A Prince's Duty: Part 2

Quick note: It seems I'm coming down with something. Not sure if it's cold, flu or covid but I might be down and out for a couple of days based on what I'm seeing from others. I'll probably do some comfort writing but I'm not sure how much of it will get posted.

***

“Because some monsters hide in plain sight. And monsters deserve to be slain.” For the first time in your life your father had no ready comeback. Your actions had left him seething and your final words confounded. And was that a hint of fear in his eyes? You hadn’t the time to see as the color drains from the grand hall before it is swallowed by shadow.

You are a speck floating in a darkness so still, so vast and so deep as to overwhelm you with your own insignificance. If not for the vampire’s embrace providing you an anchor to something real you would have surely lost your mind.

“Where are we?” You shudder as your voice is swallowed by the endless black.

“In the space between the walls.”

“Walls? What walls?”

“Do not worry, Princeling. We are almost there.”

There? There where? In this limitless emptiness there was no here or there or anything in between. You could have been hurtling through this nothingness at great speed or hovering in place and there would be no way to tell. Mercifully your trip ‘between the walls’ is brief. Though as the shadows peel away around you and you feel the cool damp of night air touch your cheeks the feeling of relief is short-lived.

You find yourself in a clearing of a dark forest. Above you is a wan gibbous moon surrounded by the starry heavens, a most welcome site after the void, but it the scene around you leaves you shook. You and the Dread Countess stand in the center of a circle of a dozen naked bodies, all of them eerily still and ghostly pale in the moonlight. The cause of death was no mystery as the throat of every man, woman, and child among them had been slit from ear to ear. A dozen sets of wide, dead eyes are focused upon the center of the circle where you now stood. In the white light of the moon the grass gleams a shiny black beneath the ring of corpses. Your stomach turns as you realize that the blood you had seen pouring down the steps of the dais back in the castle had not been summoned from nowhere. It had come from these unfortunate souls.

God above! Had these poor people died for you!? No! It couldn’t be what it appeared. The Countess that you’d read about and fallen in love with in those hidden tomes and diaries would have never done something like this. Had the nearly seven centuries since they were written and the curse of unlife erased that just and noble woman? Was she really the demon that everybody claimed she was? Had you been wrong all this time about her being misunderstood? Had you just traded one monster for another? Her physical beauty was beyond the skill of any artist, but did it hide the ugly truth?

Around the bodies stand six figures clad in the black and gray robes of necromancers and a score of others which appeared to be a mix of finely dressed nobles and their slaves. At your appearance the slaves grovel as the rest bow in reverence.

“My Lady.” Says a tall bearded man as he rises from his bow. Reaching out he offers his hand to help the Countess over the line of bodies.

Ignoring his offer she takes your hand instead and leads you out of the circle. It was only as you near them that you see the sallow faces, fanged teeth and sharp predator’s eyes of those who were neither slave nor necromancer. You were in the company of vampires!

“Ambrose.” The Countess says.

“Yes, Lady.” The bearded vampire steps forward and bows again.

“Take my groom and get him out of these ridiculous clothes.” She commands in a cool, soft tone. Her voice carried with it an authority that would not be questioned.

His dark eyes flit your way and linger upon you like a wolf studying an unsuspecting fawn. “Yes, Lady.”

She turns you to face her, looking you slowly up and down. You are again struck by her height, her beauty and her awe-inspiring presence. Grabbing you beneath the chin she tilts your head up, then turns it left and right to study your features. Her grip is as cold and as strong as steel. “He is a pretty thing, is he not?”

“Yes, Lady.” Ambrose says reflexively, his voice as lifeless as his still heart.

“Bring him to me once he is presentable.”

“Yes, Countess.”

“Dahlia.”

“Yes, Countess!” One of the servant women stands straight.

“You are his.”

“Yes, Countess!” Without question or objection she obeys and returns to genuflecting with the rest of them.

“This one is special, Ambrose.”

“I am aware, Lady.”

“He is mine.”

“Yes, Lady.”

Looking to Ambrose she fixes him with a stare. His body begins to shake and soon he is driven to his knees by some unseen force. “His life and purity I place into your hands, Ambrose. Understood?”

He looks to me, his hot hatred glinting through his controlled demeanor. “Lady, respectfully, we do not need…”

Her eyes narrow every so slightly.

“Yes, mother! I underst…arrrgh!” Ambrose is driven down onto his belly to writhe in the grass even lower than the groveling slaves. “Motherrrr!”

Whatever hold on him she had she releases after just a moment, leaving him on the ground trembling like a newborn lamb. Letting you go she steps back and turns away from you, her cape twirling behind her.

“Wait!” You blurt as you realize that she was about to leave. She was the most frightening being here by a long margin but she was the only thing even remotely familiar to you. The Countess pauses and peers back at you with those blood red eyes. An shiver runs through you as the icy tendrils of her undying will penetrate your mind. “I wish…to come…with you. Mistress.”

“Patience, my dearest Prince. We have eternity.” She holds your gaze for what feels like a year, though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, before turning away again.

With a motion of her hand the majority of the gathering fall in behind her to follow their lord into the inky shadows among the trees. Left behind are you, Ambrose, a female vampire, Dahlia, two other servants, and the half dozen necromancers.

A humiliated Ambrose slowly rises to his feet and brushes the grass from his embroidered waistcoat. “Bring him!” He snarls, fangs bared, before spinning on his heel and marching the opposite direction from the rest.

You are grabbed by the arms by the servants and made to follow Ambrose, the chilly presence of the other vampire felt close behind you. From the clearing the low drone of chanting voices recede. Scared, confused, and seriously questioning the decisions that brought you to this point you are harried through the trees to a nearby road where a horse-drawn carriage awaits. Like a prisoner you are loaded inside, Dahlia beside you on the plush velvet seat as Ambrose sits across from you. The door is closed before the other vampire and servants climb aboard. Soon the carriage lurches into motion.

Unable to bear either the withering stare of Ambrose nor the servile mien of Dahlia you keep your eyes fixed out the window to the moonlit landscape beyond. The fecund fields and hills of your birth land had been replaced with claustrophobic valleys between high gray mountains. Where there was once the soft round tops of oaks and alders there was now the pointed spires of dark pines. You were far from home and all alone. As rattled as you were you could not help but be struck with the bleak beauty of it all.

Your whole life you’d been the canary in the gilded cage. As the third son your father had taken no chances with you. You could count on one hand the number of times you’d been allowed to set foot outside the castle or the grounds immediately surrounding it. You might have only traded one cage for another but at least this was something different. And at least you were free from your father’s watchful eye. You may have just made the biggest mistake of your life, of any life, but escaping that torture was the one thing that you would never regret.

The carriage arrives in a village at the foot of a towering mountain. The guards at the gate instead of moving to meet the coming visitors shrink away from it and scurry to safety like roaches caught out in the light. The buildings on either side of the narrow cobbled street were thin and build two and three stories high in an architecture you’d never seen before. Just like those commoners you’d occasionally see in the castle you gawk at everything wonderful and new.

The carriage stops in front of a clothiers. In the dead of night all was dark inside. You watch as the other vampire hops lightly down from the carriage then proceeds to force the door to the shop. The crunch of splintering wood and the clang of an iron bolt wrenched from its housing wakes the owners above. You knew this because you saw a curtain part on floor above, a face appear to peer down at the carriage, then disappear again.

“Go.” Ambrose commands. “Get your damned clothes. Dahlia, help the boy.” A look of terror strikes Dahlia, her face draining of color, as she looks to you then back to Ambrose. “What is it, girl!?”

“I-I-I am his now, Master Ambrose. He must command me. The Countess…”

Baring his fangs Ambrose lets out a feral growl.

“Come along, Dahlia.” You are quick to say. “Aid me in my task.”

“Yes, Master.” She bows her head.

The pair of you hurry from the carriage and into the shop. As you arrive the other undead had lit a lamp to give your mortal eyes something to see by. Thankfully this vampire harbored none of the loathing that Ambrose seemed to hold for you. In fact she seemed pleasantly curious about you as she watched you browse the clothier’s wares.

You weren’t sure if this was outright theft or if a payment would be left behind but you were not about to defy the orders of your Mistress. And so, with Dahlia’s help, you swiftly begin to peruse the finery that would replace your shredded and hideously ugly ceremonial garb.

What fashion do you choose?