Ch 14: Gleaming Wolf and Midnight Butterfly
For all of Ingary's well-tended image of a happy, wealthy country, it wasn't without its woes. One of the land's ugliest eyesores was Vereor Castle, practically straddling the Ingary-Strangia border. While its ivy-laced battlements and cobweb-adorned arrow slits may have witnessed grand battles ages past, it now served out the twilight of its legacy as a prison. Men sent this far west were the lowest of society—the most ruthless and bloodthirsty never felt daylight on their skin after their internment until they were carted out of the castle in a wheelbarrow for the dead.
Today was a strange day; there were visitors to Vereor, an unheard-of occasion. A carriage, hitched to four nervous, twitching blacks, waited outside, beyond the dried-up moat and the lowered bridge. The gaping jaws of the portcullis were begrimed by decades of rust, dirt, and water scum. However, their pointed edges were as menacing as ever. Guards hid in the shadows, more interested in the lone figure emerging from the depths of the castle than any possibility of an escaping prisoner. No one ever escaped from Vereor. The closest village in Ingary, which was technically the castle's patron country, was 10 days ride, 14 at least on foot. Without provisions, it could be a death sentence. At least if you stayed, you knew how and when you would die.
The figure lifted its face to the sun, revealing feminine features and startling grey eyes to the guards. The trip ahead of her would be far shorter. Where she was destined, no man, not even a desperate prisoner, would dare tread.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," she called to them, waving a hand like departing royalty as the gracious, lilting tone of her voice carried in the quiet, still air. She returned her eyes to the path, the shadow of her cloak's hood again hiding her face. The cloak was purple, so dark it was almost black. It parted as she walked to reveal a dark crimson gown, velvet in its texture, to the weak rays of the sun. What little the beauty-starved eyes of the men could see was embellished with black lace and silver thread. Of moderate height and indiscernible build due to the long folds of her billowing cloak, the woman still captivated the hapless guards, striding from their midst like a dark butterfly. Alone, she crossed the bridge, the door to the carriage, without seal or coat of arms, flinging open with a bang at her approach.
She climbed into the carriage without question or hesitation, gathering her heavy skirts in her hands expertly. A quick three raps sounded on the roof of the carriage and the suspiciously shaped coachman, who had been hunched over, utterly still, jumped to life. He snapped the reins, sending the four jittery blacks leaping forward. Inside the carriage, the woman lowered her hood, revealing fair, milky skin and a black fall of raven hair.
"Well?" a dark voice asked, resonating from the unlit corners of the carriage. Anyone else would have appeared disconcerted at the sound's strange ability to resonate throughout the entire carriage when it truly came only from one especially dark corner. The ghost gypsy, however, was totally unfazed. She had known this wizard since a very tender, impressionable age. Even when he did surprise her, she had learned not to show it.
At his question, she smiled, a faint, smug expression, curving thin, bowed lips. "17 in all, my lord. Most of them have only a basic grasp of the craft, and would be utilized realistically as foot soldiers."
"Impress me, Victoria," the disembodied voice drawled, the lazy, unimpressed tone searing fear into the woman's bones. However, an accomplished actress, Victoria Charles merely allowed her smile to widen, revealing small, white teeth. "Five are blood mages, there is no doubt." A shift of muscle, a rustle of fabric, and suddenly the weak light lancing through the carriage windows illuminated the carved bones of a noble's face. Her master, lord, and teacher, Victoria inclined her head respectfully as Lord Gabriel Apollo leaned forward, his long-fingered hands laced and hanging negligently between his knees. His dark eyes burned in the soft black, and the shiver of fear, instead of wrenching her gut, sent a wonderful shiver sizzling through her blood. Victoria had been so deeply connected to the aristocrat for so long that she had come to relish the sensation of fear. If she didn't, she would have gone agonizingly mad long ago.
Moving so quickly she didn't have time to draw a breath, Gabriel shot forward, his hand clasping almost violently at the back of her neck, pulling her a little forward. Gently, he smelled the dark hair at Victoria's temple, his lips hovering a mere whisper above her sensitive skin. She could feel her blood pulsing against his touch, and swallowed the saliva that pooled in her mouth noisily. His hand moved from her neck down around to her collarbone, tracing it gently out to her shoulder under the cloak as he relaxed back, lingering on the point where the dress began on the point of her collarbone.
"Blood mages," Gabriel repeated, his hand still as he considered. However, it fisted threateningly in the velvet as his eyes turned hard, his knuckles grinding into her pale skin. "Only five, Victoria? I'd hate to think you're losing your touch." The words were a menace, one that threatened her very life. However, unlike Sylvia ever could, Victoria allowed herself to relax. She loved this man, always had. As long as she was worthy, he would never harm her. Sometimes, when his anger grew out of control, he couldn't be responsible for his actions. She had to believe that, too.
"I cannot find what isn't there, Lord Gabriel. Perhaps another prison—" she stopped as he jerked away, lounging back into the shadows with the bad-tempered snarl of a shadow panther. He was moody, Victoria could tell. Travelling never put her lord in very good spirits. He didn't have the patience for it. Smoothing the crushed velvet on her shoulder, she leaned forward, gently resting feather-light fingertips on his kneecap. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and Victoria was assailed by the intense sensation that her hand was breaking. However, she had suffered worse in the midst of her beloved's anger before, and merely waited it out. Eventually it waned, and she dared to speak.
"Blood mages are always a valuable asset. The king will never expect it—he's too weak to peruse the prisons carefully. You were brilliant to look for aid there, we both know that. And while only five are in Vereor, there are more elsewhere. We have time yet, my lord. The battle will not be waged for another half dozen turns of the moon. Our search has only just begun." Gabriel's full lips tightened, then relaxed. A wolfish smile curved his lips, his dark eyes sparkling as he shifted forward, cradling Victoria's face, his fingers without menace and his eyes almost warm.
"Very true, Victoria. I remember now why I keep you alive." His lips touched hers, and Victoria closed her eyes in bliss. She melted into his touch, her fingers curling into his black greatcoat at his ribs. Gabriel slid his fingers into her loose hair, sinfully using his lips to bring her completely under his control. Victoria was so deeply in love, she didn't even fight or object the domination. This was what she wanted; this was how she would earn, and keep, his trust. Gabriel groaned quietly against her lips as he deepened the kiss, Victoria's mind going foggy as he used his tongue and hands like a demon. She reveled in the sensation of his fingertips grazing her skin as his lips dominated her, her brain awash with sensation and without conscious thought.
When Gabriel pulled away, Victoria choked back the whimper of disappointment that boiled in her lungs, still heaving a little from lack of air. She had forgotten that she was holding her breath as soon as Gabriel had touched her. He settled back on his seat comfortably, the smug expression of a tawny in his hooded, ink black eyes. Once, Victoria opened her mouth to speak. Gabriel held up a finger for silence, and the ghost gypsy lapsed back against the squabs, her heart still racing.
The rest of the carriage ride was draped in awkward silence—Gabriel's content, arrogant expression melting away as his musings turned inward. Victoria knew better than to interrupt his thoughts, no matter how unfulfilled and tightly strung she felt. From the cast of his eyes, Victoria knew that Gabriel was treading the dark, murky paths of his past. She knew quite a bit about her master's family, all of it information gleaned from sources not Lord Apollo himself.
However, Victoria would rather die than reveal her master's past. Hers was far more haunting, and far easier to tread within the confines of her own head while she carefully gave a thought Gabriel privacy with his own thoughts. A beggar child starving to death on a cold Kingsbury street, Victoria had been a nameless vagabond, and would have disappeared to time as readily as the hundreds of others like her had it not been for Gabriel. His intentions, however good Victoria interpreted them to be, had not been honorable.
Gabriel had been perusing the streets, searching for another young subject for his infamous experiments when his senses had nearly skyrocketed. He later said it had felt like his eyes were set aflame, his muscles quivering and his hands shaking. Frantic, he had glanced around, peering through the snowflake-laced darkness, searching for the wizard that emitted such a powerful brand of magic, the likes of which he couldn't even begin to identify. It wasn't a stargazer, and it was no bent he had ever sensed before. Finally, Gabriel had noticed a quivering lump in the mouth of an alley, what he had originally assumed was a mound of trash. The smell suggested as much.
Extending a black kidskin-gloved hand, Gabriel had wrenched aside a tattered canvas tarp, stained with what appeared to be excrement. A stunted little creature gazed up at him with giant grey eyes. It was from this small child that the intense aura of power was resonating from. Gabriel blinked a few times, then allowed his face to crack into a smile. Victoria looked back and was ashamed at how she squealed and shrank back in terror at the gleam of wolf teeth that sparkled from the noble's pale face. Snatching her arm with speed of a cobra, Gabriel had dragged Victoria free of the wretched rags, pulling her into the light.
The little thing that she was then struggled weakly, and once Gabriel nodded to himself in approval, he squeezed her ragged temples brusquely. Her eerie grey eyes went foggy, then slowly shut. Slinging her limp, thin frame over his shoulder, Gabriel had performed a simple trick of invisibility before he walked home. He thought to himself that night that the child would live no longer than a week, but would certainly prove interesting.
She lived for much longer than that. Victoria survived the excruciating week of torture, much to the duke's surprise. Puzzled as to what to do with this ridiculously powerful little creature, Gabriel eventually came to the logical conclusion of bringing such power under his control. It was then that Victoria switched from experiment to apprentice, and fell in love with him for it. She saw the way he interacted with others, and lived in the smug comfort that Gabriel never hit her as much as he hit other people, mainly the servants. She was only 12 at this point, and had already pledged her heart, indeed, her life, to the Duke of Hawkthorne.
Eventually Gabriel came to an understanding as to the peculiar bent of Victoria's power. He had thought it was a myth; a living example hadn't been seen or recorded in centuries. Victoria was a Tracker. Every witch or wizard exudes a certain aura—they have certain colors, and can be sensed by anyone with training. However, Victoria's gift went beyond that. Not only could she find wizards who suppressed their aura, but she could find those still untrained whose auras hadn't even been illuminated yet. For most with the gift, trying to find such people, especially over long distance, was a fruitless, frustrating task. But Victoria just shut her eyes, placed her fingertips in water, and could track down any sort of bent or blip of magic, no matter how dim or hidden. She could differentiate between stargazers and those with bents, and could discern what bent as if it were written on the wizard's forehead.
Ever since those first trial weeks, Gabriel had kept Victoria close at his side. She was loyal to a fault, intelligent, and gifted. She was organized, discreet, and beautiful. And she was always, always willing. What man could fault such a woman? However, Lord Gabriel was an incredibly discerning man, and inevitably found faults in the young woman. They were beaten out of Victoria quickly, and she appreciated the instruction. Even though she had scars to remember her faults by. She never blamed him, never found fault in his action. Victoria loved the disgraced Duke with everything she had. And was rewarded only fractionally. But for Victoria, it was enough.
As the carriage jerked to a halt, Victoria glanced out the dark windows in surprise. She had been so deep in thought, she hadn't noticed that they had closed the final miles to Black Cliffs Estate. Gabriel had bought the land and manor from an aging, ill baron for a song. No one noticed when the old man had died in his sleep not days after the sale. He had no relatives to whom the money would go to, so it was returned to the only man who had claim to it—Gabriel. Ever since he had been exiled from Ingary, Gabriel had called the neighboring kingdom of Strangia home. Still bitter over the loss of his birthright, Hawkthorne Park, Gabriel consoled himself with his control of Black Cliffs Estate. However, Victoria knew it to be a shallow victory, one that still pricked at Gabriel's enormous pride even now.
Having resurfaced from his foul mood, Gabriel opened the carriage door and descended first, handing Victoria down out of the carriage with the finesse of a true gentleman. He didn't like allowing the shadow fiends in his employ to touch Victoria. No one but the lord of the manor had that privilege. He presented his arm with silent grace, and as Victoria accepted with a lady-like nod, they ascended the front steps in congenial silence. Inside, she glowed at his show of courtly affection. Outside, she presented a calm, cool façade, the one she had learned from Gabriel himself.
As they entered the large, dark manor, a shadow fiend in the dress of a butler took their coats, cloaks, and gloves. Since Gabriel hadn't dismissed her, Victoria followed the Duke down the hall and into the winding corridors of the manor's first floor. They skirted around the library and strode past the many dining halls. Besides its obvious quality and wealth, there was another reason Gabriel had chosen Black Cliffs Estate as his place of residence in the interim between his youth and his future on the throne. It was one of the last places on the continent that still housed dungeons. The manor was actually a converted castle, and under all the rich, heavy adornments and miles of paneled corridors and sumptuously decorated rooms hid the underbelly of what was once Black Cliffs Castle. Gabriel had smiled his wolf smile when he had first stepped from the carriage and beheld the manor for the first time. The dark, desperate energy writhing from the earth itself almost made him shiver in delight.
Even now, the innards of the manor itself were starting to change. The wood and tapestries disappeared; all that was left was the cold cut of granite, the path barely lit by flickering, sparse torches. Yet Gabriel's tread remained steady and sure, his black eyes seeing with deadly accuracy in the pervading darkness. Victoria followed him more with her sense of magic than her eyes; her lord exuded an incredibly intoxicating, mind-consuming aura of power.
As the pair spiraled down a rough-hewn, dank staircase, Victoria heard faint screaming bouncing up the halls before the call of misery dispersed into the moist air. It was a sound she had become used to a long time ago. She refused to admit that deep down, it irked her; in Victoria's mind, she was numb. Gabriel strode past his laboratory, the area from which the screaming echoed. It pitched higher as the two strode by, sobbing uncontrollably. Victoria refused to look.
Instead, Gabriel led the way into his study, a handsome room decorated mostly in ebony and mahogany. Snatching a large roll from beside his desk, the duke spread a map of Ingary across his broad desk, weighing down the corners with small black sculptures of wolves. Placing a bowl of water on the map, present exactly for his purpose, Gabriel then seated himself in his high-backed chair, rocking back as he laced his fingers over his flat stomach and pinned Victoria with those hell-dark eyes.
"Find them, Victoria. You said there would be more, in other prisons. So find them." His words were said in the flattest, most dangerous of tones. She had soothed his pride, but not his mind. Her lord demanded much from his assistant; it was no surprise that he expected her to deliver. Victoria stepped up to the desk, resting her fingers gently in the water. Smoothing her other hand over the map, she shut her eyes to the howling of the wind in her head.
When she slammed back into her body, Victoria gasped, swallowing frantically against the retching of her stomach. Wringing her hands, which were painfully numb, together, Victoria strove frantically to regain her control. Gabriel expected immediate recovery from his pupil, and still sat, completely still with eyes expectantly raised, behind his masculine ebony desk.
"Well?" he murmured, ever so gently while his teeth flashed dangerously. Victoria swallowed one more time, just to be certain her voice would work.
"To the north. Kirrigan Prison." Gabriel rose soundlessly, pressing his palms on the map as he leaned forward.
"How many, Victoria?" he hissed, and Victoria swallowed against the bile that shot up her throat.
"42 have the gift," Victoria gasped. "Including four Taranaks and 12 blood mages." Gabriel rounded the desk, taking Victoria's face in his hands before pressing a kiss to her forehead. In the background, the apprentice could hear the screams crescendo as her master slipped his arms around her, swaying her into a dance to the rhythm of death down the hall. She didn't know how long they swayed together, only that it was moments like these, moments of unspoken, obvious affection, that she lived for. Not even the pathetic gurgles and sobs from the laboratory could interrupt the magic no wizard could capture.
Eventually, Gabriel turned his head into her hair, murmuring in her ear. "Expect me tonight. I want to see you in red." With that, he released Victoria almost callously, striding eagerly down the hall to the laboratory as whatever was dying in the room gave one final wheezing shriek. Resigned, Victoria made to follow him. But she smiled softly remembering the way he'd held her hand as they had danced. His hands were now covered in blood as she turned into the flickering light of the lanterns of the laboratory. But when she dreamed, they were threaded through her hair, clean and gentle.
It was those images she remembered. It was those moments that made her. Victoria didn't let anything else matter. Gabriel was her master, her teacher, and her lover. No matter what he did, no matter how he schemed, she would love him until the day she died—and Victoria was fully aware that her death would most likely be for him. Some things were just worth dying for.
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Hey kiddos!! Say hello to Victoria. She is a very interesting character, in that she would be totally normal, and you'd probably really like her, if she wasn't so intrinsically involved with Gabriel. And her love is almost pathetic, and she's really a tragic figure. Super unique in my spread of characters, and one that has yet to really decide her own fate in the story. Oh, and when I mention Gabriel resembling a tawny, that's this world's equivalent of a puma.
You guys are going to hate me. I'm doing the NaNoWriMo (for those of you that don't know what it is, look it up) and Sapphire Mage is not my story. Don't kill me, it's against the rules!! (It has to be a totally new story—no material can be written before the start of November) It's unlikely that I'll get another chapter out before November, but I'm going to do my best. However, if you don't see one in what's left of October, you won't see one until December. I'm truly sorry, but this is a journey I have to take. I'll come away a better writer for it, I promise you, and that can only benefit Sapphire Mage.
With that out of the way, I have a couple things that I want to mention. One, you guys surprised me—I thought somebody would be crazy curious and look up what "rodzina" meant. I would have. But since no one did, I'll tell you. It's Polish for "family." (Ah! That makes sense now.) Also, this goes way back, but the title of Ch 5 (Fireside Chat) is a reference to FDR's radio broadcasts he made during his presidency. In Ch 7, the reference to the Princess Bride is when Felix says, "As you wish." That's Wesley's signature thing he says to Buttercup. Laurel already got the cookie on Gabriel's middle name (Alucard spelled backwards is Dracula. Whoa! Anyone who watched Hellsing probably caught that.) Also, huge shout-out to Doctor It! Not only did they review like a madman, which helped this chapter insanely, but they drew me fan art!! Happy day!! Check out my profile for a link. A surprising choice on the scene. Huge kudos for undertaking such a challenge!
That's about it. Review. Fan art. Same old, same old. Much love, Tango.