Prince of Twilight (Wings in the Night #12) 7

Fifteenth Century

Romania

"We have to bury her, my son."

Vlad stood in the small stone chapel beside his beloved new bride. Elisabeta's skin was as cold as the stone bier on which she lay. She wore the pale green wedding gown the servants had found for her on the day their hasty vows had been exchanged. The skirt draped on either side of her, swathing the stone slab in beauty. Her hair, pale as spun silver and endlessly long, spread around her head, as if pillowing her in a cloud.

"My son-" This time the old priest's words were accompanied by his hand, clasping Vlad's shoulder.

Vlad whirled on the man. "No! She is not to be put in the ground. Not yet. I won't allow it."

A little fear joined the pity in the old man's eyes. Not enough, not yet. "I know this is difficult-I do. But she deserves to be laid to rest."

"I said no," Vlad repeated, his tone tired, his heart dead. Then he turned from the priest and focused again where he needed to focus: upon her, upon his bride. Their time together had been too short. One night and then part of a second before he'd been called into battle. It wasn't right.

The priest still hovered.

"Get out, before I draw my blade and send you out in pieces." Vlad's words were barely more than a hoarse whisper, yet filled with enough menace to elicit a clipped gasp from the cleric.

"I'll send in your father. Perhaps he can-"

Vlad turned to send a warning glare over his shoulder. Brief, but powerful enough to reduce most mortals to tears.

"I'm going, my liege." The priest bowed a little as he backed through the chapel doors.

Vlad sighed in relief when the doors closed once again, leaving him alone with his grief. He leaned over Elisabeta's body, lowered his head to her chest, and let his tears soak the gown. "Why, my love? Why did you do this? Was our love not worthy of a single day's grieving? I told you I would come back. Why couldn't you have believed in me?"

A soft creaking sound accompanied by a stiff night breeze and the gentle clearing of an aging throat told him that his respite was over. Vlad forced himself to straighten, to turn and face his father-for truly, the man had become as much a father to him as any had been, since Utnapishtim.

The old king was pale and unsteady. He'd lost a daughter-in-law he'd been close, already, to loving-and for three days he had believed that he had lost his son, as well.

He crossed the small room, his gait uneven and slow, then wrapped his frail arms around Vlad's shoulders and hugged him hard, as hard as his strength would allow. "Alive," he muttered. "By the gods, my son, you're alive after all."

Vlad closed his eyes as he returned his father's embrace. "Alive, father, but none too glad to be, just now." As he said it, he looked back at his bride.

His father did, as well, releasing his hold on Vlad to move closer to the bier. "I cannot tell you how it grieves me to see you in such pain, much less to witness the loss of such a precious young woman as Elisabeta."

"I know."

"Your friend, the foreign woman-she told you what transpired?"

Vlad nodded. "Rhiannon is... an old friend. And a dear one. She said she arrived here for a visit just after I was called to defend our borders."

"So she did. We put her up. Fussy one, she is, and I don't believe she thought highly of your chosen bride. Were the two of you... ?"

"As close as any two people can be," Vlad told him. "But we had no claims on each other. She would not have been jealous."

"She called the princess a-now what was the word she used... ? Ah yes, a whiner," the king said softly. "To her face, no less."

Vlad nodded, not doubting it.

"When word came that you'd been killed on the field of battle, poor Elisabeta took to the tower room and bolted the door. I had men trying to break it down right up until-"

"I know, Father. I know you did all you could."

The king lowered his head, perhaps to hide the rush of tears into his clouded blue eyes. "Tell me what I can do to ease your grief."

Vlad thought about that, thought about it hard. Rhiannon was no ordinary woman but a former priestess of Isis and daughter of Pharoah. She was skilled in the occult arts, and she had told Vlad that he would find Elisabeta again-she had foreseen it-in five hundred years' time, if he could live that long. What she hadn't promised was that Beta would be the same woman he had loved and lost, or that she would remember him and love him again.

"There is something I can do for you," the king said softly. "I can see it in your eyes. Speak it, my son, and it shall be done, whatever it is."

Vlad met his father's eyes and felt love for the man. True love, though the king was not his true father. "I cannot let them bury her. Not yet. I need you to send our finest riders upon our fastest mounts, Father. Send them out into the countryside to gather the most skilled sorcerers, diviners, wizards and witches in the land. I don't care what it takes. I must have them here before my beloved is put into the cold ground."

The king looked worriedly into his eyes. "My son, you must know that even the most skilled magician won't be able to bring her back. Buried or not, she resides among the dead now."

He nodded once, closed his eyes against that probing, caring stare. "I know that, Father. I only need to be sure she's at peace."

"But the priest-"

"His prayers are not enough. I want to be sure. Please, Father, you said you would do anything to ease my pain. This shall ease it, if anything can."

The king nodded firmly. "Then it shall be done."

"And Father-until they come, keep everyone from here. And even then, let them in only by night."

The old man was used to Vlad's nocturnal nature by now. He nodded, and Vlad knew the promise would be kept.

The king left, and Vlad drew his bloodstained sword, then stood between the bier and the chapel door. When the sun rose, he barred the door, drew a tapestry from the wall and wrapped himself in it. When the sun set again, he was forced to lay the fabric over Elisabeta's body or witness it begin to change with the ravages of death. And before the third night was through, the scent of death and decay hung heavy on the air.

But finally, at midnight of the third night, the chapel doors opened again, and several men entered. No women were among them. They entered in a rush of wind, dressed in dull white traveling robes of wool, for the most part, though one wore a finer fabric in rich, russet tones, its edges embroidered with a pattern of twisting green vines.

They all dropped to one knee, bowing low before him. The one in the brown said, "My prince, we came as rapidly as we could manage. Our hearts are heavy with grief at the loss of the princess."

"Yes," he said. "Rise. I need your help."

The men looked at one another nervously. There were five, he saw now. Locals, mostly, though one appeared to be from the East, and another was Moorish in appearance.

"We are honored if we can be of service," the apparent spokesman said. "But I know not what we can do. Against death, even we are powerless."

He nodded and thought of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Sumer. His own desperate search for the key of life had resulted in the creation of an entire race-the Undead. Vampires. Like Vlad, and Rhiannon, and so many others. But it had never resulted in the great king's dear friend Enkidu returning from death.

Maybe, Vlad thought, his own quest was just as mad. But he had to try.

"I do not ask you to conquer death. Only to ensure that when I find her again, I will know her-and that she will know me. And remember. And love me again."

The magicians and sorcerers frowned, seeking understanding in each other's faces.

"A powerful seer has told me that the princess will return to me in another lifetime. But it will be in the distant future."

"But, my liege, you would be aged and she but an infant."

"That's not your concern, sorcerer. I want only to ensure that when she does return-and reaches a decent age-she will remember all that came before, that she will be the woman she was in this lifetime. Can you or can you not fulfill this request?"

One man began to whisper to another, and Vlad caught the words "unnatural" and "immoral," but the man in brown held up a hand to silence them. Then he approached Vlad slowly, cautiously, and at last he nodded. "We can and we shall, my liege. Go, get sustenance, rest. She'll be safe in our care, I promise you."

Vlad gazed at the shape beneath the tapestry. No longer his Elisabeta, but a shell that had formerly held her essence. He looked at the men again. "Do not fear to try. It is a lot I ask of you. I give my word, I will not exact punishment should you fail, so long as you do the very best you can. On her memory, I vow it to you."

The men bowed deeply, and he glimpsed relief on their faces. Truly, Vlad was not known for his mercy or understanding. He left them to their work. But he didn't rest, and he didn't feed. He couldn't-not until he knew.

It was four a.m. when a servant boy came to fetch him back to the chapel, and as he hurried there, he saw that the door was open and the priest was coming out, wafting a censer before him. Behind him, men came bearing the corpse, buried in flowers, upon a litter.

And behind them came the wizards and sorcerers, who met Vlad's eyes and nodded to tell him that they had been successful. The man in russet came to him, while the others kept the slow pace behind the funeral procession. The priest's servant rang a bell, and the gruff-voiced cleric intoned his prayers loudly, so that others from the castle and the village joined in as they passed, many carrying candles or lamps. No one in the village had slept this night, awaiting the princess's burial, and so the procession grew larger and longer as it wound onward, a writhing serpent dotted with lights.

"My prince," said the man in brown. "We have done it. Take this."

He handed Vlad a scroll, rolled tightly and held by a ruby ring-the ring he'd given to Elisabeta. It had been on her finger. Seeing it caused pain to stab deeply, and he sucked in a breath.

"I don't understand," he said. "You removed her wedding ring. Why?"

"We performed a powerful ritual, commanding a part of her essence to remain earthbound. The ring is the key that holds her and will one day release her. When a future incarnation of Elisabeta returns to you, all you will need to do is put this ring upon her finger and perform the rite contained on this scroll, and she will be restored to the very Elisabeta she was before. She will remember everything. And she will love you again."

"Are you sure?" Vlad asked, afraid to believe, to hope.

"On my life, my prince, I swear to you it is true. There is only one caveat. And this could not be helped, for we risk our very souls by tampering with matters of life and death and the afterlife. The gods must be allowed their say."

"The gods. It was they who saw fit to take her from me this way. To hell with the gods."

"My prince!" The sorcerer looked around as if fearing Vlad's blasphemy might have been overheard by the deities themselves.

"Tell me of this caveat, then," Vlad snapped. "But be quick. I must attend to my wife's burial."

The man boldly took hold of Vlad's arm and began walking beside him, catching them up to the procession, while keeping enough distance for privacy. "If the rite has not been performed by the time the Red Star of Destiny eclipses Venus, then the gods have not willed it, and the magick will expire."

"And what will happen to Elisabeta then?"

"Her soul will be set free. All parts of her soul, the part we've held earthbound, and any other parts that may have been reborn into the physical realm. All will be free."

"And by free, you mean... dead," Vlad whispered. He gripped the man by the front of his russet robes and lifted him off his feet. "You've done nothing!"

"Death is but an illusion, my liege! Life is endless. And you'll have time-vast amounts of time-in which to find her again, I swear."

He narrowed his eyes on the sorcerer, tempted to draw his blade and slide it between the man's ribs. But instead, he lowered him to the ground again. "How much time? When, exactly, does this red star of yours next eclipse Venus?"

"Not for slightly more than five hundred and twenty years, my liege, as nearly as I can calculate."

Vlad swallowed his pain and his raging grief. Rhiannon had predicted he would find his Elisabeta again in five hundred years. His chief concern at the time had been wondering how the hell he could manage to survive so long without her; how he could bear the pain.

Now he had an added worry. When he did find her, would it be in time to enact the spell, perform the rite, and restore her memory and her soul?

By the gods, it had to be. He was determined. He must not fail.

He would not.

He was no ordinary man, nor even an ordinary vampire, after all.

He was Dracula.