Over Rhiannon’s shoulder, I saw Dusk do something I’d never seen from the Gnoll woman.
A long slow sigh of realized fear. Resignation painted her furred face, and her cheeks dropped as her apparent suspicions about the noblewoman were confirmed.
I, meanwhile, was trying to wrap my head around the concept as well.
What even was a Vampire, in the context of Vereden? I had no point of reference to make a guess. The idea that Rhiannon was a Vampire of all things was absurd, considering what I’d seen from the woman. Stories from back on Earth had painted them, depending on the source material, as bloodthirsty monsters with weaknesses to daylight, stakes through the heart, fire and silver, religious iconography, and garlic of all things.
But I’m not sure any of that applied to Rhiannon.
For one thing, I’d seen the woman move about perfectly fine in the daylight. Hell, it had been the height of the day when I’d first met her in Jason’s shop. She hadn’t seemed to care about the light at all. Silver was out as well, as the previous dress I’d seen her wearing had silver clasps directly resting on her pale skin.
I had no idea about fire, which…was kind of a universal weakness to most things, but I kinda doubted that garlic would bother her. And…did she even have a heart?
I felt a chill run down my spine.
Holy fuck.
For the first time, I realized that I wasn’t getting a reading off of Rhiannon from Lifeblood Sense. I felt nothing from the woman with either the passive sense that the Skill granted me, or the more active, focused version. I couldn’t feel a drop of blood rushing through the woman-thing’s veins.
How…had I missed this? My only excuse was that I was used to the feeling at this point, and had just kind of…tuned it out, when I could directly see the person in front of me.
God fucking damnit. If I had only paid more attention, then how much of the last day could I have prevented?
I…
I didn’t have time for this. Even though all of these thoughts were racing through the depths of my rings, I kept them off of my face.
I had to focus on the creature in front of me, who even the normally unflappable Dusk seemed to be almost frightened of.
Actually…
Why hadn’t the Solstice guards reacted to her revelation? When I cast an I over to them, I saw they were still just standing right next to my suspended form, stoically staring off into the distance.
Rhiannon had been so careful earlier about stopping her escorts from hearing about her true nature, but she didn’t care at all now.
The woman must have noticed my attention on them after her silent revelation because she waved a hand nonchalantly. “Oh, don’t look to them like they’ll save you, Nathan,” Rhiannon said, amusement thick in her voice. She sauntered casually into the cell with us and approached one of the guards, patting his cheek like he was a dog. He didn’t react at all. “After Liora’s little scare from earlier, I tightened my grip on these puppets in the meanwhile. It’s a bit tiring, but so much would have been ruined if they had thought to message that buffoon Shacklock. These boys wouldn’t flinch even if I spat on them now,” She winked at me. “I don’t recommend you try that, my dear. They’d probably react poorly.”
I did my best to keep my breath even as I met the woman’s glowing crimson eyes. “What are you even after, Rhiannon? Why all these…games?” I’m not sure I was able to keep my frustration out of my voice, after the way this…thing had played all of us against each other. And so successfully, at that.
This time, it was my cheek that the creature reached out to pat. My skin crawled at the contact, as I felt, for the first time, just how cold her flesh was. “Oh, rest assured. It has all been for a purpose. The suffering of your countrymen…the banalities of this droll little civil war. Why, even the infighting in your royal house has all been for a single purpose.”
I blinked slowly at the words, meeting Dusk’s eyes over Rhiannon’s shoulders again. I didn’t care for the resignation I saw in her orange eyes.
There was…a lot to unpack from that statement.
I wet my suddenly dry tongue. “Are you saying…,” I said slowly. “That you’re behind the civil war? Everything that’s happened…has been because of you?”
Rhiannon laughed delightfully at the shock that had slipped onto my face. “Goodness no!” She said, outright clapping in her glee. “I’m good, darling, but I’m not that good. No, I merely…facilitated things. I happened upon a few choice pawns, and from whispering in their ears, those ears led me to more. Those whispers merely stoked fires that already existed. I can’t create anything that doesn’t already exist. Passive suggestion is so much simpler than active control, like I’ve been forced to do with these fools,” She flicked a dismissive hand at the stoic Solstice guards. “No, I’m afraid the sentiments within the Herztalian nobility against the Scupted already existed.”
Oh.
I…guess there was no easy explanation for hatred. Would have been nice, though.
While I was processing that, Rhiannon tsked. “I don’t understand it myself, though,” She admitted freely. “Why, in my day, if we’d had access to your modern Sculpted? We would have been delighted to grant them whatever they wished. How such a marvelous creation came to be in such an uninspired era is a bit baffling.”
‘My day’?
“What are you talking about?” I asked with a frown. “From what I understand you’re not much older…than…me…” I trailed off, as Rhiannon started laughing in the middle of my sentence.
“Oh me oh my. I see that upstart Greycton has been a tad deficient in educating his newest apprentice,” She tittered, amusement thick in her voice. “He never did his due diligence in educating you about the monsters that may lie under your bed?”
Stolen novel; please report.
Dusk spoke up then. “That creature isn’t Rhiannon of Clan Calonawr,” She said bluntly. “It’s merely wearing her skin. The girl has been dead for a long time now. I’m assuming ever since the unspecified accident that occurred in this very same palace?” She asked evenly.
Rhiannon flicked a bored gaze over her shoulder at the Gnoll, but still nodded. “Oh, accident is such a dirty word. I prefer…providence. But yes, I’ve been in this particular change of clothes for around six years now,” She admitted freely. “It’s been a gaff, let me tell you. I don’t often get the chance to be such a pretty young thing like poor little Rhiannon, so desperate for attention. It’s a…refreshing change of taste.”
I furrowed my brow, a bit perplexed at the way this conversation was going. Y’know, beyond the fact that I was strung up in a dungeon and hanging from a ceiling. “Why…are you telling us all of this?” I asked, baffled. “Why expose all of this secrecy?”
Rhiannon stilled for a moment, still facing Dusk. Slowly, her head turned to face me, and when it did, I felt a rush of dread roll down my spine.
Her pupils had twisted and elongated, narrowing akin to the slit of a cat’s eyes. She leaned in closer to me, only inches away from my face. “That’s the thing,” Rhiannon said breathlessly, a spark of madness evident in her inhuman gaze. “I don’t know. Why am I so interested in you, Nathan Hart? There’s something about you that sparks a hunger in me, beyond the necessities of my nature. I do not thirst for your blood as I do the rest of you pathetic mortals, and yet I am drawn to you nonetheless. It is as if there is an indescribable quality to the spark of your soul that entices me. I cannot describe it as anything more than…divine.”
Insane.
Beyond being a monster that fed on men and women, this thing was crazy. Whatever it was that was drawing her to me, it wasn’t divinity. There was only one thing different about me that could affect her.
My Precursor nature. Something about it was drawing her in, like catnip to a tiger. But there wasn’t anything divine about that.
At least…to the best of my knowledge.
“Are you a Godblood, perhaps?” Rhiannon hummed, slowly starting to circle me. I did my best to keep her in view by craning my head, but the guards kept me in place. “Is that why Greycton is so invested in you? It’s the only thing I can think of, really. The scent of your soul reminds me ever so slightly of that of my poor mistress. I miss her so, so much,” Briefly, her voice transformed behind my back, becoming eerily animalistic in quality. The growls in the undertone of it sent shivers down my back. But those vanished when she spoke again. “I don’t blame her for leaving me behind, you know, all those millennia ago. The War in Heaven was so chaotic, mortal. You cannot possibly understand the death and destruction that the warring of gods brings. It’s understandable, that one of her blades was left in her wake when she was forced from the shores of this…pathetic backwater.”
This thing was a remnant from the War in Heaven. But…that was nearly three thousand years ago…
My eyes widened, meeting Dusk’s once more across from me.
Slowly, Dusk nodded across from me. “Such is the nature of the Vampyr,” She said quietly, as Rhiannon slowly started to circle back around to my front. “They’re weapons crafted by divine hands, from an age long past. History tells us they were meant to sow terror and destruction on scales we…can’t imagine anymore. It was thought that all of them had been found and dealt with. But…”
“But that which cannot truly die, only hides in the dark,” Rhiannon finished, coming to a stop in front of me. She smiled ever so slightly, the tips of her fangs peaking out. “I was defeated in those last days, but I only slumbered on this oh-so-auspicious spot until one over-ambitious noble dug too deep.”
“Olsen,” I said quietly.
Rhiannon inclined her head. “That was the ‘accident’ that Liora speaks of. Little Rhiannon was accompanying one of his digs below the bedrock of Elderwyck, and they found my hiding spot. I was weak, but the girl was incautious enough to reach out and touch my former host. From there…”
A tearing noise sounded out in the cell block, and then Thirty-Two finally spoke once more. “You dominated Olsen, and then wormed your way into every level of Herztalian governance, as your kind are meant to,” She said, disgust thick in her voice. “To think Olsen had so much influence…”
Rhiannon rolled her eyes, her posture instantly transforming from the inhuman back to that of a young woman. She leaned in closer to me. “It wasn’t just Olsen,” She said quietly with a wink, before standing up straighter. She clapped her hands suddenly. “Now! As fun as all of this was, the time for explanations is over. I wouldn’t want to spoil all of the surprises now, would I? You two,” She said, snapping her fingers and pointing them at the two Solstice guards. They finally straightened up from their near-motionless state. “Collect all three prisoners and chain them together. It’s time to take them to the festivities.”
“At once, madam,” One of the guards said attentively, moving to unchain me from the ceiling. I would have loved to take that chance to try and escape, but I was still too…well, fucked up from the battle at the docks to do so. In particular, I was reminded of how both of my arms had been dislocated, as the guard uncaringly forced them behind my back.
Thank God I had dulled my pain, or else I would have been crying at that. As it was, the throb of the suppressed agony just echoed in the back of my rings.
The other bowed slightly to Rhiannon, which she didn’t acknowledge, before approaching Dusk’s cell and opening it. She didn’t protest the rough treatment of the Solstice guard as he unchained her and force-marched the Gnoll woman out of the cell. I was shoved out of my own as well, meeting her calculating eyes as I stumbled to a halt.
She shook her head minutely. I took a deep breath before nodding just as shallowly.
Not yet, then.
We were chained together, with Dusk in front of me, while one of the guards approached another cell. When they opened it and walked inside I heard Thirty-Two try and struggle briefly, only for a resounding impact from the cell to ring out. Moments later, the rival spy was dragged out with a hood over their head. The guard dragged the stumbling presumed teen and clipped her chained form to Dusk’s.
Now that we were all together, I couldn’t help but notice that our chains and shackles were way overkill for three people who, as far as I could tell, weren’t even that powerful. The three of us were either just under, just past, or late in the first Breakpoint at level one-hundred. The sheer density of Mana emanating off of these things made me think they might be able to restrain someone like Hook.
Without even needing to ask for it, the Solstice guards handed Rhiannon the keys to all our shackles. She noticed my stare, and slipped it into a pocket on her dress with a wink.
When they were done, Rhiannon inspected us for a moment. A slow smile grew on her painted lips. “Now,” She said breathlessly. “On with the show.”
She turned around and walked back down the way she came, with the guards dragging us behind her.
…………………………….
I was barely able to pay attention to the interior of Olsen’s palace as we were force-marched behind the Vampire woman. From what little I could see, it was at least a bit more tasteful than Magnus’s manor had been, all those months ago.
But only slightly. There was still copious amounts of wealth visible all around me.
Most of my attention was on the humming form of the Vampire leading us through the halls, as she almost skipped down them. Whatever she was so cheerful about could only be to our detriment, and I dreaded to find out what it was.
But I’m sure I was going to soon.
I heard the clamor before I saw it, as we walked up what seemed to be a central staircase. Stretching out on either side of it were dozens and dozens of Loyalist soldiers, seemingly standing at attention. They barely spared us a glance.
Outside, I heard what sounded like the murmur of an extremely large crowd, not dissimilar to that of a sports game from back on Earth. There was a note of relief and excitement that undercut the entire thing.
When we reached the top of the staircase, I only spared a brief glance at the middle-aged man standing on the balcony we were led to.
Instead, my attention was stolen by the absolutely massive palatial courtyard in front of it.
It was packed with what must have been hundreds of people.
Rhiannon took a deep breath at the sight, smiling slightly. “And here…we…”
“Go.”