to go about without vampyres watching me. I want to see more than you show me each night. You know I won’t try to run from you. Look at me. You know this is the greatest treasure I could find. Right here. This is more than I ever hoped for in all my studies. All my dreams .”
“You have been out during the day without my knowledge?”
She shot me a defiant glance. “You do not own me. You do not dictate where I go. What I do.”
“It’s a dangerous game you’ve been playing.”
“No vampyre threatens me during the day. Do you think I will destroy you and your kind?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “You have reason to do so. It is easy enough for mortals to send us to our Extinguishing when the sun is high above us. We are vulnerable during those hours. During times of plagues and famine, we were hunted like wolves—scapegoats for every crime of the earth. We were devils. There are hunters who seek our treasures.”
“You have given them freely to me,” Natalia said. “I do not wish the end of your tribe. But...Aleric, there is so much... It might take me a lifetime to decipher the scrolls here, to see each frieze and painting, and to pore over the works. As long as I am here, I want to explore all of it.”
“You have a great hunger for this.”
“I’ve spent my life dreaming of finding a place like Alkemara,” she said, and something in her voice reminded me of another voice I had heard centuries before. “I am here. Now. I don’t know for how long. I know people will search for me—at some point. I know that some night, you may...you may take my life.”
Never, I thought. I did not answer her, for to do so might reveal what I sought to offer when I had told her of my past.
“The wars,” I said. “They grow closer with each passing night. I can’t risk you to any of this.”
“Will you give me my freedom here?”
“But the dangers,” I said. “I trusted Daniel, though I should not have.”
“He adores you,” she said. “And he’s terrified of you.”
“You can say this...after he...”
“He wouldn’t kill me. He’s afraid of me, as much as he wants to destroy me,” she said. “You are not so easy to decipher. I cannot read this much in you. In the papers and scrolls of your first century, I have begun learning so much. I want more. I want the lock for the key made of the bone of a wolf. Is it a box, or a room?”
“It’s in a room. Forbidden to all.”
“All but you.”
“Are you my Bluebeard?” she asked. “If I find a way into that forbidden room, will I find all your dead wives?”
I could not lighten my demeanor when it came to this chamber. “You must not even search for it,” I warned her. “I will take you to it when I know you will understand what is there. Come, my friends have laid out a feast for you.”
“After supper? Will I see this forbidden place?” she asked.
6
That evening, we sat in the Great Hall of the Temple of Lemesharra within the buried city of Alkemara. She was in a sullen mood, and I, too, had grown moody. She wanted too much too fast. She needed to know all that had happened, and yet there was much of the journey of my first century to tell.
All around us were the gently curved ceilings where—in centuries since my first discovery of this city—I had brought the young apprentices who had worked with Michelangelo himself to create a similar Heaven and Hell upon the walls of Alkemara.
Above us, the paintings of angels and demons, the creatures of the Veil and of Myrryd—including the Lamiades, the Akhnetur, and the Myrrydanai themselves—told a story of the visible and invisible world around us. The lizardlike Lamiades seemed to chase each other’s tails; while the Akhnetur—those flying scorpions with the faces of maidens—spun their webs and swarmed along a white tree that produced golden fruit at the center of a garden deep with the purple Veil flower. Other creatures, from harpies to gryphons, guarded the corners of the
“You have been out during the day without my knowledge?”
She shot me a defiant glance. “You do not own me. You do not dictate where I go. What I do.”
“It’s a dangerous game you’ve been playing.”
“No vampyre threatens me during the day. Do you think I will destroy you and your kind?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “You have reason to do so. It is easy enough for mortals to send us to our Extinguishing when the sun is high above us. We are vulnerable during those hours. During times of plagues and famine, we were hunted like wolves—scapegoats for every crime of the earth. We were devils. There are hunters who seek our treasures.”
“You have given them freely to me,” Natalia said. “I do not wish the end of your tribe. But...Aleric, there is so much... It might take me a lifetime to decipher the scrolls here, to see each frieze and painting, and to pore over the works. As long as I am here, I want to explore all of it.”
“You have a great hunger for this.”
“I’ve spent my life dreaming of finding a place like Alkemara,” she said, and something in her voice reminded me of another voice I had heard centuries before. “I am here. Now. I don’t know for how long. I know people will search for me—at some point. I know that some night, you may...you may take my life.”
Never, I thought. I did not answer her, for to do so might reveal what I sought to offer when I had told her of my past.
“The wars,” I said. “They grow closer with each passing night. I can’t risk you to any of this.”
“Will you give me my freedom here?”
“But the dangers,” I said. “I trusted Daniel, though I should not have.”
“He adores you,” she said. “And he’s terrified of you.”
“You can say this...after he...”
“He wouldn’t kill me. He’s afraid of me, as much as he wants to destroy me,” she said. “You are not so easy to decipher. I cannot read this much in you. In the papers and scrolls of your first century, I have begun learning so much. I want more. I want the lock for the key made of the bone of a wolf. Is it a box, or a room?”
“It’s in a room. Forbidden to all.”
“All but you.”
“Are you my Bluebeard?” she asked. “If I find a way into that forbidden room, will I find all your dead wives?”
I could not lighten my demeanor when it came to this chamber. “You must not even search for it,” I warned her. “I will take you to it when I know you will understand what is there. Come, my friends have laid out a feast for you.”
“After supper? Will I see this forbidden place?” she asked.
6
That evening, we sat in the Great Hall of the Temple of Lemesharra within the buried city of Alkemara. She was in a sullen mood, and I, too, had grown moody. She wanted too much too fast. She needed to know all that had happened, and yet there was much of the journey of my first century to tell.
All around us were the gently curved ceilings where—in centuries since my first discovery of this city—I had brought the young apprentices who had worked with Michelangelo himself to create a similar Heaven and Hell upon the walls of Alkemara.
Above us, the paintings of angels and demons, the creatures of the Veil and of Myrryd—including the Lamiades, the Akhnetur, and the Myrrydanai themselves—told a story of the visible and invisible world around us. The lizardlike Lamiades seemed to chase each other’s tails; while the Akhnetur—those flying scorpions with the faces of maidens—spun their webs and swarmed along a white tree that produced golden fruit at the center of a garden deep with the purple Veil flower. Other creatures, from harpies to gryphons, guarded the corners of the
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