As the sun starts to sink below the trees, I make a small camp and build a fire, burning the tips of my fingers for I am very inexperienced. Ágota always starts our campfire with a snap of her fingers. I drag the bag to my side, open it, and reach past Ágota to pluck a loaf of bread from the magical depths. Nibbling at the dry crust, I watch the glorious beauty of the sunset. The sky is brilliant with orange and purple fire.
The bag jolts abruptly to one side as a long, bony pale hand thrusts out. It flips over and Ágota’s fingers dig into the ground. I start to move to help her, but the sheath digs into my side and trepidation holds me back. She will be disappointed if she discovers what I have done. Ágota believes me to be her innocent mortal sister she must protect. If she recognizes that my heart is murderous and cold, will she love me less? I fear the answer.
Another hand emerges, and, bit by bit, my sister drags herself free.
Gasping, she lies on the grass and stares at me in disbelief.
“Are you all right now?” I ask.
“Yes, yes!” Ágota crawls toward me and grabs my face between her hands. Staring into my eyes, I feel as though she is examining my soul. I am afraid of what she sees until she says, “You are a brave, wonderful girl! You saved me from that thing!”
“What was it, Agy?”
“I do not know. It felt like the opposite of magic. It was draining me of power and life. I could not stop it. I thought I would die for certain.” She kisses my cheeks and gathers me in her arms. “You saved me!”
“I could feel it watching me, but it never attacked.”
“Perhaps it could only harm me because I am not mortal,” she answers thoughtfully. “To hurt you, it might have needed a host body, like a wolf.”
“There were not any animals about.” I remember the man on the shore and wonder briefly if he was somehow possessed by the entity that had assaulted Ágota. He had acted peculiar. “I put you in the bag and followed a path out of that awful place.”
Laughing with relief, Ágota rocks me in her arms. “Oh, my brilliant little sister, how brave you are! I am so proud of you! We are a formidable team, you and I! Nothing can stop us. Nothing!” She kisses my forehead again before rising to her feet to dance around the fire. “I can feel magic flooding into me! Restoring me! All because of you, my delightful little sister!”
I resolve never to tell her that I killed to protect her. She is all that I have left in this world. I do not want to disappoint her, or worse yet, lose her love.
“Come dance, Erjy! Dance with me!” Ágota c
alls out, her face almost pretty in her joyful reverie.
As the sun becomes an ember on the horizon, I rise to my feet and join my sister in dance.
“Do not weep. That was long ago,” Magdala’s voice whispers in my ear.
The mausoleum shifts over my vision, returning me to my imprisonment. Magdala stands at my side, her hand on my cheek. Her dark eyes regard me with unexpected compassion. Disoriented, I struggle to free myself from the visions of the past while her fingers stroke my sunken cheek in an attempt to console me.
“You were sobbing as you slept,” she continues. “Albrecht is not the one you killed. It was the man at the stream you struck through the heart.”
Startled, I stare at her with dismay. “What did you say?”
A compassionate expression shadows her face and understanding fills her dark eyes. “You were speaking as you slept. You spoke of saving your sister and killing a man at the stream with your rose dagger.”
“The first of many,” I admit, unnerved that she knows one of my deepest of secrets. No wonder she is being so kind-hearted toward me. She feels sympathy for who I once was and has forgotten who I am now.
“It must have been awful. You were but a child.”
“No, it was not awful. It was liberating,” I reply.
Her fingertips are warm as they still against my cheek. “How so?”
“It was then I learned I am a killer by nature,” I answer, turn my head swifter than a viper, and sink my fangs into her wrist.
Chapter 11
The creak of the metal door announces the arrival of a guest in my mausoleum. Craning my neck, I watch the entrance in anticipation. Footsteps on the stairs resound in my small prison before falling silent. The flickering light cast by the low-burning torches refuses to illuminate my visitor.
In hiding himself, Vlad has revealed his mood.
This will not be pleasant.