David smiled, although he easily matched the displeasure, acutely aware of the tension building each time they shared a room. “You called for me?”
He noticed several of Lucius’s nemorti servants moving about the room, dressing the five long dining tables in scarlet tablecloths and setting out the silver cups and bowls that were used at every feast. A larger number of revenants worked in the background, languidly securing what appeared to be large iron cauldrons against the southern wall. David couldn’t help but feel a mixture of contempt and pity for the lesser creatures, forced to live out their days in blind submission.
“Yes, I did.” Lucius led him away from the bustle towards the high table, an elevated structure set far enough away from the others to offer privacy. David noticed there was a recent addition of a painting in Lucius’s likeness situated right above his throne. The artist had exquisitely captured his spiraling sable locks and the extravagance of his royal turban, a flamboyant piece of red velvet headwear, lined in pearls and adorned by one large, precious ruby.
“Planning another feast, I presume?” David asked, deciding against mentioning the portrait, lest he be drawn into one of Lucius’s magniloquent explanations.
“As you are well aware, we have won the war for the Wallachian throne, ensuring longevity for our kind,” Lucius replied. “The last of the Transylvanian Saxons are either dead or rotting in our prisons. It is high time that we have a celebration.”
“Of course,” David murmured, curious where this was leading.
“I have planned something unlike anything we have seen before, a treat for my court.” Though his lips were tight, Lucius’s eyes betrayed his excitement, his pupils glittering. They had widened over the centuries, eclipsing his golden irises with intrusive obsidian.
“And you wish for me to be there,” David finished, unenthused.
“I would, however, I am well aware of the abhorrence you feel towards my feasts,” Lucius replied, an air of annoyance drying out his words.
At the beginning of their lives as Wallachian royalty, Lucius developed a favorite pastime, the feast. Prior to his discovery, a blood drinkers’ habits were a solitary endeavor, yet with so many newly minted nemorti and revenants to feed, Lucius decided to turn the necessity into a social event. He transformed the castle kitchen into a butchery, adhering hooks to the ceiling so cooks could easily drain humans in mass quantities, filling troughs to be drained into decanters and poured into the hundreds of goblets set at the tables. Sometimes the meals included raw meat from various species; a favorite treat amongst the court a recently removed heart. David was present at first, even though he was irked Lucius had robbed them of the pleasures of hunting, a ritual David cherished even with his newfound conscience. But it wasn’t until Lucius brought a live human into the hall to serve as entertainment that David found the event more than he could bear.
The moment the man was dragged into the room, David was assaulted by his thoughts, coming to him as clear as any blood clairvoyance he’d received in the past. He froze in dismay, mentally fighting the oppressive visions of the man’s life, playing right before his eyes. He was a kind Turkish man with three young daughters who loved him dearly. David could hear their twinkling laughter as he chased them around his humble household, could smell the stew cooking on the fire near an old lady who could only be his mother. The man thought of nothing but his motherless daughters, the delirious refrain playing over and over in his head, “But my daughters, I have to get home to my daughters…”
David had jumped from his seat at the high table, much to the surprise of Lucius and Morgana, fleeing the room before they had a chance to question him. He had not returned to the dining hall since.
“My main concern tonight is Morgana,” Lucius interrupted the recollection. He lowered his voice to an audible whisper. “You know how highly she is regarded amongst the court. If they were to catch on to her decline…” For the first time in years, David saw a glimmer of his old friend, his expression crumpling with visible concern for the object of his unrequited love. Yet no sooner had the look surfaced, did he blink and turn back into the cold, grimacing creature he had hardened into.
“I can visit her chambers to assess her wellbeing,” David offered hesitantly, unsure of his reaction.
“Excellent. I’d advise you to do so soon. We will convene for dinner within the hour.”
David nodded, bowing his head towards him in a good-natured gesture, one he’d learned kept their growing tensions at bay.
A group of nemorti heaved past them, pushing a massive cart piled with bundles of wooden pikes. “Right this way!” Lucius instructed them upon sight, leaving David’s side.
Grateful for his distraction, David strode out of the room, down the winding corridors towards Morgana’s chambers which were tucked in the residential keep. The tapestries that hung from these walls were akin to those in the main halls, with the addition of a slender black crow perched behind Lucius’s dragon. Silver vases filled with red roses decorated every furnished surface, elaborate headdresses constructed with avian bones nailed to each stone wall. It was eerily quiet as he moved through her hallway, absent of the daily bustle customary to the main castle.
Suddenly, the aroma of human blood hit him, precisely at the same moment someone physically collided with him as he turned the corner. Startled, he recognized Morgana as she tumbled into his arms. He struggled to maintain his grasp on her, realizing she was not only nude, but completely slick with cruor.
The eyes that met his, when he finally stabilized them both, were a vacant, dull brown, not unlike the despondent expression of a dying animal. It was a look that was becoming increasingly familiar to him as her episodes grew more frequent, as well as the sudden shudder they gave right before the irises shifted back to vibrant blue. It was after such a transition that he knew he spoke with the Morrigan, untainted by her bodily counterpart. They shifted now as she searched his face with confusion. “Daghda?”
He checked to see if anyone witnessed their encounter, hoisting her fully into his arms and ducking into her bedchamber. He slipped on the floor as he entered, nearly taking both of them to the ground. He steadied himself as he observed the entire room was splattered with gore. Both hunger and revolution assaulted him as he pieced together what had occurred. As a human, Delicia had taken great pleasure in draining the bodies of young women to acquire blood to bathe in, convinced of its beautifying properties. Recently the practice had been revived in the weakening amalgamation that was Morgana. The dead servant girl lying motionless in the bathtub, and her lingering thoughts as her soul passed to the Otherworld, was all the evidence he needed.
He set Morrigan carefully on her feet where she remained still, staring blankly at the tub as the liquid streamed from her hair down the curvature of her lithe but muscular body.
David rifled through one of her many wardrobes to produce a chemise. He lifted it over her head and tugged it down around her body, the fabric clinging to the dampness of her skin, revealing nipples erected by the draftiness of the castle. His eyes lingered on them for a moment before he hastily averted them, discomforted that his lust for her had not faded, although their fleeting tryst had never evolved beyond just that.
Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice the color that had crept into his face as he led her to her four-poster bed. He covered her with a few linen blankets before sitting down beside her, dabbing at her moistened forehead with his wrist. It pained him to see her so broken, a mere trace of the fierce creature he once knew, ruined by a faulty vessel unable to house dual souls as it once had.
“Why am I like this?” she asked him, as if she read his thoughts, gazing up at him, crestfallen.
David’s heart sank. “I do not know for certain. The only thing I can surmise is that Delicia’s fevered brain cannot hold the power that is the Morrigan.”
She smiled weakly at his attempt to lift her spirits, turning her gaze out the window at the distant swarm of birds that bespeckled the sky. “I have no real power anymore,” she said softly. “Even my crows have left me.”
He leaned over to kiss her damp hair. “You will always be powerful,” he assured her. “I shall never forgive myself for your condition,” he added. “It’s my fault you have become like this.”
“No,” she objected, turning back to face him. “It was I. I would not listen to Lucius’s warnings. I chose this defective body as my vessel. You only did as you promised me, fulfilling a vow I forced you to make.”
David sighed. “Your words do little to alleviate my guilt.”
“You and your guilt,” she teased. “Perhaps you are as defective as me.”
He laughed, pleased to see her mental strength returning.
She glanced over at the woman in her tub, whose soul had finally passed, leaving the shell of her body behind her. “I do not understand how I keep ending up with living women as servants.”
“Delicia demands the Hunters fetch them for her,” David explained, referring to the only servants Lucius allowed to leave the castle, those sent out weekly to fetch provisions for the court. “She fails to grasp that immortality itself will keep her young and beautiful, without the unnecessary bloodshed.”
“Again, your guilt surfaces through your words. Why do you care for mortals so? They are a food source, weak, pathetic creatures, nothing more. The crow does not pity the mouse as he eats it. He is grateful for the nourishment it provides. We are nature’s predators, Daghda, gods among men.”
“Yes, but they have souls,” he argued, before he could catch himself. Her eyes bore into his for only a moment before they slowly rolled back into her head, the lovely azure irises resurfacing a murky brown. The enlargement of her pupils threatened eradication of any pigment, giving her a manic look that was not unlike their mutual sire. “You are pathetic,” Delicia jeered.
David sighed, disappointed his conversation with Morrigan had ended so soon.
Delicia threw herself out of bed, tearing off her soiled chemise and rendering herself nude once more. “You are distracting me from getting ready for Lucius’s feast. Where is my servant girl?”
“You murdered her, Delicia,” David replied flatly. “She lies dead in your tub.”
“You will address me as Morgana,” she hissed, flying up to where he stood, her combative stance reminiscent of a harpy poised to attack. “The bitch still lives inside me, no matter how desperately she wants to be free.”
