[Author's Note: The folk prayer Alucard recites at the end was only lightly adapted from a genuine Romanian folk prayer. The English translation is credited to Marcu Bezu and is found in an anthology called Moon Lore. -kylenne]
Cold, unbridled rage was perhaps the best way to describe the torrent of emotion boiling over inside him, as he walked away from his father, and Isaac-who was clearly in that ghastly inebriated state which was only partially the result of wine. Every instinct within him screamed to remain there at the table, to protest, to protect his apprentice. But he could not interfere. This was an appointment that was a long time coming, no matter how badly he may have wished it otherwise.
When the young master took this expression-a rare occurrence to be sure, for he was not his father's son in this or many other regards, but one growing increasingly common of late-the palace parted before his steps as the sea before Moses. It was surely the case then as he stalked through the great festhall, tall, regal, imposing, his eyes narrow and burning red as hellfire, and headed toward his private chambers. The music stopped for him, the ministrels' hands and voices frozen in fear. The very world stopped for him, it seemed.
And Adrian could feel the world, his world, crumbling beneath his feet ever since the death of his mother. Burning to cinders in the pyre which claimed her and blowing in the wind like so much ash. His father was clearly going mad-and on occasions such as these, Adrian felt as though he were being dragged down that garden path right along with him. The precious heir, indeed.
How he was growing to loathe that man. This was not merely the petulance of late adolescence; this was not rebellion for its own sake, not at all. This was hatred of the purest form stirring within him. Undistilled hatred, sublime in its power and simplicity. Adrian could marvel in it at better times, in his customary sense of detachment. Not tonight, however, of all nights.
His father was taking everything from him that reminded him of his humanity, slowly, and quite deliberately. It was something Adrian was all too keenly aware of, in recent years, though he felt utterly powerless to stop it. Never so powerless as he did in that moment, however.
Curse that demon, Adrian mentally spat as he glided through the long gallery. Curse him to every hell there is, for surely one of them must have spawned him.
He did not blame Isaac. Isaac was trusting to a fault in spite of all that he'd been through, and far too young and guileless to see through his Lord's machinations. Adrian, though truthfully not very much older than Isaac, knew all too well what was taking place. He was far too clever by half and knew his father far too well; he'd paid close attention to his lessons, after all. And it did not matter to his father that Isaac was simply a pawn in this cruel game, an object lesson akin to those unfortunate Danesti men who so grotesquely graced the courtyard impaled upon their own battle standards. Oh, his father swore upon his 'word' that he would not be unkind to Isaac, as though his oaths meant anything anymore, chock filled with half-concealed truths as they so inevitably were. Adrian knew damned well what the implication was, and it was what enraged him so.
When at last he reached his chambers, dismissing the ever-vigilant attendants, Adrian collapsed to the floor in mental exhaustion, and buried his face in his hands. Always the stoic child, the serious youth, tightly controlled and disciplined, this time that mask of aloof nobility began to crack and the young master finally permitted himself to weep.
Where was there justice in this sick and fallen world? Or was this, too, another twisted lesson from the chess master: do not seek attachment, do not cherish anyone in this life, lest they be so cruelly taken from you by turns. Nothing is certain, least of all for the heir to Chaos. There is no security but that which is seized and held by force. Adonai Elohim, He of the Tetragrammaton, was certainly no respecter of such things. Had Father Ambrose not said as much on any number of occasions? And if Adrian had not learned these things at the hands of an unwashed mob of cruel and superstitious peasants when his mother was murdered, then he would surely learn it at the hands of his father.
Adrian would learn to steel his heart against such mortal frivolities as the youthful passions of love, for such fanciful notions were anathema to one who would rule this palace, and preside over Darkness itself. Never mind that his father once enjoyed them, the grand old hypocrite that he was. Adrian would learn to deny and forsake this measure of his humanity, his frailness, whether he wished it or not, regardless of whom it hurt in the process.
Isaac wailed then, his light voice carrying through the stones of the palace walls to Adrian's preternatural hearing. And it was not a sound of suffering, or one born from distress. Far from it.
Not since his mother died had Adrian felt such a wretched, abominable sense of emptiness and loss. Quite simply in those long, agonizing moments that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, Adrian wanted nothing less but to die. With every fluttering, languorous note of that ecstatic song, he felt as though a part of him were. How many months had passed, that he dreamed of such a song ringing in his ears? Of making Isaac sing that way, of making him sigh with bliss, of giving him such pleasure? That his own father would do such things, that he would steal Isaac's innocence, that he would seduce him at all knowing what the boy meant to Adrian, much less in such a vile and despicable manner-by all that was holy, it was a desecration. A mockery. His father made mockeries of everything good and beautiful in this world. Adrian shuddered in abject disgust. It seemed to give the old bastard some measure of twisted delight to do so, always, these days.
Isaac-Rubedo, this gangly, impetuous Piedmontese youth who'd stolen his heart without even realizing it-was never meant to be his. He'd known it from the moment his father marked the lad as one of his knights, intended to join the ranks of his elite Devil Forgemasters. Perhaps there was some foolish, childlike belief in miracles tucked away within Adrian's heart that still fervently yearned for, and believed in the possibility that things would be different. That they could be together, despite his father's inevitable disapproval, and the depths of madness to which he was quickly sinking.
That night, however, that hope died. In that moment, it died, along with what little remained of the love Adrian once felt for his father, what little lingering filial piety he felt for that monster he'd become. It died with that song of pleasure and the incomprehensible thought of his father's filthy hands on the man Adrian loved.
His mind recoiling from the horror, from the revulsion and the sorrow, Adrian stared out the window, gazing at the moon, overcome by grief.
Luminous moon, the young master began the silent prayer, an old folk prayer he'd heard many times whispered by the Romani servants within these walls. I find no rest in my home, from the hatred of my enemies who have risen up with great wickedness against me. And you, bright moon, shall have no peace either until you take this spell from my house, from my face, from the face of my belovéd, from the face of my father.
O luminous moon, luminous moon come and take away this curse and this desolation, this hatred from the world and from my house. Take it away and drive it away to the wild mountains and forests; and we and our children and those who shall be born to us hereafter, leave us clean and pure like refined gold to shine beneath the brilliant sun. Let the House Tepes be cursed no longer. And if you will not do this thing, bright moon, then let us be no more.
The moon, terribly bright, unusually bright that evening, hung silent even as dark clouds shrouded it like a mantle. Like the cursed, eldritch mantle that hung perpetually over his father's shoulders. That shadow seemed to extend everywhere, it hung on the palace and over Adrian's heart. A funerary shroud, for the life that could have been, a life that was lost in a crude, village funeral pyre.
Adrian knew then, in that moment that Isaac was lost to him, that he would never escape his father's shadow. The weight of inevitability came crashing down on his shoulders to suffocate him in its power, and his tears turned from grief to bitterness. There was no escape. And his desperate prayers would go unanswered as they had always been. It was absolute futility to ever believe there was some respite from this curse, from this unending darkness. It was folly for Adrian to have ever believed he could ever again know peace in his father's house.
There never would be, not in this palace and not in this world, not for those who bore the name Tepes.