Fallen Embers Read Free

“My mistress must have found it fitting for some reason, I suppose. Although whether she considers me a number or a tool, I neither know nor care. Perhaps it’s both.”
    â€œWere you born a slave that your mistress should have had the naming of you? Did your parents never refer to you by anything else? Or were you taken so young that you can no longer recall your previous life?”
    Quintano glared at her. “Of course I remember it—though I do so to my sorrow. Neither slave nor monster was I at my birth. I was a free man once upon a time.”
    â€œThen, as I said, surely you must once have been called something else. Why will you not tell me what name you used to go by?”
    â€œBecause I am no longer the man I once was. That man is dead. It is fitting his name die with him.”
    â€œOh, nonsense. Surely, there must be something left of the man you used to be?”
    â€œNo. He is deceased entirely. And if I choose not to dwell on his memory any more than I must, that is my right. I pray you will cease speaking of it also, ’fore I lose my temper and repent my decision to save you.”
    The lady tossed her head. “Oh, very well. Quintano it is. And, since we’re doing away with all formality, you may call me Georgia, if it pleases you.”
    â€œI thank you, but I doubt our acquaintance will be of sufficient duration to warrant my calling you anything.”
    Georgia’s eyes narrowed. “Shall I take that as a threat?”
    â€œYou may take it in whatever manner you like. If it pleases you to feel yourself threatened, you are by all means free to do so. Perhaps you choose to be offended by my words and wish to fight me over them? If that be the case, I am happy to oblige you. If, on the other hand, like me, you feel you’ve had enough bloodshed for one evening—and enough conversation—you may take yourself hence and leave me in peace, which I would like even better. All I meant was that I am hungry and intend to leave here shortly to go in search of food. As it seems unlikely we shall ever meet again, I see no reason to be burdened with remembering either you or your name.”
    â€œAh, yes. That was what I meant to ask you. Thank you for reminding me. A moment ago you said that you have no choice but to kill for your sustenance. Why do you say that? It seems a very strange exception to make. Surely anyone you feed upon would prefer you rob them of everything else, if you’d but spare their lives?”
    He scowled at her. “Aye, I’m sure they would. But what of it? What we want in life and what we receive are seldom the same thing. Nothing but their life’s blood will suffice. If I am to live, then they must die.”
    â€œBut that’s exactly what I mean. You don’t actually need to kill those you feed upon, do you?”
    â€œWhy do you pretend not to understand my meaning? Or would you try and persuade me we do not share the same nature, you and I?”
    â€œNo, not at all.” She shook her head. “I know you for what you are, Invitus . I recognized you from the start. Although these poor, deluded creatures—” she indicated the dead men, “—seemed not to have recognized either of us as such. Strange, is it not? Perhaps we were the first of our kind they’d encountered.”
    â€œ Invitus ?” Quintano repeated the strange word curiously. “I fear I am not familiar with the word.”
    Georgia’s eyes widened in surprise. “Are you not? It’s quite common. It’s the name given to those of us who were taken without consent and made to suffer most grievously for our new life. Perhaps your clan employs a different term?”
    Quintano shook his head. His “clan” employed no special words that he was aware of to describe what they were—and why should they? They were all the same: vile creatures, miserable and damned. He nodded toward the dead