The walls shed dangerous light, so thick with æther and magic that I can feel it turning my skin to ash the longer I stay in this terrible oven. Yet Aldramodore strides through the hall before me so terribly comfortable and confident that I know he feels none of it. If I stay here for too much longer there will be nothing left of me by the time I seek to escape.

Lewark is pulling at my arm more insistently now, but I tear myself from his grip and move on alone. This is a dangerous hunt, and it’s for the best if I go alone from here. They follow me a few short steps before they lose sight of me. One of them, Lysis I think, pulls the others away, hopefully to somewhere safe.

I will escape on my own once I am done. Once the monster is slain.

Even if I succeed, the villain might have a chance at killing me while he’s still burning, I know that Pharisa managed to fight hard while the fires spread out from her heart, and this monster is even stronger. I cannot underestimate him, but if I let him out of my sight now, then I’ll always be looking for him over my shoulder.

I cannot let him live. I cannot let him escape and destroy my life a second time.

He will be gone, and once I am done here, he will not be allowed to torment me still as he has all this time until now. I’ve not known it so clearly as in this moment, that his shadow has lingered in the depths of my being, a corruption that twists me up inside making me into the monster that I am now. Every time that I hunt and torment my prey, I am imitating that last dinner with my family. Though I bury it, the memory still haunts me, pulling me around like a hound dragged by its chain.

If I can just be done with him now, then this can all be over.

I won’t have to be afraid ever again.

I’ll finally forget that night, the red-eyed monster that stole my life and destroyed everything I’d known. I’ll be able to forget he ever existed.

“It’s a strange thing,” Adlramodore whispers. I freeze, expecting him to turn on me any second but he continues onwards without stopping. “My family is made of those that I’ve killed, but it’s not as if there’s any other way for me now. I need to do better as a father figure. I know it’s hard for them, especially with the madness, but… I need to be better.”

The wood grain under my fingers reassures my uncertain heart as I stalk him further, I am not made to skulk about. I should be walking through these halls with confidence and pride, no different to my foe, but I cannot. I am not hardly prepared for a hunt like this, and I do not think that he will fright easily.

The enchantments I was given by Lysis are fine enough to handle the things that I cannot, and I’m not making any sound. He doesn’t know that I’m here. I can get close and destroy him, just after he shows me where the Pharisa is. I need her to die too, more permanently so that she cannot come back.

I need to destroy them all, it’s the only way for me to be safe.

My brain is on fire, and my chest stings with pain that shouldn’t be allowed to exist inside of my cold dead corpse. I shouldn’t be doing this, it wasn’t the plan. I’m not powerful enough to beat him, but he doesn’t expect me and we vampires are vulnerable in a trap. I can do this.

I have to do this, or I’ll lose everything again.

“The damn lights,” Aldramodore grumbles. “It’s for the sake of the king’s family, but I still resent how uncomfortable they’ve made these halls. My own corner of this palace is much nicer.”

He strides down a set of stairs that lead down into the earth. The white walls give way to a darker space akin to the tunnels we walked through to get inside the castle. I easily heal my flesh under my cloak, not making even a hint of a sound.

“Pharisa… what am I going to do about you?”

He walks through a sliding door, hesitating on the other side for a moment as he rubs his brow in thought. The door stays open just long enough for me to sneak in after him, almost close enough to thrust this weapon into his heart and be done, but not yet. Not yet.

“She can get through this, I know that she can,” he whispers to himself. “I’ll heal her, and then we can start again. I may have to wipe her memory when all is done, but she’ll still be with us. We can be a family, she’ll still need to help out with a few chores, but that’s a part of what it means to be a family. She just needs time, just like the others.”

As he monologues aloud, unlike anyone I’ve known outside the pages of a novel, I stalk after him into a dark hall lined with rooms. I’ve never seen steel bars more beautiful than those that line the cells that surround me and never seen animals so vicious as what hides within.

They appear human, the same as I do, but some have lost the affectations of a human. They stalk back and forth in their cells, moving their limbs in unnatural ways as if they’ve forgotten how to walk. Many more are tearing at their own flesh, healing again moments later to tear at the same flesh again.

The sounds that come from them are nothing like words, they haven’t the structure of language, even the base communications of birds crying to one another make more sense than the confusing medley surrounding us.

I could almost swear that a few see me, but no, it’s just in my head. They stare at empty spots with the same vicious intensity, glaring at things that are not there, sometimes offended by what they see, sometimes amorous, and sometimes they plead for mercy.

Collars and bracelets made of enchanted metal bind them, possibly to prevent them from using dangerous magics or escaping their cells. I know that even those used on ordinary slaves are expensive things, so something that would adequately work against a vampire must be extraordinarily more luxurious.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Pharisa,” Aldramodore speaks her name as he approaches one cell, within is a familiar woman. The same that I helped to defeat not so long ago. She was burned in an eruption of fire that should have extinguished her life entirely, but somehow, she persists.

It would have been kinder had she not.

She’s tied down to a bed thrashing wildly and shouting though her screams are so ragged and constant that her throat has no chance to heal, and her cries are made silent. Her eyes are focused on something beyond us, something far up in the sky, that we can’t see.

“It hurts, I know,” Aldramodore whispers, opening the cell door and kneeling beside her. “I know that it hurts, but you will recover from this. “Our creator has left us half-finished, but unable to die. His magic has bound our souls to the mortal realms. When the gods fight against the magic that has caged us, they do so without concern for the pain it causes us. The damage can be healed, Pharisa. You will recover. I know that you can hear me, just keep fighting, you will recover in time.”

Aldramodore holds her hand like a loving father, sitting by the bedside of his sick child. The twisted facsimile of love only twists my guts up with disgust. It is a lie that should not be allowed to persist even a moment longer, but when I move a little closer so that I can strike him down, Pharisa’s eyes flicker towards me. She writhes about in her bindings, crying and screaming, but she has no voice.

I freeze, the frost inside holding me still as I wait for Aldramodore to notice, and to smite me, but he doesn’t.

“Pharisa, there are things that I must know,” he says, leaning over her side and resting a hand on her shoulder. “Was there a necromancer on that battlefield? Did a necromancer do these things to you?”

She stares up at him, her mouth working slowly to find words, the sounds alien and twisted when she manages to discover them.

“I was floating… pulled away, but something holds me here…” she says, shaking. “I was a bug pinned to a table. They tried to get me. They tried to get me, but they couldn’t, and the more that they tried, the more that it hurts. It hurts. It’s, it’s… it’s…”

Her breathing is ragged, though she needn’t breathe at all. Her eyes shimmer with impossible tears. She quivers, crawling in on herself as she shudders at the memories of what she suffered after death. Her words fail her as she rants about the things that were pulling her away, and the ‘pins’ thrust through her soul, holding her in place.

“Our creator was a half-step away from the gods,” Aldramodore explains, though Pharisa clearly isn’t listening. “But that half-step is a tremendous distance. Even when burned down to ash, our souls are locked to this world. We cannot escape to the heavens or the hells. The magic that binds us here breaks us a little more with each death, as if we hadn’t suffered enough…

“But… I’m sorry Pharisa, a new necromancer is something more dangerous to us than even the more insistent priests and gods. If they ever tried to touch upon this magic, they could unravel us entirely. They could destroy us. I must know if a necromancer exists here.”

Magic passes through her, and even from where I stand I can feel it compelling me to speak.

He must know. I have to say something to him. I have to tell him. He has to know about Syr. Her magic is dangerous, and he needs to know.

I hold my jaw closed, pulling the stake in my sleeve up to my chest, holding it over my heart which is soon bound by his magics.

The magic that Syr weaved into my heart struggles defiantly against the stray threads that Adlramodore has accidentally cast into my soul. Even then, I’m barely struggling to maintain my composure against the terrible magic that would force me to submit.

I cannot.

“I…”

I grip the stake tight, prepared to launch at the monster before he can hear Pharisa’s confession, or worse still, my own.

“She wouldn’t obey me, she wouldn’t listen,” Pharisa whimpers, her lips forced to move and her mind forced to find recollection. “I thought it was a necromancer, some of my own did fight me. They fought me. Too well. She resisted entirely. It was her, not a necromancer. It was her, but how? No, I don’t understand. I don’t remember. The fire. It was in my heart. It was in my heart and I tried to fix it, but she wouldn’t let me, and then I was… fire everywhere. Everything.

“It hurts. The fire got stuck in my soul. The cracks are filled with fire now. Can I die? Can’t you please help me die? I want to die. Shialla, I heard her voice. She was kinder than the others, she promised that she could help. She was crying for me. She was…”

“No,” Adlramodore says, silencing her with an order. “You will not leave. She’s a god, she can wait for eternity and a day. You are mine, not hers.”

The weight in my chest goes away as if he’s rescinded his orders. My jaw is stiff, and my teeth are stuck together from the force I put into holding my mouth closed. Pharisa is crying. She’s crying, and he’s trying to comfort her but it’s only making it worse. She wants to be gone, she wants to die.

Some things hurt more than death, and even the promise of a place in one of the greater hells sounds like mercy.

She shouldn’t have to suffer through this.

A painful throb passes through my flesh and soul and I almost let out a scream, but my locked jaws hold it in. It burns through every inch of me, a pain that I’ve felt before but more distant then. I’ve felt this same pain when standing beside Merry or Belle. It’s a terrible boiling, burning pain that rejects the very nature of myself. I am filled with a power that doesn’t belong to me, it doesn’t belong inside of me.

I am a cushion stuffed with hard pebbles.

A decanter overflowing with red spice.

A bath filled with frozen oils.

“I just need to be certain,” Aldramodore whispers to his patient. “You are certain that there was no necromancer?”

Pharisa opens her mouth.

“I… I… my… they… it… was…”

She trembles, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tries to remember, but she can’t.

“Save her,” A mournful whisper burns through my soul, and as painful as it is, I must agree. This is abhorrent.

My hands move as if on their own, guided by the faith burning in my soul. Faith in the fact that this tortured soul should be set free. Faith in the gods that would help her, if she were not tied down in this chamber. None deserve to suffer this fate. None.

“That’s enough,” Aldramodore shakes his head. She instantly falls back down into the bedding as he releases his grip on her, I reach for her, the burning, divine magic flowing down my arm as if it wants to reach her, but my hand won’t move.

“Save her,” the voice whispers once more, her magic burning inside of me silencing all other sensations, forcing its way down my arm and reaching out past my flesh to reach Pharisa.

“I said, enough,” Aldramodore snaps, his hand locking around my wrist. His skin sizzles for a moment until the fire inside of me dies out, and I’m left standing here alone, facing the red-eyed monster once again. “I was content to let you play your games, but this is too far.

“Christina,” he says, lips set into a frown. “I’m not so evil, we’ll save her. You’ll see. Now, you’ll follow me somewhere more quiet, where I’ll explain a few things to you. Divine magic? What stupidity…”

His magic floods through my flesh, overwhelming the marks that Syr left on my heart. I fall over myself to follow him as he strides out of the cell, leaving Pharisa, still crying and mumbling to herself.

I messed up.

Everyone’s going to die because of me.

“No,” I force my voice to work, holding tight to the words that Syr forced into my heart I adjust my grip on the wooden stake and jump at Aldramodore’s exposed back.