Chapter Text
“ The boy with a contradictory name, who acts in contradictory ways, will win over the Immortals and soon after, the whole world will bow to your crown.”
–
"Pick a card."
A shiver ran through my body, causing me to twitch as I sat on this chair, my breath fighting to leave my throat. I blinked again and again attempting to clear my twisted vision. There was nothing but light and shadow. Mostly shadow. One that was alive and speaking, with sharp teeth that sometimes caught glimpses of light and reflected it back to me. I passed my tongue over my own teeth, sharp now too.
My gaze flicked down to the table, to the cards laying there. The sun. They took me from my home. The moon. They pushed liquid fire in my veins. The stars. They tied me against the mast of a ship. A crown. They dragged me and sat me on this chair. A sword. My throat was burning.
I raised a trembling hand and reached for the card laying in the centre. The crown. A dozen reflections of light flashed as the shadow smiled.
"He is the one."
There was a black, pulsing void- no, not void. Something else. Something that was radiating. Something that was emerging from the shadow in front of me like dripping mud. My gaze flicked around and I saw every other shadow-person was connected to this one through what seemed to be strings.
Thump-thump.
My nose flared, my attention focused, all I knew was this sound, this scent, and I lept, closing the distance between me and my meal and I pushed my fangs in the soft throat of a mortal. I drank but before I could sate my thirst the force of ten men pulled me away.
Warmtj traveled in my veins, filling me with power, helping my mind clear and I was able to memorise the way as I was carried deeper into the underground maze.
We passed numerous cells and I saw the other prisoners. Not as people, but as colors. Muddied and constricted by the shadow, but varying colors. I turned my head to try and look at my captors again as I was thrown in a cell like all the others.
"Welcome home, Prince," one of the muddy figures said, but all I heard was the gasp that echoed through the dungeons. I raised my hands to look at them, and I found a timid glow of gold.
* * *
I was taken from my home. My palace. My fate.
I used to scoff at the people who nodded at me sadly upon hearing I was third in line. I never once doubted I would become king. Vasileus, the first, was smart and kind, but he fell ill every winter. I would bet he would pass before our father did. Leuter, the second, would render himself incompetent any day now, with his reckless riding and wrestling. It was a miracle he hadn't already.
So when the King visited me in the dungeons a few weeks after I arrived to offer me “A kingdom of my own” I wanted to spit in his face. I had a kingdom. I stood unafraid and diplomatic, taking in how the dungeons had gone rigid with his presence.
I nodded once in respect, “Thank you for this honor,” I said and looked him in the eye. Or where I supposed his eyes should lay, for I could not see them.
The King chuckled and only a few days later I was released from the cell.
He would gently take hold of my hand and lead me this way and that. He would talk to me soothingly, calming the dizziness and disorientation that occupied my mind. He would feed me himself, providing me with as much blood as I required. This was important, he said. The first few weeks would pave the rest of a vampire's life. And he wanted me to be content and clear headed. So, whatever I asked for, I was given.
A room of my own, clothes, jewelry, servants, blood, and soon after, the freedom to roam the palace on my own. Then the island. The freedom to speak to the King as I pleased, to observe his second in command – Verna- as he trained the army. The privilege to learn from him directly, to bear a weapon. To experience the overpowering thrill of execution.
The initial anger I felt was quickly forgotten. “Only natural,” the King described it and he promised he held no ill memories of my earliest days.
His Prince, he named me and everyone on his island treated me as such.
* * *
No one spoke for pleasure on Atalan Isle. Only the King's voice was heard in the palace walls, sometimes Verna's and since my arrival, my own. Every attempt I made at conversing with anyone other than the King was met with stubborn silence.
It upset me to be ignored and so, when I witnessed violence or cruel judgment I would smile malevolently.
I would listen to the King speak for hours about the Dacians and their sadistic actions that he put a stop to. I would marvel at the way he claimed he beat them to submission. I would listen about the Gauls and how the ruler was the King's sworn ally. How he was slowly building a weapon that would spread our rule to the rest of the world, how it would render us truly unstoppable. I listened to him speak of his gift, and explain how it worked. How he could make his prisoners fall to their knees, twist their own limbs in unnatural angles, jump until exhaustion overtook them, all without ever uttering a word. His blood traveled in their veins, he explained. That way he had command of their bodies. There was one lineage of vampires that he couldn't control, he said. The double fanged ones, and he was set on hunting them all down.
“ You can control me like this too?” I asked him one day.
The colored smoke surrounding him fluttered and from experience I knew to expect his voice to sound amused. Like he was smiling. “I made you myself. If I can control someone completely, it's you.”
“ You never have,” I said.
His smoke moved towards me with intent and I felt an itch appear in my mind. One that urged me to get down on my knees and touch my forehead to his feet. It wasn't unbearable, it wasn't unbeatable, it was merely an annoyance, and I met his eye. I fell to my knees at once, bumped my forehead against his feet at my haste, and let out a chuckle, surprised at this unfolding of events. He seemed pleased and released me.
This gave me pause, made me wonder if I too had a gift so powerful. My vision I had initially called twisted had slowly cleared and within my first year in this new life, the muddy void all shifted into vibrant colors. I assumed such was the vision of vampires, seeing people not as a collection of physical features, but instead colorful smoke. For the longest time I did not realise this was not normal, but in fact a gift on its own. I had learned to recognise people by their colors alone, I saw connections as the blending of those colors, and yet it seemed so odd, that I myself had no attachments. Not even to the King. I could see Verna was tied to the King by a thick, unbreakable string, I saw the prisoners were tied by multiple thin, dwindling but regrowing strings, and yet I stood in this colorful chaos alone. Detached.
It was after I completed five years of this new life that I woke up from my rare resting day and my vision had reverted to what it was before. I stood up panicked, blinking confused. I was suddenly blind, and I recognised no one. I called for the King in a panic and he appeared in my room, tall, intimidating and I saw his face for the first time. A hard set face, with a permanent frown carved into it.
I told him, nearly in tears, fearing the worst. Fearing I had not escaped death after all, and it was now coming to me, ready to be paid for the time I had stolen.
With soft words and guidance, he talked me out of my panic enough for me to explain. When he realised, his face lit up, and I could do nothing but watch mesmerised at the expressions. I had not realised how much I had missed this. It's funny how quickly one forgets what a face looks like. Even funnier, the language of faces can't ever be forgotten it seemed.
I must have a gift, he told me. And this was something to revel in, not fear. Together we worked to figure out what it meant. He showed me such patience, while I was readjusting, while I was relearning the population on the island and with his guidance, I found a way to control it. I learned to use the altered vision I was gifted at will. I could switch from one set of eyes to the other faster and faster and with the additional intel of facial expressions, I revealed to him that I could tell the relationships any two people shared.
His face soured for a second, and I felt the fear that so often I could see in everyone else, run through me. The King smiled, “How wonderful, Mauro,” he said, and for the first time since I had access to his face, I realised, his smile wasn't a kind one. No, there was something sinister there. Something I had been unable to see before.
“ Are there mates here?” he asked me. The intensity of his gaze caused a knot to form in my throat. I did not like seeing the King like that, I concluded. I switched my vision, much preferring the colorful swirling than the angry face I was standing in front of. I was about to answer when something caught my attention. There was an eerie stillness all around me. I looked and found everyone's pulsating colors had stilled, waiting for my answer. I swallowed carefully.
“ I don't know, my King,” I said. He hummed, placing a hand on my shoulder that now felt deceptively kind. He led me out of the room, down the halls, out in the garden, keeping his voice calm as he talked. He wanted me to try and decipher the different bonds I could see, try and pick out if there were any differences between the bonds. I listened to him with only half of my attention. The other focused on switching between my sight as quickly as I could, catching both the twitching of their postures and the flares of their colors. Noticing the seemingly innocent looks they exchanged and how their colors flowed towards one another. “And if you do finally pick apart the soulmate bond,” the King said and I saw the strongest reactions occur – stiffening of shoulders, locking jaws, gazes turning downwards - “I want you to tell me immediately.” I looked at the King, at the way his colors had now turned darker, reminding me of the first time I met him, when I thought he was nothing but a shadow.
I nodded and all at once, every other vampire took a barely noticeable step away from me.
I hadn't revealed this to the King, but when soulmates were brought in for execution, I was thrilled. They were just so interesting. Loudly arguing, desperately crying out, violently bargaining. I was mesmerised by the way their colors danced around each other. How they either matched perfectly, or they complemented each other in such a way that rendered the couple a harmonious fusion of radiance. Not one pair was the same as another, but all of them were intense in their own way.
And when death was brought upon one of them, I watched as the other's vibrancy dwindled and burned out. How every color combination would turn a dull gray, lose its essence, its intensity, its very life. This part I never enjoyed. It made something deep in my chest ache. Like every soulmate death was affecting me too. Like I was responsible for preserving them, and I was failing.
I started looking more carefully, and now that I had a purpose, deciphering the connections came easily. Patterns started unfolding before my eyes, the similarities among soulmates became clear to me, and I was able to recognise a soulmate bond through the strings and colors alone.
There were soulmates among the King's ranks.
They became my focus of study. Sure now that they had to talk to each other, I noticed. Their gazes were meaningful, their fingers that moved through the air had purpose. A few blinks had the other looking away with a bitten down smile. A wave of a hand had the other twitching their fingers in a specific way. And once I saw that, it was everywhere.
My first estimation was grossly mistaken. This wasn't a silent island. Not at all. It was chatty and loud and playful, as long as you knew the language.
I took to picking it apart, wanting to learn it myself, but as soon as I turned my gaze to another, they looked away, their movements ceased. When I attempted to copy their gestures I got no response. Just as upset as I was the first time I was ignored, I went to the King and revealed the intricate code of the soulmate bond had been untangled for my eyes.
He smiled that wicked smile again, and before I had time to decide if I had acted correctly, I was sent on my first mission: to collect a mated pair with the help of the King's best tracker.