Chapter 59: 59
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"Wait! Please!" I call again to Soren and the little angel, suspending in mid air, hanging limply like a doll in the hands of a child. A very murderous child. My voice echoes out across the dais, commanding and authoritative, ricocheting off the walls and rebounding through the marble corridors with such fervid emotion that it would be impossible not to hear it.
Underneath the stony exterior of Soren's face, something shifts under the skin, a hint of some emotion in the murky depths that the other vampires are either too blind or too careless to notice. But as his eyes catch mine, I suddenly get the feeling he was expecting my arrival all along.
I swallow slowly as all eyes in the room turn to look and shoot daggers in my general direction, to see what pest, what nuisance has so rudely interrupted their main entertainment for the day. Some of them hiss, spitting like rabid snakes or animals in the presence of another more spindly creature who dares to test the boundaries of their territory: a warning, a death threat, daring me not to go further. But I know what I am dealing with.
"Pardon, my Princes, but perhaps there is a better way to deal with her than simply killing her?" I say, treading carefully with my words, for fear of what might come if I took to many steps over the line. To mess with vampire tradition- just like any tradition, is a dangerous measure to take. Best case scenario, I get out of here alive. Worst... A rigid shudder convulses through me. I don't want to think about that.
If the little angel recognises me, she doesn't say a word. There is no indication, no subtle turn of the head or peak through her eyes that holds any proof my presence is of any relevance to her. But at this rate, with the amount of blood pooling onto the floor, slick and silvery in the low candlelight and seeping nauseatingly into the cracks in the marble floor, I doubt she would be conscious at all. Sooner or later, all that will be left is a shell. Some of the vampires shift impatiently at the sight of the blood, as if they hadn't had a grand feast some few hours ago.
"There must be uses for a captive this prized. And so young too!" I exclaim, tainting my voice with a mixture of enthusiasm and blatant scorn, a wicked façade that by most degrees makes me no better than the very vampires I disdain. I gesture over to the angel with a careless flick of my fingers, making a deliberate effort to catch the eyes of both the royals standing to attention on the dais.
Silently I begin to hope Dawn doesn't have any recollection by the time she wakes up after all.
"I mean, traditions respected, my Princes, to win a war with such a foe, one has to play dirty, and what is the use killing your captives? Then they are about as much use to you as setting them free."
Shouts of anger rise up from behind me like a tidal wave. Fists shake in my general direction, claws swiping at my back, furious, grasping, enraged my my sullen attempts to make their favourite prince change such a beloved tradition. But I stand tall against them, my back an impenetrable wall of stone, my expression that of ice and a glacial chill, hard, unfeeling, phlegmatic: a perfect ruler against the rebel of a crowd.
Soren's voice muses in my head, tickling my senses with the woo of his words:
You would make a perfect vampire.
I nearly break a smile.
Azrael, at my suggestion, looks furious. His white hair is static with a tense electricity, his mouth pulled into a permanent grimace as if the thought of my involvement alone was personally giving him a headache. Soren however, holds up his hand, inducing the room into a heavy lulled silence. He neither looks pleased, nor displeased, but the authority in which he speaks his words are enough to send a quaking shudder through me.
"Speak," he commands, the humour in his voice only seconds ago washed away with that pallid, cold blooded stare. I nod and make a low bow. It is after all, customary I make myself favourable to the king- and the crowd.
"Prince Soren, may I suggest you instead use this angel to glean information? She is weak, and susceptible, perhaps she knows something about the angels? Or indeed, what if she was lying to us? Wouldn't it be handy to have a political prisoner? Even if for bartering fodder? A dead angel may benefit you in terms of lowering the numbers of your opponents, but that is all. A live captive, from my experience, has far more use to them."
"Bullshit!" Someone cries despairingly from the crowd, and voices swell again in anger, until Soren flicks a sharp finger in their direction and a shaft of blood shoots out from the source globule floating above Dawn and plunges into the crowd. The wet, heavy sound of a body falling to the ground rings through the room, stilling the crowd to a terror induced halt.
"I did not expect to be having two executions today," Soren murmurs irefully to the room, lifting a hand to rub his forehead with a long sigh. "Let's not make that three, hmm?"
The air fills with a muted silence.
"My Prince," I say, bowing respectful at the waist, "Your verdict?"
If the vampire prince holds any feelings on the matter he remains staunchly silent. He begins to circle again in the slow, intimidating manner a predator might, holding up Dawn's damaged wings as if it were his prey, assessing the situation, and seeing if any viable part of her is retrievable at all. She is a mess, no doubt about it. Whatever vampire that caught her certainly took no time in giving her a proper vampire welcome to the kingdom of Sezeria.
I suppose that is vampire tradition, too.
The black tendrils holding her precariously aloft shift around her, lowering her slightly, so that Soren can see her eye to eye, and he lifts her chin with his hand, eyes wandering over the faint plus on her neck. To my surprise, it is not him that speaks first.
"Perhaps this is an idea of some merit," Azrael sighs languorously, swooping down the steps of the dais with one swift swish of his glowing white cape. Had I not known him better, I might have said he looked almost graceful, majestic, like a white dove swooping down from the eaves of a holy building to coo gently in the hallways. But Azrael is no dove. Nor would he ever be.
"After all, the elf is right, we may be able to learn more from her. Times have changed, and so have the angels. Who is to say they are not planning something greater against us?" Azrael bends down to pick a feather off the floor, a feather soaked in that same viscous liquid draining from her back in gradual streams. I fight the urge to vomit as he licks off the blood from the feather.
Disgusting.
Soren gives him a look as if to say 'since when did you care?' before he tucks a purple rose into the pocket of the little girl's dress, and sends her dropping to the ground as the shadowy coils vanish from view. The drop is not far, but the hangman swoops in and catches her just in time to prevent any further damage. I hope my relieved sigh is not as audible as I fear.
"This execution is dismissed," Soren calls out over the heads of the crowd, accompanied by a series of wordless groans shooting out in all directions. "But if another angel is found, rest assured, they will not be spared the fate of death," he promises, and spreads his hand wide, heavy cape fluttering behind him like the wings of a bat emerging from a cave to spread its wings into the dark of a moonless night. The picture of death.
His red eyes glint manically for a moment as the crowd cheers with a misanthropic glee at the thought of further execution, chants rising among some of the fat, heavy vampires, whose faces are streaked with blood. The body on the ground, and Dawn, are already long forgotten. It's like a witch hunt, a frenzy, bolstered by the promise of death, and blood and the musical screams of anguish which the vampires seldom deign to listen to. I grit my teeth against the noise an start to turn away. A cold hand on my shoulder pulls at my focus, stopping me in my tracks.
"You and I need to talk, hmm, little dove?" Soren states from behind me, voice flat, the presence of that teasing demeanour and wicked smile long since gone. I think, maybe, looking at him then, I should have felt afraid. Should have seen the glint of sharp, hungry fangs beneath his teeth and ran. Or the swirling glints of red and crimson billowing behind the back of his eyes and considered myself as doomed. But there is no emotion, no catapulting terror that runs through me as I look back at him, as if being in this place for so long had stripped me of my fear and mortal emotions and made me, in the manner of which I can think of, not like an angel, but like them. A cold, merciless beast.
"We do," is all I say, and he takes my arm, and we are away.
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"Wait! Please!" I call again to Soren and the little angel, suspending in mid air, hanging limply like a doll in the hands of a child. A very murderous child. My voice echoes out across the dais, commanding and authoritative, ricocheting off the walls and rebounding through the marble corridors with such fervid emotion that it would be impossible not to hear it.
Underneath the stony exterior of Soren's face, something shifts under the skin, a hint of some emotion in the murky depths that the other vampires are either too blind or too careless to notice. But as his eyes catch mine, I suddenly get the feeling he was expecting my arrival all along.
I swallow slowly as all eyes in the room turn to look and shoot daggers in my general direction, to see what pest, what nuisance has so rudely interrupted their main entertainment for the day. Some of them hiss, spitting like rabid snakes or animals in the presence of another more spindly creature who dares to test the boundaries of their territory: a warning, a death threat, daring me not to go further. But I know what I am dealing with.
"Pardon, my Princes, but perhaps there is a better way to deal with her than simply killing her?" I say, treading carefully with my words, for fear of what might come if I took to many steps over the line. To mess with vampire tradition- just like any tradition, is a dangerous measure to take. Best case scenario, I get out of here alive. Worst... A rigid shudder convulses through me. I don't want to think about that.
If the little angel recognises me, she doesn't say a word. There is no indication, no subtle turn of the head or peak through her eyes that holds any proof my presence is of any relevance to her. But at this rate, with the amount of blood pooling onto the floor, slick and silvery in the low candlelight and seeping nauseatingly into the cracks in the marble floor, I doubt she would be conscious at all. Sooner or later, all that will be left is a shell. Some of the vampires shift impatiently at the sight of the blood, as if they hadn't had a grand feast some few hours ago.
"There must be uses for a captive this prized. And so young too!" I exclaim, tainting my voice with a mixture of enthusiasm and blatant scorn, a wicked façade that by most degrees makes me no better than the very vampires I disdain. I gesture over to the angel with a careless flick of my fingers, making a deliberate effort to catch the eyes of both the royals standing to attention on the dais.
Silently I begin to hope Dawn doesn't have any recollection by the time she wakes up after all.
"I mean, traditions respected, my Princes, to win a war with such a foe, one has to play dirty, and what is the use killing your captives? Then they are about as much use to you as setting them free."
Shouts of anger rise up from behind me like a tidal wave. Fists shake in my general direction, claws swiping at my back, furious, grasping, enraged my my sullen attempts to make their favourite prince change such a beloved tradition. But I stand tall against them, my back an impenetrable wall of stone, my expression that of ice and a glacial chill, hard, unfeeling, phlegmatic: a perfect ruler against the rebel of a crowd.
Soren's voice muses in my head, tickling my senses with the woo of his words:
You would make a perfect vampire.
I nearly break a smile.
Azrael, at my suggestion, looks furious. His white hair is static with a tense electricity, his mouth pulled into a permanent grimace as if the thought of my involvement alone was personally giving him a headache. Soren however, holds up his hand, inducing the room into a heavy lulled silence. He neither looks pleased, nor displeased, but the authority in which he speaks his words are enough to send a quaking shudder through me.
"Speak," he commands, the humour in his voice only seconds ago washed away with that pallid, cold blooded stare. I nod and make a low bow. It is after all, customary I make myself favourable to the king- and the crowd.
"Prince Soren, may I suggest you instead use this angel to glean information? She is weak, and susceptible, perhaps she knows something about the angels? Or indeed, what if she was lying to us? Wouldn't it be handy to have a political prisoner? Even if for bartering fodder? A dead angel may benefit you in terms of lowering the numbers of your opponents, but that is all. A live captive, from my experience, has far more use to them."
"Bullshit!" Someone cries despairingly from the crowd, and voices swell again in anger, until Soren flicks a sharp finger in their direction and a shaft of blood shoots out from the source globule floating above Dawn and plunges into the crowd. The wet, heavy sound of a body falling to the ground rings through the room, stilling the crowd to a terror induced halt.
"I did not expect to be having two executions today," Soren murmurs irefully to the room, lifting a hand to rub his forehead with a long sigh. "Let's not make that three, hmm?"
The air fills with a muted silence.
"My Prince," I say, bowing respectful at the waist, "Your verdict?"
If the vampire prince holds any feelings on the matter he remains staunchly silent. He begins to circle again in the slow, intimidating manner a predator might, holding up Dawn's damaged wings as if it were his prey, assessing the situation, and seeing if any viable part of her is retrievable at all. She is a mess, no doubt about it. Whatever vampire that caught her certainly took no time in giving her a proper vampire welcome to the kingdom of Sezeria.
I suppose that is vampire tradition, too.
The black tendrils holding her precariously aloft shift around her, lowering her slightly, so that Soren can see her eye to eye, and he lifts her chin with his hand, eyes wandering over the faint plus on her neck. To my surprise, it is not him that speaks first.
"Perhaps this is an idea of some merit," Azrael sighs languorously, swooping down the steps of the dais with one swift swish of his glowing white cape. Had I not known him better, I might have said he looked almost graceful, majestic, like a white dove swooping down from the eaves of a holy building to coo gently in the hallways. But Azrael is no dove. Nor would he ever be.
"After all, the elf is right, we may be able to learn more from her. Times have changed, and so have the angels. Who is to say they are not planning something greater against us?" Azrael bends down to pick a feather off the floor, a feather soaked in that same viscous liquid draining from her back in gradual streams. I fight the urge to vomit as he licks off the blood from the feather.
Disgusting.
Soren gives him a look as if to say 'since when did you care?' before he tucks a purple rose into the pocket of the little girl's dress, and sends her dropping to the ground as the shadowy coils vanish from view. The drop is not far, but the hangman swoops in and catches her just in time to prevent any further damage. I hope my relieved sigh is not as audible as I fear.
"This execution is dismissed," Soren calls out over the heads of the crowd, accompanied by a series of wordless groans shooting out in all directions. "But if another angel is found, rest assured, they will not be spared the fate of death," he promises, and spreads his hand wide, heavy cape fluttering behind him like the wings of a bat emerging from a cave to spread its wings into the dark of a moonless night. The picture of death.
His red eyes glint manically for a moment as the crowd cheers with a misanthropic glee at the thought of further execution, chants rising among some of the fat, heavy vampires, whose faces are streaked with blood. The body on the ground, and Dawn, are already long forgotten. It's like a witch hunt, a frenzy, bolstered by the promise of death, and blood and the musical screams of anguish which the vampires seldom deign to listen to. I grit my teeth against the noise an start to turn away. A cold hand on my shoulder pulls at my focus, stopping me in my tracks.
"You and I need to talk, hmm, little dove?" Soren states from behind me, voice flat, the presence of that teasing demeanour and wicked smile long since gone. I think, maybe, looking at him then, I should have felt afraid. Should have seen the glint of sharp, hungry fangs beneath his teeth and ran. Or the swirling glints of red and crimson billowing behind the back of his eyes and considered myself as doomed. But there is no emotion, no catapulting terror that runs through me as I look back at him, as if being in this place for so long had stripped me of my fear and mortal emotions and made me, in the manner of which I can think of, not like an angel, but like them. A cold, merciless beast.
"We do," is all I say, and he takes my arm, and we are away.
"Wait! Please!" I call again to Soren and the little angel, suspending in mid air, hanging limply like a doll in the hands of a child. A very murderous child. My voice echoes out across the dais, commanding and authoritative, ricocheting off the walls and rebounding through the marble corridors with such fervid emotion that it would be impossible not to hear it.Underneath the stony exterior of Soren's face, something shifts under the skin, a hint of some emotion in the murky depths that the other vampires are either too blind or too careless to notice. But as his eyes catch mine, I suddenly get the feeling he was expecting my arrival all along.I swallow slowly as all eyes in the room turn to look and shoot daggers in my general direction, to see what pest, what nuisance has so rudely interrupted their main entertainment for the day. Some of them hiss, spitting like rabid snakes or animals in the presence of another more spindly creature who dares to test the boundaries of their territory: a warning, a death threat, daring me not to go further. But I know what I am dealing with."Pardon, my Princes, but perhaps there is a better way to deal with her than simply killing her?" I say, treading carefully with my words, for fear of what might come if I took to many steps over the line. To mess with vampire tradition- just like any tradition, is a dangerous measure to take. Best case scenario, I get out of here alive. Worst... A rigid shudder convulses through me. I don't want to think about that.If the little angel recognises me, she doesn't say a word. There is no indication, no subtle turn of the head or peak through her eyes that holds any proof my presence is of any relevance to her. But at this rate, with the amount of blood pooling onto the floor, slick and silvery in the low candlelight and seeping nauseatingly into the cracks in the marble floor, I doubt she would be conscious at all. Sooner or later, all that will be left is a shell. Some of the vampires shift impatiently at the sight of the blood, as if they hadn't had a grand feast some few hours ago."There must be uses for a captive this prized. And so young too!" I exclaim, tainting my voice with a mixture of enthusiasm and blatant scorn, a wicked faade that by most degrees makes me no better than the very vampires I disdain. I gesture over to the angel with a careless flick of my fingers, making a deliberate effort to catch the eyes of both the royals standing to attention on the dais.Silently I begin to hope Dawn doesn't have any recollection by the time she wakes up after all."I mean, traditions respected, my Princes, to win a war with such a foe, one has to play dirty, and what is the use killing your captives? Then they are about as much use to you as setting them free."Shouts of anger rise up from behind me like a tidal wave. Fists shake in my general direction, claws swiping at my back, furious, grasping, enraged my my sullen attempts to make their favourite prince change such a beloved tradition. But I stand tall against them, my back an impenetrable wall of stone, my expression that of ice and a glacial chill, hard, unfeeling, phlegmatic: a perfect ruler against the rebel of a crowd.Soren's voice muses in my head, tickling my senses with the woo of his words:You would make a perfect vampire.I nearly break a smile.Azrael, at my suggestion, looks furious. His white hair is static with a tense electricity, his mouth pulled into a permanent grimace as if the thought of my involvement alone was personally giving him a headache. Soren however, holds up his hand, inducing the room into a heavy lulled silence. He neither looks pleased, nor displeased, but the authority in which he speaks his words are enough to send a quaking shudder through me."Speak," he commands, the humour in his voice only seconds ago washed away with that pallid, cold blooded stare. I nod and make a low bow. It is after all, customary I make myself favourable to the king- and the crowd."Prince Soren, may I suggest you instead use this angel to glean information? She is weak, and susceptible, perhaps she knows something about the angels? Or indeed, what if she was lying to us? Wouldn't it be handy to have a political prisoner? Even if for bartering fodder? A dead angel may benefit you in terms of lowering the numbers of your opponents, but that is all. A live captive, from my experience, has far more use to them.""Bullshit!" Someone cries despairingly from the crowd, and voices swell again in anger, until Soren flicks a sharp finger in their direction and a shaft of blood shoots out from the source globule floating above Dawn and plunges into the crowd. The wet, heavy sound of a body falling to the ground rings through the room, stilling the crowd to a terror induced halt."I did not expect to be having two executions today," Soren murmurs irefully to the room, lifting a hand to rub his forehead with a long sigh. "Let's not make that three, hmm?"The air fills with a muted silence."My Prince," I say, bowing respectful at the waist, "Your verdict?"If the vampire prince holds any feelings on the matter he remains staunchly silent. He begins to circle again in the slow, intimidating manner a predator might, holding up Dawn's damaged wings as if it were his prey, assessing the situation, and seeing if any viable part of her is retrievable at all. She is a mess, no doubt about it. Whatever vampire that caught her certainly took no time in giving her a proper vampire welcome to the kingdom of Sezeria.I suppose that is vampire tradition, too.The black tendrils holding her precariously aloft shift around her, lowering her slightly, so that Soren can see her eye to eye, and he lifts her chin with his hand, eyes wandering over the faint plus on her neck. To my surprise, it is not him that speaks first."Perhaps this is an idea of some merit," Azrael sighs languorously, swooping down the steps of the dais with one swift swish of his glowing white cape. Had I not known him better, I might have said he looked almost graceful, majestic, like a white dove swooping down from the eaves of a holy building to coo gently in the hallways. But Azrael is no dove. Nor would he ever be."After all, the elf is right, we may be able to learn more from her. Times have changed, and so have the angels. Who is to say they are not planning something greater against us?" Azrael bends down to pick a feather off the floor, a feather soaked in that same viscous liquid draining from her back in gradual streams. I fight the urge to vomit as he licks off the blood from the feather.Disgusting.Soren gives him a look as if to say 'since when did you care?' before he tucks a purple rose into the pocket of the little girl's dress, and sends her dropping to the ground as the shadowy coils vanish from view. The drop is not far, but the hangman swoops in and catches her just in time to prevent any further damage.I hope my relieved sigh is not as audible as I fear."This execution is dismissed," Soren calls out over the heads of the crowd, accompanied by a series of wordless groans shooting out in all directions. "But if another angel is found, rest assured, they will not be spared the fate of death," he promises, and spreads his hand wide, heavy cape fluttering behind him like the wings of a bat emerging from a cave to spread its wings into the dark of a moonless night. The picture of death.His red eyes glint manically for a moment as the crowd cheers with a misanthropic glee at the thought of further execution, chants rising among some of the fat, heavy vampires, whose faces are streaked with blood. The body on the ground, and Dawn, are already long forgotten. It's like a witch hunt, a frenzy, bolstered by the promise of death, and blood and the musical screams of anguish which the vampires seldom deign to listen to. I grit my teeth against the noise an start to turn away. A cold hand on my shoulder pulls at my focus, stopping me in my tracks."You and I need to talk, hmm, little dove?" Soren states from behind me, voice flat, the presence of that teasing demeanour and wicked smile long since gone. I think, maybe, looking at him then, I should have felt afraid. Should have seen the glint of sharp, hungry fangs beneath his teeth and ran. Or the swirling glints of red and crimson billowing behind the back of his eyes and considered myself as doomed. But there is no emotion, no catapulting terror that runs through me as I look back at him, as if being in this place for so long had stripped me of my fear and mortal emotions and made me, in the manner of which I can think of, not like an angel, but like them. A cold, merciless beast."We do," is all I say, and he takes my arm, and we are away.
