Not once since I awoke as an undead monstrosity have I ever fallen asleep, consciousness has been an inescapable stream of suffering, pain, and responsibilities that I’m ill-equipped to face. Not once have I even felt a need for rest, not in the same sense as a living thing wants for it.

At times, I’ve lain in bed staring up at the ceiling, my mind still and cold as a frozen lake, and yet sleep has still evaded me. The promise of a reprieve from consciousness and an escape from continuing to exist in this state has been too tempting even though it has been beyond reach. For one night, I could be someone, something, else. That promise has evaded me for so long, and yet now…

My mind slowly pulls itself free from the lingering attachments to an unreal space and world that has for one night allowed me to escape from my reality. The dreams cling to me as vines that wrap around my limbs and as I tear myself free from them only short lengths remain, small fragments of memories that slip from my hands. Dreams that burn up in the light of day.

Yet, the peace of mind that they’ve brought me still infuses my mind. I feel calm, warm, and safe. As I open my eyes and see Syr lying beside me, I see a world where only good things can come.

But the lies of dreams cannot survive for long I remind myself of the truth of this world and my own troubling circumstances. I am walking a fine line, and one small mistake could spell a terrible future for not only myself but all those who rely upon me.

The day is not yet here, the sun still hiding on the horizon, and its slow crawl upwards promises an end to this moment. This house is a place to contain the reckless lies and the desperate desires of its customers, and though our circumstances are different, the moment we step outside the doors these lies will have to come to an end.

It is time to see through the illusions and test what relationship can survive in the light of a new day.

Though… there is still some time before the sun demands we move…

Syr’s lips press against my brow, and something in my chest stirs at the tickling touch of her kiss. The simple affection makes it clear that she’s thinking about me right now, but what thoughts exactly are filling her mind?

Is it sympathy?

Pity?

Love?

Can love exist so soon after meeting someone? Is that what stirs in my chest? Or is it the sort of silly passions that people feel when they look upon someone beautiful?

“Syr,” I whisper still holding her as we lie on the bed, though we’re still dressed in our day clothes. It’s not nearly as comfortable as it could be, but I have no desire to move and end this dream before I must.

“Rea,” she replies, kissing my forehead and melting the frost that I’ve been rebuilding since waking. The habit is broken for now, though I’ll need to return to training when we awaken.

I don’t know what sort of mindlessness took me last night, that I would lie with a girl that I’ve only just met. There are terms for a woman like that, and I do not want them to settle on my shoulders, or Syr’s, but this doesn’t at all feel like something that those words would describe.

I don’t know what this is, but it should not be ridiculed or belittled. A spark of rage burns in my mind as I imagine those that would judge us, but it freezes as I realize just what it means.

My emotions… No, investigating this would take me away from this moment. I will think on what I’ve learned from this, but not yet.

I take in the sight of Syr in the pre-dawn darkness, raising a hand to brush aside my own messed hair only for her hand to do the same just a little faster. As she brushes my hair back, my own hand rests on hers, and she pauses. The warmth of her palm invades my cheek, and it feels almost like a blush.

Her hair is much too short but just as messy as mine. If she could leave it to grow for a year or so then I can think of a few styles that would be suitable for her, I would quite like to see her with silver hairpins, perhaps with white opal or pearl to suit her brown hair. The texture of it is leaning closer to rough rather than fine, but it’s not so bad.

Perhaps I can prepare a time to dress her up properly. Her armour doesn’t show her true beauty, but would she be open to that?

If she weren’t leaving this week…

If my responsibilities weren’t forcing me in another direction…

Syr is still staring at me, her satisfied smile far too wide. What’s so amusing?

“Did something happen?” I ask, thinking back to the events of the night.

“We were kissing, which was fun, but then you started crying,” she says, rubbing at my cheek affectionately. I’m sure it must’ve been an awkward experience for her, especially with where things were heading before I broke down. The fact that my emotional breakdown ruined the night doesn’t even seem to have bothered her at all. She’s much too happy.

“I remember as much, yes,” I say, looking for some secret behind her good mood. I can’t imagine that she would have been satisfied by the events, rather I feel she should be upset with me, even if she would hide it behind good manners—what little manners she has. Instead, she’s genuinely happy to be holding a crying girl through the night.

“Then we cuddled?” She continues, smiling as if that’s some grand thing.

She’s too pure.

What was I doing with this girl last night? Did I misjudge her age? I’m not doing these things with an elvish child, am I?

No. I’ve never heard of an elvish child having the body of an adult, and while she’s still small, she’s very clearly not a child.

“That was all?” I ask, thinking back to how her hands were touching me last night. I’m certain that I left her wanting. Unless she did something while I was sleeping…?

“What else are you asking about?” She tilts her head, with such pure innocence that I can’t even stand to look at her anymore.

“Nothing,” I shake my head, clearing out the dirty thoughts clogging my mind. She’s not that sort of person… but if Syr were to touch me like that… if she were to kiss me like that again… I shake my head again, but the thoughts aren’t so easy to clear away.

“Um, If it’s okay to ask… did I do something to hurt you?” She already knows that’s not what happened, her voice is quiet and guiltless, but overflowing with sympathy. Striking at my own guilty heart for the suspicions I had of her.

“You can ask, yes,” I reply, avoiding a proper answer and feeling only the worse for it. “I can’t explain why I… not yet. I need to understand it myself, first. Just know that it’s not your fault.”

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I kiss her lips before she can find an answer, using the moment of confusion to break from her arms and roll to the side of the bed. I do not even know if I’m ready to face what happened last night, and the implications of it. My lies have been revealed so plainly that I cannot ignore them any longer. My new nature, my emotions…

No, not right now.

“I’m afraid that I haven’t all day reserved for you. We will take the carriage back to my estate, but then I have some business that needs attending to.”

“Okay,” she nods, accepting the walls that I force between us. “Me too. I need to dive into a crypt with some other mercenaries. I think there’s some necromancy secret in there, that’s what I’m hoping for at least. Oh, and you can’t tell my team, they can’t know about this.”

“Oh?” How can she just reveal everything so lightly? Secrets that she’s keeping even from her own team, she so lightly offers to me as if it’s nothing. She wants to enhance her necromancy magics, and while I don’t judge her the worse for it, I’m sure that most anyone else would be horrified at the admission. It’s something she’s keeping even from her team, for that exact reason.

I’ve been lax with my vampiric secrets, but I never truly felt as if they were my secrets. Now there is something that I’m not comfortable sharing with the world, the truth of my nature, who I am apart from a vampire and a noble. I understand only a fragment of the secret that I’ve been keeping from myself, the emotions that I’d pretended were dead, yet my throat closes as I even dare to think of it.

“Will you be visiting me again, I would be… I hope that you will…I…” If Syr leaves and I never see her again… I barely know her, and it’s not as if we’ve developed some wonderful relationship in this past day. I would always roll my eyes when I read a love story and the characters fall deep in love within the length of a week, but now…

Even if it’s not love, I don’t want to let this relationship go. I can’t bear the thought of seeing her leave, not knowing when we are next to meet, if at all.

The words are so difficult to find…

I clench my jaw and control my breathing as I was taught when I was a child, just to keep the tears from rising again. Now that the dam holding in all my emotions has been opened it’s as if I can’t put it back to how it was, and my very mind has been corrupted and ruined by my new weakness.

“I’ll be back,” Syr says, her arms enclosing me. She holds me tightly so that I don’t fall apart, my legs become like a liquid, and I would collapse if it weren’t for her grip on me. After I shudder a few desperate breaths that do nothing for my body but ease my beleaguered heart, I steady myself by leaning back on her, nearly strong enough to stand.

“We’re both leaving,” I say, gripping her hand tight as she continues to hold me. I look toward the future we have ahead of us. “We’ll be going our separate ways…”

“I’ll find you,” the deep growl in her voice refutes my doubts before they can even be spoken aloud. “We both have centuries ahead of us. Even if we get separated, I’ll find you again.”

Centuries?

Hundreds of years?

I am a human, I was a human, I never thought to even live to see a full century. Since losing my life I’ve barely thought a few weeks in advance, from one incident to the next I’ve been busy trying to find the best path towards not only survival but staying true to my duties as a noble. I cannot even call what I’ve managed a true success given that I intend to hand my people over to a criminal organisation, but for all this, I’ve never dreamed of what will come in a year let alone a decade.

Syr has only just met me, only just kissed me, and yet she’s already looking centuries ahead, and she sees me in that future.

I don’t think I can even hope to imagine what sort of person I am in that world which must be shining in her eyes, just out of my sight as she rests her chin on my shoulder. I don’t know who she wants me to be, and yet I want to be that person.

Partly just so that I don’t have to be myself.

“We must be going before the sunrise,” I say, leading her to the door. Syr nearly leaves behind her padded armour top, but I remember it just in time to help her get dressed properly.

The stairs outside are much closer to empty than they were last evening, though the scents still linger when the customers rush to take their leave. Some efforts have been taken to ensure this place remains clean, but my senses are not as limited as their usual customers.

Syr pulls me to a stop and forces a handkerchief into my hand, a small snowdrop embroidered in the corner. It’s scented with some cheap mix of flowers, the sort that I’ll occasionally smell in the street from the commoners that I pass by, but there’s also a hint of smoke, as if from a campfire, and hints of Syr’s scent lingering though it’s been cleaned and perfumed again.

She lifts it over my face and I hold it there. It can’t entirely deny the scents of this place, but it does distract from them.

How did she know that I was bothered by the smell? It is strange to know that someone is thinking about me and that I’m on her mind even now. At once it stirs up a bubbling warmth inside of me, and it makes me want to look away from her and hide my face. Instead, I hold the handkerchief to my nose and continue on my way.

Dancers are still at work on the stages. There are fewer customers, and they seem to give each more focus, creating a relaxed air. In fact, the customers here right now seem to be the less greasy sorts, and more familiar with the dancers, friendly even. Genuine if I would gamble a guess at it. They are not dressed as rich as the others, so perhaps that might have something to do with it.

Some glance at us in passing, but they offer no remarks, leaving us be.

Vael is outside pulling up the carriage just in time for us to board and be away. The fact that she was able to perfectly anticipate our arrival is only more reason to distrust the strange woman, yet I can’t find it in myself to hold it against her. Therina opens the doors for us, about to come down to assist me in entering the carriage but stopping herself short as she looks at Syr and I, smiling warmly as she stays in her seat.

Syr takes my hand, helping me to step up to my seat, before following me inside. Crow, her undead pet, flies in through the doors before she closes them behind us, settling in on my lap and demanding my attention. He flaps his wings and hops about while looking up at me, squawking quietly, which a living bird would never do, and demanding my attention.

Therina sits opposite me, a parasol beside her in case we were too long in our return. She wears a mask of perfect indifference, as a proper maid in this situation ought to, though her curious eyes still capture everything and I’m sure that she’s wondering what happened over the night we spent in Semi’s establishment.

Especially the way that Syr sits beside me, without any care for propriety. If we are ever to be together in any real form, then I’ll need to train her in proper etiquette. Things like this are perfectly unacceptable… but that’s assuming that I’ll still be acting as a noble, which is unlikely.

“Syr, I need you to give me an order,” I say. “Order me to reject the words of Aldramodore. Make it so that I will never obey him.”

She nods, gripping my hand tight. Her magic plays through my flesh and settles into my heart but she delays in finding the right words, watching me intensely.

Her magic might guard me against the monster that I am soon to face. In my heart, I already know that I cannot escape this city without first facing him. I cannot properly face myself until I see him in the flesh, until I face this monster.

He is the one that slayed me.

He cursed me.

He has done me wrong, and I cannot leave without seeing him face to face.

Even though it is a remarkably dangerous prospect. Suicidal even.

“Do not ever obey Aldramodore,” she whispers into my ear, the words tighten around my heart, demanding that I obey. “You will escape him. You will survive. If everything else fails, you will find help. You will find me.”

She says far more than I asked of her, but I see nothing wrong in her orders. They do not compel me to immediate action, as that was not the intent seeded into them. They are exactly what she wants of me. To survive so that we can meet again.

“Thank you,” I whisper, as Crow sits on my lap, rubbing his head on my hand. Syr smiles beside me, resting her hand on my shoulder.

There is precious little time left for me in this city, and I must ensure that I leave the people here with as good a chance as I can offer them. That offers me little time to be wasted on moments like this.

I will hand the people under my power over to a criminal because she offers them a kinder fate than my noble peers, my vampiric siblings, or the royals that distance themselves from the world itself. My own house, I will march across the land, fending off bandits and savage beasts just so that we might find a place in this world where we might belong. A place kinder than this.

The ‘Rea’ that I found last night cannot be allowed to obstruct those duties.

Syr kisses my cheek, completely unconcerned with Therina’s watching eyes. She blushes and turns to look away, though her eyes still flick back to us again.

When my duties are done, and I have some time for myself again, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to allow myself to be this person.

When we arrive at the estate the sun is peeking over the horizon, and Syr’s mercenary team is already gathered, ready for war if she is not returned to them. She leaps from the carriage to assuage their concerns, but they’re all eager to be away and my plans to hold her here a while longer are ruined before I can even entertain the idea.

I stand outside the carriage under the parasol as they have their short argument, finally moving to leave. Syr pauses to give me a wave, her confliction clearer to me than the mess of emotions swirling about in the cavity of my chest.

Biting my lip, I take a step forward, then another, and then I’m running at her.