Page 107 of Besieger
Did you really not foresee this,Mein Liebling? Or is it because of it that you chose him?Scarlett thought, regretting never questioning how Ingenuar selected his Regents; if therehad been a grander scheme behind it or if he had simply been drawn by their charms and their youth in the Blood.
Of course she missed Ingenuar, and mourned him. Not how a child missed their parent or as a parent burying their offspring. Ingenuar had given her a part of himself, guided her back into the land of the living, led her like a prophet of the damned, and she—his undying Eurydice—had followed. Scarlett was the one who never looked back, never wondered what had become of her human daughter and human mother, of her father and brother.
Perhaps Silvio had done her a kindness, throwing away Ingenuar’s belongings and clothes, leaving nothing for Scarlett to cling to that might possess her. No coats or shirts bearing his fading scent. No journals or ledgers scrawled in letters none of them knew. The few portraits bearing his likeness had been rammed into the room of antiques, chipped busts and daguerreotypes.
Scarlett watched as the new Master descended further into his obsessions, starved. Kyrillos was a temporary replacement for Emerick, who, between feeding his master, arranged and cared for the mansion, the other servants, and the vampires. He delivered correspondence and somehow managed to keep in contact with another human in Béziers who oversaw theMarquis’ vineyard.
The way Kyrillos lost himself in his tasks reminded Scarlett of Mihaela, her inquisitive stepdaughter and blood-sister. Mihaela had not waited for Silvio’s ascension: she had taken what little she possessed, and her demon, and travelled back to the East. To theSultanaand theEmir. Into the desert queendom of the damned. Mihaela had confided in Scarlett that she was searching for the myth of their origin, the reason for their malady and their thirst, what had brought about the creation of vampires and the need for them.
Scarlett feigned understanding, her mind reeling at the memory of the first of them, so easily destroyed, crumbling intoash and soot. Whatever had made Ingenuar had not made him strong enough.
“Watch over her. Antalya is not like the Coven,” Scarlett had warned Astra. “Betül may have already written to her mistress about what transpired here.”
The demon nodded. Scarlett could not read her mind, but she supposed Astra was vexed by the vampire politics. There would be none in Antalya. No one opposed theSultana: her rule was indisputable, eternal—timeless.
“Whatever you see or hear in theSultana’s presence will not leave her walls. If you need to reach me, send Astra,” Scarlett instructed Mihaela. “You were invited to the sultanate, but once you enter it you may only leave at its mistress’s pleasure.”
“What about Betül?” Mihaela recalled the former Council member. “She is allowed to come and go, and to speak of theSultana.”
Scarlett smiled. She already ached for this child of Blood and her riddled mind.
“Betül was one of us because her mistress wished so. She might have sat in our Council of shadows, but she never served Ingenuar’s interests. Nor did she name Silvio as successor.”
And I am sure everyone who voted against theSultanafound their names diligently committed to paper,the All Mother thought.
“Do you think theSultanais superstitious?” Mihaela asked offhandedly. The question unsettled Scarlett: superstitions never served vampires. “Ingenuar died not long after I joined the Coven. I have been to the French coven, as well, and theMarquisis now gone. What if my visits make me a harbinger of death to the immortals?”
Astra laughed, a loud, pleasing sound. She reached out and ruffled the girl’s hair. “You went to theBasilissain Athens too. A number of times. Unless you want to take credit for the financial crisis in Greece, I think theSultanahas nothing to fear.”
Mihaela bristled at the demon’s words, her mighty status as an omen crumbled to dust.
“Whether you do or you don’t, come back to me,” Scarlett whispered, taking Mihaela’s hand. She cupped it between her palms, pressing tightly. “You are the only thing left of him.”
I see why Ingenuar made you. There is so much of him in you, child.Scarlett kept those thoughts to herself, fearing that if she voiced them, Silvio would hear and burn Mihaela, adding her to the pyre of her maker’s legacy. All that remained of Ingenuar in the Coven were the few vampires he had sired himself.
DULIOR, 2019
Dulior stepped across the threshold of the Béziers tower. The place had never been meant for her. It reeked of her husband.
Ex-husband, Dulior reminded herself, scowling at the tilework on the floor and then at the carved staircase. There was only one, and a maid stood close to the landing, head bowed, her eyes averted from Dulior in a telltale sign that the woman had recognised her for what she was; a creature akin to her masters, yet unknown to her.
This was the first time Dulior had dared enter the tower. The furthest she had come before was the driveway outside. Back then, she had not even left the carriage. Jean-Étienne had argued with the servants, affronted at being denied entry by Marquis Bracci.
MarquisBracci. Dulior’s flawless face twisted in aversion. A title and a name she had not chosen for him, but he had appointed to himself, reclaiming his old family name as a final insult to her and the gift she had given him. Silvio had discarded her like a cheap trinket, leaving her a widow.The widow di Flaviari—how long it had been since she had gone by that title.
Emerick was not there. He had not been in the tower for a long time. She felt the lack of his annoying presence even before she entered the building, but she could still see traces of him. She saw his face in the painted fae creatures running along walls and ceilings, in the paintings, the frescoes and the stained glass. Silvio had built his lover a shrine, an altar to his undying devotion.
Dulior’s mouth curled into a grimace. Silvio had drowned the tower in iterations of his lover, over and over again.
When she had turned Jean-Étienne into a vampire, she was angry. They had taken everything from her: her son, her husband, and her place as consort. She wanted, in turn, to take something from someone else. Jean-Étienne’s life had been easy to grasp and replace with her lifeblood. Watching him lap at her blood, uttering wet, patheticthank yous, again and again, his mouth and face stained red, his body changing beneath her. Jean-Étienne was a devoted husband… but he was no Silvio. He could never hold a candle to Silvio’s flame. Any speck of will he had once possessed had been drained on the night Dulior turned him into her devoted, eager slave.
Jean-Étienne put on gloves and took them off, throwing them on the ground, challenging Silvio’s ghost to a duel. His devotion sickened Dulior. Not even Emerick had crawled and debased himself in such a way. Over the years, she had made sure that Emerick—that disgusting, needy thing—always walked behind her, unworthy of lurking in her shadow, let alone enjoy a single glance from her. Compared to Silvio, Jean-Étienne was a fledgling: a baby chick refusing to learn to fly, for once its wings grew and spanned, it would have to leave the nest and its mother’s warmth. And Jean-Étienne never wanted to leave her.
Only Silvio could walk side by side with her, her hand resting in the crook of his arm, standing proud.
When Silvio abandoned her, Dulior discarded all the possessions he did not see fit to take with him. The only thing she kept was an oil painting of the two of them. The painter hadarranged the composition—Silvio seated in a high-backed chair, his hands resting on the armrests like an emperor upon his throne; vases with flowers nestled near his legs while complementing drapes and tapestries hung from the walls. Dulior had been placed slightly to the right, barefoot, in a gown so light it felt translucent, a lyre in her hand, like the muse of poetry. Silvio was not looking at her, his gaze turned to the side, fixed at something beyond the canvas. He was watching the majordomo overseeing the commission a few paces behind the painter.
As in life, so on the canvas: Silvio was forever averting his gaze and avoiding her touch. He would always be looking at another. Dulior hated that painting, yet she held on to it, for it allowed her to gaze upon him, so freshly made into the Blood, during the first century of their marriage.
