Next chapter! Still no reviews /sigh/. What a thankless pursuit is mine!
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Duzell looked up in shocked surprise.
"You care about me?" Ishtar smiled.
"I have no parents, brothers, sisters... nobody. What little family I do have is either trying to kill me, or put a ring on my finger just to get their claws on the throne. To my subjects, I'm a way to maintain Phelios' bloodline. Nothing more. In other words, I don't really give a rat's ass about anyone beside myself, and that's pretty much how it's always been." Ishtar's grin brightened as she reached up to infold her shape-changing kyawl in a hug. "So, I promised myself that if I ever found something I truly cared about I'd take very good care of it. I care about you."
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Duzell was taking it out on the training dummy. Displacing his anger onto an inanimate object might not have been as satisfying, but it did serve to take the edge off. Honestly, he spends the first fifteen years of his life believing he's the victim of a rather cruel joke perpetuated by his slightly touched mother and listening to his teachers condemn the Vampire King to hell, only to find out he's the supposed reincarnation of the Vampire King.
Duzell brought the sword up high, swinging down with a force that nearly clove the wooden dummy in two. He yanked the sword out with a twist of his arm, sending splinters flying. The dummy, now worthless for anything but firewood, was shunned as Duzell began working parries, moving through the motions with thoughtless grace.
It wasn't even a logically sound statement. He'd believe Phelios being the reincarnation of his namesake. At least he looked like that goody-goody: blond and slender. One would have to be grievously sight-impaired to not know the black-haired prince was his mother's son. Secondly, if the first Duzell was a vampire and his kyawl reincarnation was a vampire then why wasn't he a vampire? Duzell was 99 certain that he was human. He'd never had strange cravings for blood, his teeth were normal, and he'd never been able to cast Blood Magic. Then again, no one had ever endeavored to teach him blood magic. And weren't vampire reincarnates supposed to remember their past lives?
Duzell twisted his body to the side, bringing his sword to the right in a slash. He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the cautious crunch of footsteps until they were abreast of the gate. Duzell closed his eyes and continued the ritualistic movements. The footsteps crept closer, obviously aiming for stealth.
"What is it, Mom?" he called, hearing the latch lift. An aggravated huff answered him.
"How'd you know it was me?" the Queen asked, stepping out of the shadows and bounding into the practice area. She was dressed in a tunic and tights with a bow and quiver slung over her slim shoulder. Duzell just gave a secretive smile and continued through his parries. Ishtar pouted, but didn't seem that put-off by her son's reticence. "Just came to see you. We're working our archery, remember?" she said, brandishing the bow. Duzell stopped, letting the sword rest at his side. Strands of glossy black were clinging to his cheeks and neck with sweat.
"Ok," he acquiesced, walking to the weapons rack at the edge of the packed-dirt training yard. He placed the sword on the rack and reached for one of the bows, bending a few experimentally in his hands before making a selection. Ishtar was hovering in the background, watching him. He knew she had come after him to 'talk' about the night before. She was quite tactless that way. It was one of the things he loved about her.
Another support against him being the reincarnation of a Vampire King. Vampires weren't capable of love. Everyone said so.
"So what's got you so down, Duzie?" Ishtar asked, spryly jumping the fence to get to the archery field. Duzell followed her example, jumping the low wooden structure with ease. He shrugged, concentrating on stringing his bow.
"Nothing," he protested. He pulled the bow back and released, feeling the string snap past his wrist. It was a fairly good short bow.
"So you were just severely offended by the wooden dummy. Did it say something mean about your mama?" Ishtar teased, grabbing an arrow from her quiver and hastily nocking it to the bow. She pulled back, biting her lip as she took aim at the target. With squinted eyes, she let it fly. The arrow skimmed the edge of the target and spun off into the trees. Ishtar cursed, reaching for another arrow.
"I just find it all a little far-fetched," her son explained. He calmly grabbed an arrow, nock, draw, and releasing seamlessly. The arrow sunk into the target like butter. Ishtar fired again, hitting the edge, but not sending the arrow very deep. She handed her son an arrow from her quiver and watched him draw it.
"I know it might sound crazy, but you really are the Vampire King Duzell!" There was a loud twang as the prince's arrow went skidding into the trees a good twenty feet above the targets. "And Phel is really St. Phelios. Duzie told me that before he died." Duzell slammed down the bow. He'd just about had enough of this.
"Well, there must have been a mistake. I'm not even a vampire! I can draw Sida just as easily as you and Phelios. How many vampires can do that?" he demanded hotly. His mother set her bow against the ground, leaning on it for support.
"Well, of course you can draw Sida. You're a prince of Pheliosta!" Duzell was tempted to start pulling at his hair until he recalled that it was a favorite gesture of Darres'.
"Mom, vampires can't draw Holy Swords. Besides, I don't remember anything from my past life. Aren't vampires supposed to be able to carry over their consciousness to the next incarnation?" he reasoned, quoting one of his history lessons. His mother shrugged, either ignorant of or uninterested in the answer.
"Maybe you just repressed them?" she suggested. "I wonder if they have therapy for people who repress memories of their past lives…" Duzell scowled, stooping to sweep up the abused bow. If he was going to have this conversation, he wanted to be shooting at something.
"So you're saying you want me to reap vengeance on my brother?" Duzell drawled, sending another arrow slamming in just to the right of his first mark. Ishtar frowned, not taking her eyes off her son.
"Actually, given the circumstances, I was hoping we could avoid that. I know I promised to help you out, but maybe it'd be better to wait until the next life to kill Phelios. Or maybe you don't need to kill him at all! That could be why you repressed your memories…" she added, tapping a finger to her chin in mock-thoughtfulness. Duzell glared at the target and let another arrow fly. Dead center.
"You've got to help me out here. I think there's something wrong with my stance," Ishtar grumbled, shuffling her toe against the white line drawn across the grass. Duzell put down his own bow and moved to his mother's side. He gently placed a hand on her elbow, guiding it up until it was perpendicular with the bow. He told her to move her feet wider and not turn her head like that when she fired. The next time she released the bow, it smoothly slid into the target only a few inches from the center. Ishtar beamed up at her son. "Very nice! By the way, how would you like to go to La Naan with your brother?"
Duzell blinked slowly, disoriented by the rapid changes in subject. He hadn't been to La Naan in a few years and never without his parents. He wasn't exactly fond of the province either. He found the princes odd and his Great Aunt Ramia overbearing in the most obnoxious ways. La Naan was also south of Pheliosta, in the opposite direction of where he'd been attacked. Duzell figured he might as well go ahead and ask.
"Why La Naan?" Ishtar grinned up at him, waving an arrowhead in his face as she spoke.
"They're coming up on the annual Martial Arts Tourney! You and Phel are old enough to compete this year. And you'd be able to get away from here, right? This place can get real boring real quickly," she supplied. Duzell took his time considering this. A chance to beat his brother into the ground in front of a stadium full of spectators… It might not be so bad.
"Sounds neat," he said.
"Good I'll have a much easier time convincing Phel to go if you've already agreed," she declared, slinging her bow across her shoulder. "Well, I'm heading in," she announced. Duzell looked at the grand total of four shots she had fired and raised a dark brow.
"Weren't you going to practice?" he asked her. Ishtar looked at the target, as if contemplating it, then shrugged it off without a second thought.
"Yup. It was fun. Mommy's busy, busy though." She rose up on her tiptoes to deliver a kiss on the cheek. "Glad you agreed to go, sweetie." With that, she scrambled back over the fence, dumped her bow and arrow next to the storage rack and headed back for the castle at a livened pace. At the edge of the yard, she turned to wave over her shoulder. "Bye, Duzie!" she called before she was over the fence again and out of sight completely. Duzell sighed and brought up a hand to rub at his temple.