I pause all my instincts and still my breathing, I do not need to forget who I was, but I do not wish to be held back by it. I mustn’t let myself be held back from who I could become.

A perfect noble, as I would define the role.

As a perfect noble, I will not let myself be limited to what is human but will seek to become more for the sake of fulfilling my role in serving my people. I am not a king or queen, and I do not seek to become one, serving to balance the interests of the people and their kingdom. I would support the growth of powerful knights and have them defend my lands from external enemies while supporting the reeves in their duties to defend us from enemies within.

Yet, there is still so much more that I have not been taught. So much more that I don’t understand. There is also, so much evil inside of me. Temptations draw me back to new designs on torture, how I might make someone squeal, make their blood that much richer in flavour.

My magic training has stalled, far too many disasters and distractions have kept me busy, but I cannot allow those excuses to delay me further. I cannot go much further without strength behind my words.

“Tina, we should be looking for a way to defeat Aldramodore,” Belle says, her eyes shining as she gazes upon a future currently far beyond my reach. Her hands twitch and her frown turns quickly to a smile as she sees something that I cannot. Her faith suddenly burns brighter.

She worries me, but I do not know what to do to help her.

“Belle, he was skewered upon an enchanted blade filling him with fire, his critical weakness, and yet he still arrived at my home but a day later to force my entire staff into submission. There is no talk of going after Aldramodore that is in any way productive,” I explain. “Twice so, if I am party to the conversation. He can demand from me any secret, and I cannot keep anything from him… I…”

My brows knit and I swallow hard as I pull at the missing threads in my mind. If I wished to keep a secret from him… the timing of this lapse in memory… are there other things that I’m forgetting as well? Someone I met. A mercenary… I take the temptation and shove it deep down. Whatever I’ve forgotten should likely stay that way.

“She’s not wrong,” Reeve Lewark enters the conversation with a deep huff of frustration. The way he disregarded my warnings about returning to this estate, only proves that he isn’t as wise as I’d thought him to be. “But just because you can’t win, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fight.”

“I disagree.” I lean forward in my seat. “If you are to fight, sacrificing the lives of those who trust in you, then you must have a clear purpose. I would not have you all die throwing yourselves at that monster unless there is a chance to win. As it stands, I’m sure that the only reason you were let survive at all is because he retains enough humanity to try to keep from antagonising me. I have no clue as to how far that will stretch, but I doubt that he would hesitate to kill you if you were ever to stand before him again.

“If you want to defeat this villain, then seclude yourselves, go live as hermit warriors. Train until you are confident you have a chance at victory or go to foreign lands and seek warriors to fight in your place. Do not simply add your corpses to the growing pile. There are enough dead already.”

As the other two digest my rant, I consider my future training schedule. There are many tools that I’m failing to use to their potential because of my lacking training, tools that I’m likely to need in the coming years.

“Your right,” Belle admits, though her fervour seems unchanged. “We need to focus on saving the people that you’re sending to die in the forests.”

“Do you have other plans for them?” I ask, not looking up from the paper upon which I sketch out my plans for a schedule.

My current training method, taught to me by my ex-slave guests, allows me to stretch all my æther veins at once thus providing the most useful means of growth. That, however, doesn’t aid me in gaining new insights into my magic and it might be used in hunting, politics, and self-defence. For that, I must set aside a few hours each night to fully meditate on my abilities.

“I don’t,” Belle stretches the word out as if in hope that she’ll find some revelation upon speaking the second syllable. “But I don’t think the nobles should be involved. If these people are going to be fighting off monsters to live in these new lands, why should nobles be the ones to grow rich from it?”

“Because they’re paying for the food,” I say, looking up. “And this promise is the only means I can think of to convince them to give their coin up for this endeavour. Though, mind you, I have no intention of defending the nobles after they’ve served their purpose. After we have the coin to see these people fed and given new homes, then I do not much care if the nobles see their investments returned. Excepting only a few, I wouldn’t much mind if they were all killed.”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

“You’re not going to make your own home out there?” Lewark asks, sitting back. “Seems to me that it would make the most sense for you two girls. You both have far too much ambition to stay here, and if you want to help these people, they’ll need some nobles that actually care to help them.”

“The forest being settled is still too near to Aldramodore for my comfort,” I glance toward my new tutor, the criminal. He proves my ignorance deeper with every lesson, but Semi, the woman who sent him here, has made an offer to see me through the great eastern mountain range.

“I have another offer that I am seriously considering, instead.” I am not one to build a frontier town, I haven’t the ability for it, and I haven’t the will for it. I must find a consistent flow of new prey if I wish to even stand as an equal to Aldramodore, and to drink from one’s own community in a small town such as what we’re envisioning… it’s not ideal. The powerful mercenaries on the other side of the great eastern mountain range would certainly help me grow powerful, though.

Semi’s offer is for me to take over criminal operations in the city of Dusk, the centre of civilisation on the other side of the mountains. I was stuck on the aspects of the sex trade which I find deeply offensive, but the offer was not simply for that. She was offering me a chance to become a leader, to genuinely lead a community of people, through earning their respect.

To think, in the tutelage of a criminal running a whorehouse, I will learn how to be a proper noble. It makes me sick deep down in my guts.

“When done ensuring the safety of the people fleeing this city, I will head to the frontier past the Eastern mountain ranges. I hope to escape from Aldramdore’s influence, and grow as a person and as a noble.”

“Well, it sounds like our intentions no longer line up as they once did,” Reeve Lewark says, looking me over again before handing me a letter. “Until you are done in this city, I can still ensure that you are not left to starve. Your next meal, if you want it.”

“Thank you,” I say, receiving the paper with information on my next prey. Someone deserving of the worst that I can do.

The pair leave, still talking between themselves.

A terrible excitement floods through me as thoughts of the coming hunt play in my mind, and as much as I’d like otherwise, the criminal’s faces turn to those of Belle and Lewark. I smile properly and say my farewells, but I can’t rid myself of the images and the guilty pleasure I feel imagining them in pain. Wondering the timbre of their screams as I cut them into parts, ever so torturously slowly, I keep a mask over my expression.

What would they think of me knowing my thoughts and feelings? Would they still treat me kindly?

Aldramodore told me that this isn’t some curse from my vampirism, but that doesn’t make sense at all. I know that I was not like this before, and what are the chances of me awakening to some disturbed new nature just the same day as I die?

I would feel more comfortable with an answer better than ‘I don’t know’. Must I search for someone who could answer it for me? Would confessing that I am not corrupted as a vampire, but merely twisted and broken help in any way? Or would I simply lose the trust of any that I confess to?

Perhaps I should visit Merry. He is… unusual, but he handled Lysis with respect and dignity. I’m certain he wouldn’t betray my trust, and I must ask about my own budding divine magic. His advice may not be all that I want, but there is no reason not to hear it.

These violent desires may make me into a perfect vampire, but… I do not want to be like this. I also need to know why I am like this.

Rubbing at my brow, I sit back and stare up at the ceiling.

In the distance I can hear Piper, a girl that I used to fancy, playing about with her boyfriend. A young man who is still following me and serving as a protector in my entourage, though he has no interest in retaining the position in any lasting manner.

Where in the past, the sounds of the two would leave me conflicted, that is no longer the case. My bloodlust does bring to mind terrible scenes, but it is only what is becoming normal for me, there is nothing special to these terrible desires.

Withdrawing the bound pipes that I bought some time ago, once intended as a gift to her, I remember just how heartbroken I was. I had felt unloved at the time. I felt undeserving of love.

I can’t say what has changed, but now I can smile sadly at who I was then.

“I met someone,” I say, pulling at the edges of a memory that I must leave alone. “I… am loved.”

I bite my lip and glare at the table. Whatever it is that I’m forgetting, that I must leave forgotten, it has changed me. Yet, it has not cured me of my violent desires, in fact, I feel more comfortable with them than ever before.

“To training.” I focus on my æther veins, putting them through their paces while I draw out my plans.

I must set aside time for studying each of my magics, while reserving a half dozen hours in the evening for my hunts, exercising my vampiric magics. The day is mostly for politics and meetings, meanwhile, as there are merchants, criminals, and nobles still needing my attention. I must come to arrangements with Aldramodore himself, in fact, and I’d like to have that seen to during the day.

Taking a gander at the letter Lewark handed to me, I lick my lips in anticipation, my fangs starting to itch. The address and victims’ names are supplied alongside a short passage describing their crimes.

Murder, assault, thievery. They’re thugs, but not backed by knights or any criminal organisation of importance. It should make for a good chance to stretch my legs.

Checking the time, I make my way to the exit, not even trying to suppress the hop in my step. The servants I pass all greet me, returning my smile.

Is it necessarily wrong for me to enjoy the evil things that I must do?