My laughter is mocking.
“It has been long enough,” she whispers. “Please.”
“Never!”
Anger coiled in his voice, Vlad says, “Cneajna, it is time to depart.”
“A few minutes more,” she begs. “Vlad, you said I could visit with her.”
“For a short time. Now it is over.” Vlad’s voice is low, clipped and cold. I can feel his anger burning against my skin. His presence fills the mausoleum like great dark wings.
After another fervent kiss, Cneajna murmurs against my lips, “Do it for me. Return so I may not be alone. I love Elina and Ariana, but they are like daughters. I miss you at my side in the darkest moments of the night. Please, Erzsébet. Come home.”
“Though I love and miss you with all my heart, I cannot,” I answer. “I will not.”
Vlad draws close enough to take hold of Cneajna’s arm. “Come away. We are done here. As I told you, she will not be swayed.”
He is lying. I can see it plainly. His words are a ploy, an effort to lay a burden of guilt upon me for abandoning Cneajna. He hopes that I will buckle to his whims after witnessing Cneajna’s despair. Just as he restored me by sending Magdala to bathe me, mend my dress, and become my victim, I suspect he did the same with Cneajna. How many times has Vlad starved Cneajna and the other Brides in the past few months? Shunted her and the others off to the side while he entertained himself with his Austrian princess? When did he restore her beauty and adorn her with modern clothes and jewels? Tonight? Is she just now restored to his good graces?
She returns to his side, love and devotion radiating out of her like a golden glow as she gazes at him. I clench my hands at my sides until they bleed. The tenderness of his touch against her cheek when she steps into his embrace and the savage passion of his kiss against her mouth are deliberate temptations—a reminder of what we once shared and is now lost.
“Beg for forgiveness and you can return,” Vlad says, turning to me, his green eyes flashing with red fire. “Bow before me and be restored to your place at my side.”
“You ask for that which I will never give,” I retort.
The shadows swallow the couple again, blotting out Cneajna’s stricken expression. I listen to them withdraw from the mausoleum and the heavy clang of the door.
Pressing my knuckles to my lips, I withhold the sobs of despair and the screams of fury threatening to erupt from my mouth. I will not give him the satisfaction. I tremble with pain and sorrow, but do not call out for them to return.
My joy at once again seeing her lovely face and hearing her saccharine voice fades in the aftermath of their departure. Vlad will forever be the wedge pushing us apart. Ironic, since he is the one who brought us together so long ago. She may love me, but her devotion is to him. It will always be to him. I have known many women like Cneajna throughout my long lifetime. Women devoted to the men in their lives, bowing to their whims, willing to suffer in silence to make them happy. Vlad has inflicted great pain upon Cneajna, but she will never waver from his side. Even should her love for him one day turn to hate, she will remain. This is the curse of her existence.
I rest my hand against the stake, but resist the fruitless action of attempting to wrench it from my body. My rejuvenated body continues its attempts to heal the grievous wound surrounding the stake, to no avail. I yearn for the release of another vision. How quickly have my sojourns into the past become a treasured escape from this hell! If I cannot be free to dwell at Cneajna’s side, then I wish to be with my sister in the realm of memory.
The hours are ticking away, one by one. My heightened vampire senses discern the slightest sounds outside the mausoleum: the whisper of the wind, the scampering of night creatures, the shifting grass scraping against the masonry. Tears linger in the corners of my eyes while I stare at the spot in the discolored ceiling where the stake plunges through the stone.
“I want to be free,” I whisper.
“We all do,” Ágota answers. “It is all anyone wants. But the world is not safe for two girls.”
“But you are an Archwitch,” I protest, my adult voice chorusing the girlish one in my memory.
I close my eyes to the mausoleum and reopen them to gaze upon my sister.
Sweet relief is finally mine. The past is my sanctuary.
“An Archwitch who is still learning.”
“We should go off and make our own fortune as our mother did.” I am emboldened by our journey and Ágota’s powers. I fancy her making us a fine house with her magic and establishing our own rule over a small town. Then when I marry Albrecht we will be equals.
“I have power, but I do not know all the ways in which I can wield it.” Ágota holds our mother’s book of spells in her long hands. The sunlight dances across the strands of her dark hair, forcing her to squint when she gazes up at me.
The last few miles of our journey have been on foot, so I am tired and bad-tempered. I kick at the grass with irritation. “You seem to wield it quite well. I have seen it.”
“Well enough to get us here, but there is so much more to learn. Mind the circle. Do not break it,” she admonishes me.
The circle she drew on the ground with the end of the stick glows a vibrant gold in the vast field of wild grass and flowers swaying in the wind. The cool mountain breeze flows over our sun-warmed bodies and cools my heated face. For the last few days, my sister has been plucking all sorts of leaves, herbs, flowers, seeds, stones, bits of bark, insect wings, and even bits of fur she found on a thorn into a small bag. Now she has it set before her on the ground with white crystals set around it.
“I do not see why you could not fly us.” I squat next to her, pouting.