Prologue I : The Bargain
1282 A.D
I hear silence unbroken.
Far too dark in the deep of the night below the streets of Buda.
Stone slabs cause me to stumble as I pick my way through the underground, my hands reaching for the sides of my solid prison. The mold seeps into my nostrils, forcing me to gasp stale air down my throat. The taste is rank against my tongue.
So cold…but I cannot stop. Something scurries against my leg and I jump back against the wall, biting my lips…fearful that I will cry out in the hush of the tombs. Only a rat.
I claw my way to the center of the road.
Touch the right wall and begin to drag my hands softly against the stone.
Three stones left, the four below.
Two stones right, the three above.
One stone left for the two below
Over and over I whisper it, my fingers singing tenderly against the stone. I know this place. This deep darkness of night below the streets of Buda. The pitter patter of running feet awakened by my steps. My voice drops to silence.
...and I see the pattern as Urith placed it, whispering, in my ear…
The fifteen symbols surrounded by the myriad of runescript guarding the wall from intrusion.
Blind to sight…unable to glimpse where my hands lie.
But I remember the crumbling hall as it was, my child's mind filled with wonder at the map of our history…a senseless maze, the roads of our past tracked in stones. Thousands of stones, each laid out in a brilliant mosaic of keys unsung by those unable to comprehend the atrocities committed by our flourishing coven.
Only in darkness can one read the runescript. Once the light comes, it is lost for the lines upon the stone do not reveal their secrets to the shadows of flame.
But where is the first stone? I had asked her…afraid of this wild creature, unbending to the laws of the vampires.
To find your past, you must start at the beginning, Urith had murmured, swiftly handing me the mark before she loped to her forest, unwary of danger with the advent of the moon.
If I could be so bold. And so I whisper to her, even as the rat scurries from the hunter approaching in our midst. I whisper to my growing child. I will not shy from my onus. I will complete my part of the bargain. A life for a life.
Still the runes grow lighter. And soon they are gone.
I turn from the wall, the pattern stitched in my thoughts.
Two days he has traveled since word reached the North Shore. He carries a torch, breathing heavily, and already he can smell the scent of unknown on my person…the wildness of Urith. Gathered sage from the one who is dead to the pack.
His eyes fill with horror, knowing my purpose…where I stand.
The shadow of uncertainty plays across my face as the night beckons softly, and my lover stands in light, begging me to abandon my purpose. I cannot see his eyes and stumble past, the leather and oak wafting from his weary frame. I have the pattern and the mark. Tonight I must find my way to the tower. I must seek the body of Gode.
But he seizes my hand, wrenching me roughly into his grasp, pleading softly into my hair. Desperately weaving my name into a mantle that would veil me from disastrous flight, Sonja, he twists…do not do this…he whispers…please.
But the story darkens.
I wordlessly watch the burning flame, shivering with the chill of this forgotten tomb, silently quelling my tears as they cut through his touch. Urith has warned me.
Until my burden is lifted, it is as if the child does not exist.
My lover does not know of my pact. Exhausted from his journey, he does not sense the third heart beating by his chest. And yet…I cannot carry this burden alone, and, impulsively, I whisper the pattern and mark to the warrior at my side.
Tonight, I reveal to him…or it is lost.
She is lost, I think.
It is our only chance while Viktor remains to the North, one day slow to follow rumours of traitorous creatures returning to his lands. I begin to whisper again the code of Urith, strengthening my will against my love. He will follow me…and as I drag myself from safety, it is as one that we journey secretly towards the tower in the early hours of dark morning. My lover, my child and I…I will pay for this child, I believe.
But it is Lucian who pays the price. The awakening powers of the sun force me to retreat to my chambers…and it is only he who stumbles to my bed, hours later, exhausted with the words "It is done."
There is a scent of mold and burning oil upon my shift, but I breathe relief, assured of my path into the next night…released of my bargain with the exiled bloodseekers. The body has been moved. My lover slumbers deeply, and upon his waking, we shall give Urith her sister. Only then may I keep my daughter.
...and I will share our secret. Soon, I believe, watching as he breathes softly.
His child…our child…but always…my child.
Even when my father bursts through my chambers…my child.
Even as they whip the skin off my lover's back, I whisper softly, mine.
But when the light of burning flame strikes my face, it is only then that I realize…the child is dying as I am dying and my lover is dying.
The mantle is torn from my head as the cinders of my child drift.
I begin to scream.