of blood that saturated his very being.  Being this close to the life force reawakened the hunger that had only been put at bay by her earlier meal.  Kissing and licking his broad shoulders, she could taste the remnants of some unlucky person.  Her eyes grew wild at the thought of how this person fell struggling for life—trying to stop a god—she was a god.

This was her chance, her chance to rise to where she deserved to be.  She was not meant to be anyone’s slave.  Here and now, the chance she had waited for--her chance to destroy the destroyer.  He never saw it coming; she pulled his taut body against her small and frail one.  Struggling against her as she sank her twin daggers into the soft flesh of his neck, she held him with strength beyond her size and age.

As she swallowed mouthful after mouthful of his life she heard the screams of the thousands of people he had killed echoing inside her head:  Each one a different pain, a different voice, a different story.  She felt his body begin to slump against hers, and as the last few drops of life’s essence leaked from his broken flesh, she swore she heard her family’s final screams.

Tears forming in her eyes she pushed his limp body forward sending it sprawling out of the window.  With tears in her eyes, she paused, waiting, hesitating—fear crept through her body.  She held her breath waiting for him to rise back to the window to kill her, but her never came.  Instead the echo of his body smashing against it’s own weight reached her ears.  Releasing her pent up breath and fear, she stepped up to the window.

She pulled the heavy curtains open as wide as her tiny arms could hold them.  Smiling, she saw the sun was mere seconds away from breaking free and casting the valley in its light.  The power over life and death, she thought to herself just as the sun cleared the mountains, so this is what it feels like to be a god….