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The emperor Nangong Rang had ruled over this lush region of farms and plains for about a century or so. In those decades, his family had grown as slowly as his territory. They remained a small clan, despite the size of the kingdom they ruled over. Taking too much land, slaughtering too many at one time… well, unless the victims were an unknown and unprotected people, he knew from experience that that kind of killing drew too much attention from the humans.
A strict lattice of palace hierarchies, rules of comportment, and crimes punishable by death kept the vampires fed and in charge. His clan depopulated and repopulated the humans like they were farming rice. Humans were allowed to take on positions in the palace, as well… positions that paid handsomely, conferred the greatest power and safety one could seize in the kingdom, and easily ended with a bloody mistake or an uncontrolled impulse from one of the Nangong children.
The highest ranked of these humans were the Renfields: servants who knew the immortal Nangong family’s true identities and secured them their meals. They were isolated from human life and confined to complete servitude to one master. They were told they, too, could one day be immortal.
Emperor Nangong Rang, careful and obsessive, personally vetted each Renfield. It was through them that he could keep tight surveillance on his children and ensure their loyalty to the kingdom.
This included his daughters. Among them, only Nangong Shunv remained without a Renfield, as her youngest sister, Jingnv, had not yet turned and was under her care.
Shunv was a soft-spoken, ardent, unhappy woman who hated the life she'd been given. She refused to play music at feasts in the presence of their victims. Her guqin was only heard at events without killing. When the man who turned her under the emperor's command drifted through their halls, she visibly burned with fury. She made it difficult for him to be comfortable in her presence. In all other contexts, she was a good and obedient daughter to the emperor.
Humans existed to Shunu in just three ways: the world now lost to her, the prey delivered to her table by her brothers for her to take apart, and the Renfields she had avoided until now.
Shunv, more than her other siblings, had seen through to the guarding of exclusivity and power that kept her family in their place. Aside from the draconian rules spelled out in the law, there were unspoken rules, as well. She understood the intricate little acts of cruelty necessary to keep humans crouched under their feet. Since Shunv was turned, not a single Renfield had received the promised blessing of eternal life. The Nangong family understood implicitly they should not change this tradition.
And then came Nagsi Jiya.
Jiya called herself the princess of the plains. She claimed a woman like her could not be satisfied with mortal life. She said she planned to join the Nangong family.
Eighteen and stunning like a princess of the plains should be, Jiya came into the palace herself to demand a life as a Renfield. To the family’s shock, she was granted one immediately. And she was Renfield to the princess Nangong Shunv, who had sworn never to turn a human as long as she lived.
“Perhaps she likes a challenge,” the whispers said.
Shunv watched Jiya enter the palace and assume her position without comment. Despite her quiet rebellion, those who broke the rules frightened her, especially humans. In the palace, no human demanded anything or they were slaughtered on the spot like animals. No human dressed like Jiya in their company, in trousers and sashes that left her collarbone, her wrists, her throat proudly exposed. And no one looked at Shunv like this. Long and unafraid, laughing. Protective, even, when the man who turned her drifted through the halls, and Shunv would find Jiya suddenly standing near her, saying something, being close.
“Does the young mistress wish to retire with me to her bedchambers?” She would say, leveling her yellow eyes with hers, and Shunv would feel a strange, liquid movement, like the turning of the sea, in the bottom of her stomach.
Jiya had locked her eyes on Shunv and not let go, despite the many excuses Shunv made to get away.
They could not be rid of each other at meals, though. Finally, when it could be put off no longer, Jiya visited her room for the first time to ask what sort of human she would like.
“Go to the temple and find the sacrifice most close to death,” Shunv said, not looking up from her book. “Ask them why they want to die.”
“Sick people, diseased people,” Jiya tutted. Shunv glanced up at her. “It’s not good for you.”
Shunv felt somewhat emboldened by Jiya’s openness. A bookish, principled woman, she preferred to engage people in this kind of conversation. It felt like a small outlet for her own frustrations at her life. It felt safer than the kind of conversation Jiya preferred.
“I thought you would defend your fellow humans. Why cull only the youngest and most promising when you can instead participate in the natural course of human life? I am immortal; I don’t need healthy blood. Your kind lives short lives. It would be cruel to cut someone down in her prime.”
“I don’t see them as fellows,” Jiya said simply.
“... oh?”
“I should like to be like you.” Jiya smiled a winning smile. “And when I am, and we are together, I would like us to be healthy and happy. I'd like to get you into good habits now.”
Shunv was speechless. She raged and squirmed at Jiya’s audacity. But decades of court breeding had made her avoidant to conflict. She pretended to have something else to do and sent Jiya away for many days, shutting herself out of meals. Jiya came to the palace many times with offerings, but she refused to see them, and they eventually were let go.
Shunv began to feel the pangs of hunger. But she felt, as usual, that she deserved it. She reasoned that this was an adequate punishment for the way she lived her wretched eternal life.
And then, one day, two Renfields carried a dying man, in a stretcher, into Shunv’s room while she slept.
When she awoke, the man had tears in his eyes, kneeling at her writing table. Her mouth filled with water. She was starved. He whispered that it was a great honor to be taken like this. He told her in great detail why he wanted to die, what disease had afflicted him, how the princess of the plains had told him what to say.
She fed, and called for Jiya to come to her.
From then on, Jiya regularly sourced the humans Shunv asked for. At the end of their first two months together, she had grown comfortable walking into Shunv’s room with a bottle of wine and a cup in her hands, asking for a chat. Shunv had always had a slightly egalitarian spirit, in line with the popular writings of the times – especially when it came to humans. She indulged these visits more warmly as time went on.
She had been turned at 17, which, she realized, gave Jiya the impression that they were the same age, or perhaps that Jiya was her senior. It amused her, this misunderstanding of her power and standing. And a small part of her was afraid, as well. It feared her enjoyment of this dynamic; that she would encourage it too much.
Something else had happened that unsettled Shunv. Since Jiya entered the palace, a smell – a light, interesting smell that turned sweet and delicious over time – had permeated some of the rooms and places she frequented. Shunv knew for certain it was Jiya’s smell when she fed one night, and Jiya approached to push a strand of her hair out of the way, out of the blood and flesh. Her scent flooded her nose, thicker than the blood, and Shunv wanted to abandon her food and pitch herself into the side of Jiya’s chest.
Now that she had placed it, the smell drove Shunv to distraction. She could not look at Jiya without salivating.
She had the feeling Jiya, whose desire to become a vampire was stronger and more open than in any of the other Renfields, salivated too. She never looked away when Shunv fed. Her lips fell open, often, as if the blood were running from her mouth, too, the flesh clamped in her teeth.
They were having one of their nighttime chats. The candlelight flickered around them. Jiya wore a dress that hugged her waist and swayed with her nimble, athlete’s feet as she moved across the room for more drink. She was regaling Shunv with stories, offering unsolicited advice.
Shunv asked her about her home.
“It is the best place in the world,” Jiya said. “And we are the proudest people there. My father played a role in the tempering of the plains for his majesty. He was a great general.”
“He is dead now?”
“Yes,” Jiya said.
“And your family is alright with your becoming a Renfield?”
“I am their princess,” she said. “I believe it is in the interests of our people that I travel here.”
“Do you have siblings? Have they left home as well?”
“Yes. We are a hunting culture… a wandering culture… what do you call it?”
“Nomadic.”
“Yes,” Jiya said. “And our children leave us to grow into adults, or to start their own packs, or to make a mark on history. We share strong family bonds that no person or thing can break. Not even death can separate us. So we are not pained when great distances come between us.”
“There are many things you won’t be able to tell them, now,” Shunv mused. “You are a Renfield. You are isolated from them. You won’t be making the same marks on history.”
“It is a great honor to us to count one of our own as a high-ranking member of the palace.”
“I suppose they don’t know you’re planning to become immortal,” Shunv said, smiling.
Jiya did not smile. She did not speak.
A moment passed in silence. Jiya sipped from her wine. Shunv ran her long fingers along the strings of her instrument.
“My turn to ask about your customs. Why do your women not hunt?”
“It’s the emperor’s preference.” Shunv said. “He can be quite traditional, yes. But he calls it a ‘preservation of order in the home.’ If one half of the family must live in savagery, then the other half must be a respite from that savagery. In this way it is balanced.”
“Bah,” Jiya said. “What if the women enjoy being savage?”
“... I would not be one of them. I suppose I benefit from the system. I do not have to hunt.” Shunv paused. “Of course, killing and eating willing victims is savage in its own way.”
“It’s all the same under your laws. They’re your subjects. You may do what you like.”
Shunv and Jiya looked at each other.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“You haven’t seen enough of the world,” Jiya said. “It’s not like this everywhere else, you know.”
Shunv studied her unreadable face. Perceptive and worldly though she was, Jiya was only 18. It seemed unlikely she had traveled so much in so little time. Then again. Maybe she was correct about Shunv's lack of experience. She had never travelled outside of the palatial capital.
“I have heard of the vampire nests in the tundra,” Jiya said, crossing her legs. Her dress fell around her like flower petals around a stalk. “where they do not treat their women so… carefully.”
Shunv watched Jiya’s knees until the movement in them stopped. She realized what she was doing and looked away, embarrassed.
“Oh?” Shunv said.
“You know, you vampires have quite the reputation. I thought you would be more… liberal, but I suppose each clan has its own customs. The story goes that the tundra vampires are all women. They make one of their women their queen and serve her. They hold ecstatic feasts for her, and lavish attention on her. Sometimes through the day.”
Shunv’s eyes snapped up in disbelief and indignation, and Jiya laughed.
“So you do know what I’m talking about. You are much less innocent than you seem.”
“I am over a hundred years old,” Shunv didn’t know what to say, so she started with the obvious. “But I suppose I’m not often seeking out filth.”
“Filth?” Jiya said. She made a patronizing noise in her language and got up to pour herself another cup of wine.
Shunv gripped the arms of her seat. Jiya’s scent was strong, sweet. She hadn’t realized how much energy she expended trying to resist it. She had to try much harder to distract herself, now.
“And… do they have Renfields to trap humans, as we do?”
“They do.”
“How are they treated?”
“They are tortured and chained until they can serve their purpose. When they are turned, they are fed from day and night until the transformation is complete. It is agony. The pleasure of regeneration is greatly outpaced by the pain. But as Renfields, they host enormous feasts where the blood flows like rivers. I have heard their Renfields drink the blood, too, out of starvation. You would think it horrific, no?”
Shunv nodded.
“By comparison…” Jiya said slowly. “I’m treated quite… civilly.”
Jiya had drained her cup. Shunv was sitting in her armchair, folded primly together, and Jiya was standing, tall and graceful. Jiya hung her head down to look at Shunv as she spoke. She leaned over and propped herself up with a hand on each of the arms of Shunv’s chair, creating a small cage around Shunv.
“You’re treated well, you mean,” Shunv said. She hoped Jiya would meet her here on the shores of safe conversation. Her dead woman’s breath quickened. She wanted Jiya to push on, to take her into these dangerous waters.
“I supposed I could be treated worse,” Jiya said, her eyes gleaming amber. Her eyes were large, her pupils dilated. But she wasn’t afraid.
“I’ve asked you people to bite me many, many times,” she said, voice low – everything about this woman, good God, was sensual, was controlled and confident, and not even her whisper was a whisper, it was the crackle of small flames, restrained by nothing but the amount of fanning and fuel it was given to consume – “and you’re so good… so polite… you all avert your pretty eyes and let me cover up and say you’ll spare my life…”
Jiya turned her chin to the side, so she was looking down crookedly at Shunv from her great height, her smile crooked too. Her neck was long. It craned elegantly in front of her, almost over her, and she could not force her body to look anywhere but there, into this woman’s warm, hot honey throat. She could almost touch her nose to it, could feel the pulse inside thundering in her head. Jiya’s braided hair hung around them, silhouetted by candlelight. It shrouded Shunv in a small dark space where nothing existed but her, the throat she wanted to devour, this Renfield’s smiling eyes.
“No Renfield would dare talk to her master like this,” Shunv breathed. She looked at Jiya's mouth and thought she saw her canine teeth resting almost like fangs on red, living lips. "You are… presumptuous. Another person would die for this.”
Jiya sighed. Her throat rattled with breath until it was gone. It swelled, it grew warmer… it flattened, cold came back to Shunv’s face.
“No Renfield got what they wanted by waiting.”
Shunv jumped like something hot had branded her, whipped her head down to see what touched her. Jiya was holding her hand. She clasped it with two of her own, raised it up to her cheek, then traced it down to her neck, then lower, to her gushing, noisy, human heart, and Shunv’s eyes and ears followed.
“Why do you want it?” Shunv was breathless, aggravated, backed into a corner. Jiya’s eyes glittered.
“That’s for me to know… and you to find out. Maybe after I turn. Just know I want it. Know that I never beg, I will never beg, and I’m not made to beg. But to get this… this is the closest I’ll come to it.”
“You were made to be a vampire,” Shunv said. She was immediately horrified by the way she sounded. The contempt with which she had wanted to say these words was nearly gone. Instead, she sounded tearful, worshipful, bewitched.
Jiya knew, and her smile stopped growing. Her eyebrows raised almost imperceptibly. She was enjoying her victory.
Shunv wrenched herself away and flew out of the chair and into the hallway outside.
Shunv wanted to avoid Jiya. But she once again found herself a slave to outside forces. In the first place, she could not go many more days of starvation without wasting. In the second place, she could not avoid the meals the emperor mandated she attend.
At the feast, Jiya’s golden eyes followed her across the room, no matter who she conversed with and where she angled herself. When she looked up to meet them, they were surprisingly unabashed; clear, curious, sharp.
Shunv should have known things would be difficult. She shook with hunger. She ran her fingers along the hollows in her cheeks. Tonight, Jiya brought Shunv a young woman to feed on, a kind of human she never would have eaten before Jiya came into her life. She glared at her openly.
“You haven’t eaten in a long time,” Jiya said sweetly, accusingly. “You need good blood. You need nutrients. Look – she’s beautiful. I did well.”
“Is that how your Renfield speaks to you?” her fifth brother said.
“Yes,” she said shortly, covering for Jiya’s brazenness with her princess’s authority. She resented her other brothers’ eyes on Jiya, up and down her body, hair on end at the chiming of her voice.
The young woman kneeled before her, head bowed humbly, hands tied.
Shunv was ashamed, again. This human smelled sweet, like plum blossoms, and looked like everything Shunv might crave at the end of her fast. But across the great hall, far from her now, Jiya still emanated her overwhelming, head-emptying scent. She smelled like… like milk, like grass, like wildflowers and sweetness. It was as strong a scent now as if Shunv had her pressed to her back, had Jiya’s arms under her nose, around her neck, in her mouth.
“Thank you for the meal,” she said.
Blood squirted softly, noiselessly, desperately from the girl’s jugular. The bite was deep, the flesh delicious. Shunv began to devour her, and this, too, she’d learned to do beautifully, like a princess. She tore the girl open, and it was medical, artful. Her eating sounded like kissing. But she knew it was savage. She knew what she was. She could not help the despair and the hate that welled up again, as usual.
The human was in its last, desperate kicks of life, and Shunv finally – she couldn’t help it – glanced up at Jiya, tongue deep in the open wound, eyes gleaming in the direction of the corner where the Renfields stood.
Jiya was staring back with Shunv’s own hunger in her eyes. Like a predator, Shunv thought. Like a yellow-eyed beast. Like a hunter before a kill. Like the beast I am. The blood was rolling down her chin, her chest. She watched Jiya’s tongue lick her lips, her throat move with thirst.
She cleaned her face and left immediately, making a hasty sign of apology to the emperor.
In the hallway to her room, she heard the quick footsteps of her Renfield behind her.
“Leave me,” she said.
“No.”
“How dare you,” she spun on her. “How dare you disobey a princess of the Nangong family. I have your head in my hands. I could kill you and eat you now. Show me the respect I deserve. I have no obligation to give you eternal life – I hate this world, I hate this life, I hate to see another vampire created. I’d rather you were dead than one of us.”
“You loved the human I gave you,” Jiya said, cruelly. “I could do it for you every day, if you turned me. Shunv, your face… you looked so panicked, like you’d never eat again. You looked like you wanted to fuck your food. Such a…” she put her hand in Shunv’s hair, and her scent swarmed Shunv’s senses, and she nearly lost herself. “Pretty…”
“I hate you,” Shunv spat.
“You want me.”
“I…”
“You are cruel to deny me your beauty,” Jiya said, pouring her hot breath on Shunv’s face, pushing her other hand onto her waist, face hovering over hers. “I could be one of you. I could be with you.”
Shunv was finally ready to crumble. She hadn’t had much will to begin with, left listless by decades of duress in this form she hated, delirious from her hunger, her loneliness. She had been toyed with, ground down, rolled between Jiya’s fingers long enough. “I would eat your flesh.”
“You had better do it while I’m young. You might not want me when I’m old and grey.” Jiya was smiling, open mouthed smile, perfumed breath wafting into Shunv’s.
“You don’t believe that,” Shunvu said, speaking quickly and absently now to keep her mouth from biting Jiya’’s. “At 90 years old, you will be just as you are now. You’ll be beautiful. You’ll be maddening. You will still have this body, this blood, this thing of yours everyone wants.”
“Take it,” Jiya said. “If you don’t want another to have it.”
Jiya closed a hand on Shunv’s chin and tilted it, cracking her mouth open. Her fangs slipped exposed and unsheathed into the warm air between them.
Shunv stared into Jiya’s pink mouth, her bloody tongue, the dark shadow in the back of her throat. She looked into Jiya’s eyes. They were pulling apart and coming together unconsciously, almost swaying, neither in full control.
Shunv thought about eternity with Jiya, imagined her bleeding in some other vampire’s arms… unwieldy, smiling a pained, ecstatic, devious smile with her eyes half-closed… and her principles, which until now had never been shaken, snapped like straws in Jiya’s grip.
Her teeth slid perfectly into the side of Jiya’s neck. She bit down.