- TMK -

By the time she reached the cloned timber square her family called home, Lisaveht’s burns and bruises had healed. Blisters flattened into porcelain skin. Deep violet marks went from spots, to patches, to nothing. Days like these were one of the few times she was truly thankful to be a Vampire. Though she could never walk in the sun nor play like the other children, she could protect her parents from her shame.

           

They didn’t need anything else to worry about.

           

Ever since Ghozai brought them here, the pair had been at each other’s throats–Zharia, because she missed the community they left behind, Ghozai because it was that same community that dragged him into the darkness of the cartel. Each night played the same tune. Ghozai would return from the slaughterhouse, while Zharia paced in the house for hours on end.

           

In Gwenryth, Zharia had been a matron to the community. She held blood kitchens for the needy, mediated in familial disputes, and served as the local apothecary when none was available. More than that, Zharia was born into the Vampire cartel. She thrived on the hierarchy and structure it produced. She missed the dignity the cartel imparted in an Empire that at best saw their kind as damaged goods.

           

Denagan was a different story. There were half the number of Vampires as in Gwenryth and Zharia had no stomach for the community. Mainly, because like Ghozai, the Vampires of Denagan had come here to escape communities like in Gwenryth. In this city, Zharia was an outsider among her own people.

           

And Lisaveht saw the toll this reality took on her mother.

           

“What do you want me to do? Sit in this plank block all day and night folding your bloody clothes?” Zharia spat across the table.

           

“Zharia, I’ve been at the slaughterhouse for two nonstop shifts. I don’t need this. The city is far larger than you give it credit. It’s your fault if you decided to sulk like a slighted schoolgirl for days on end. No offense, my love.”

           

Ghozai flashed his fangs in a quick grin as he smiled at Lisaveht.

           

Lisaveht retuned her father’s smile with red-stained teeth. “None taken, Ghozai.”

           

“Ghozai! These are not our people. They hate our kind and we hate them,” Zharia replied emphatically, her long, colorless hair whipping around gaunt cheeks. “And the other Vampires here have no sense of what it means to be bloodborne.”

           

“No Zharia, you hate them because they don’t bow to your every whim like the cartel wives of Gwenryth.” Ghozai turned red eyes on his wife. “And what does it mean to be bloodborne? Last I saw, being bloodborne means peddling poison to any pipe fiend or biter with a cauldron. And no, don’t give me that bullshit about the heirs of Odoacer. It’s nonsense and you know it.”

           

“Don’t act like we left because you wanted a fresh start. If anything, you were one of the top bite peddlers in Gwenryth. No matter what you’ve been telling Lisaveht, we both know you owed Rexmond more cauldrons than we could pay in a lifetime. All over a single hour at the battlecages.”

           

Ghozai refused to make eye contact, taking a large gulp from a decanter of steer blood.

           

Zharia incredulously folded her arms. “Now you’re silent.”

       

“What’s done is done, Zharia,” Ghozai responded tersely. “We can’t go back, so choose what hill you want to die on. Better yet, make yourself at home!”

           

“Wrong again. While you’ve been crawling up desiccated bovine corpses, I’ve been keeping correspondences with Meghara and Thalian. Rexmond and Barjura had a falling out. Barjura’s exiled Rexmond to York’s Rest. He took all of Rexmond’s crew, too. We can go back any time we want. I’m sure Barjura will put you on one of the blockade runners in a heartbeat.”

           

“No, he won’t.” Ghozai slammed his palm against the table. “Zharia, I fucked up, ok? We can’t go back. Barjura won’t accept me with open arms. We won’t get our life back and we are no longer bloodborne. You think Rexmond scared me? Barjura would tie me naked to a flaying board and point a mirror on me while doing it. And once I was dead, he’d toss you into the brothel and take Lisaveht for his own. Do you want that? You want our daughter to be some biter’s plaything while you suck off every pervert in Gwenryth?”

           

Zharia pushed her chair into the table, her scarlet eyes now eyes flushed bright orange. “Lisaveht, come here.”

           

Lisaveht did as she was told, walking to her mother’s side whilst keeping her eyes glued to the floor.

           

“Where are you going?” Ghozai grumbled.

           

Zharia shepherded her daughter to the stairs. “To bed.”

           

“We don’t sleep,” Ghozai called as Zharia continued to usher Lisaveht to the second floor. “Zharia, we don’t sleeeeeeep!”

           

“I’m taking her away from you then,” Zharia shouted, slamming the door to Lisaveht’s room.

           

Lisaveht watched her mother panting by the door. Then, the little Vampire slumped into a lacey chair. The room itself had no bed nor any sheets. There was a small bureau with some more lacey doilies she’d woven under her model bullethawks. Aside from that, the room was sparse. The windows were boarded; the only light came from the lamp Zharia lit when they first entered. Sparse as it was, the room had everything Lisaveht needed. Her closet was full of robes and hats for the sun. Her bureau was bursting with nightgowns much like the one she currently wore. Her desk, too, was a workshop of sorts. Glue and small scaffolding sticks cluttered the surface. Nearby, canvas cutouts sat in neat stacks.

           

She was safe here.

           

Safe from the sun, from Cantrec, even from her parents. So, while Zharia bickered with Ghozai from behind the door, Lisaveht went on building. Sticks and glue turned to planks and nails, canvas to sails, and soon Lisaveht held an immaculate model of a skyskiff in her palm. Waiting for the glue to dry, she blew over the model.

           

In her imagination, the ship took flight. Through Lisaveht’s eyes, she saw teal cirrus ejecting from foam tubes used to mimic exhaust ports. She heard the roar of the boiler and hiss of steam. She smelled vapor and the cool air of the skies.

           

While Lisaveht dreamed, her mother’s arms curled over her, Lisaveht noticing how quiet things had become. That silence was broken as Zharia planted a delicate kiss over Lisaveht’s cheek.

           

“Thank you, Zharia,” Lisaveht giggled. She turned to see Zharia’s once blazing eyes softened, their color now akin to dark, sorrowful wine. Lisaveht hugged her mother tight, the two sharing their embrace for some time.

           

“Zharia?” Lisaveht broke the silence.

           

“Yes, my love?”

           

“What did Ghozai mean when he said we’re not bloodborne?”

           

“Sweet child.” Zharia brought her white hand against Lisaveht’s cheeks. “Your father, he does not remember where we come from, who we are as a people. He never made the pilgrimage to Odova, never saw the tomb of Odoacer or the shrines of Atam. Nor did he see the ruins of the moonlight court nor the great nightgroves of our forefathers. All he saw was what memories are carried within my blood.”

           

She pulled back her sleeve, revealing her forearm’s thick violet veins. 

           

“That wasn’t enough for him?” Lisaveht asked with wide eyes.

           

“No, my love. It is different when you are there. When you can hear the sea and scent the perfume. A memory, it carries hints of our birthright. But it’s nothing compared to standing in the great dome or touching the magnolias.” Zharia brought her forearm to Lisaveht’s lips. “That is all I can offer you though. Memories of what it is to be bloodborne.”

           

Lisaveht looked at Zharia a final time, hesitant to pierce her mother’s veins. Zharia nodded to the little Vampire and Lisaveht’s fears melted away.

           

Acidic blood pooled in Lisaveht’s mouth as fangs broke Zharia’s skin. She drank sparingly, taking only the memories her mother wanted her to carry. When the first visions of the cedars coalesced over her retinas, Lisaveht pulled away.

           

More dreams followed.

         

Through her mother’s eyes, Lisaveht witnessed the splendor of the moonlight court. She strode though a black marble dome studded with mosaics of star cut opal. She saw ribbons of moonlight filtering through the skylight, scattering between opal and marble into a bouquet of iridescent color. A line of magnolias, heavy with blooms, bordered a glossy jade path that led to stone steps just at the edge of what she could see.

           

Then Lisaveht came across the throne, what was left of it.

           

The chair’s back had been sheared away by looters. Its armrests were chipped and weathered. Yet that chair, molded from a single piece of black onyx, held an aura about itself Lisaveht could not place. The chair called to her, wished for her visit, wanted the reclamation of what once was.

           

Her mother’s voiced pierced her consciousness. “This is what is left of our birthright. These is the ruins of Odoacer’s legacy. When he went to the top of the mountain and gave his life to the Bloodborne God, to Atam, for our deliverance. For his sacrifice, our very Human ancestors became the first of the bloodborne. Never forget that. Never forget the Empire we forged of Odoacer’s sacrifice. The Empire that built the moonlight court, conquered Saironia, the Republic, the trade cities, and all the sea from Volkas to Tamílau. While our Empire died with Shemalacai, we remain, immortal, waiting, and ready to reclaim that which is Odoacer’s.”

           

Lisaveht’s visions passed to a countryside lit by an auburn sun. Costal cedars and scrub dotted Odova’s ruddy soil, setting the island like a jewel in the sea. Inland, a great rock and cinder volcano rose from the highlands. Snow topped the mountain. There stood a red altar barely visible against the horizon’s haze.

           

The altar where her race was born.

           

Soon Lisaveht’s visions faded and she was in her room once more. As the trance of memory ebbed, Zharia took her daughter’s cheek in her hand and said, “You are an heir of Odoacer. And one day you shall rise like the moon and reclaim what once was lost.”

           

But for Lisaveht, her mind did not linger on opal stars nor the mountain’s altar. Her dream lingered on the dome’s skylight and what lay beyond the clouds.