The dining hall where they took their meal was smaller than Vero expected. There was only a single table, although it was lengthy. Vero had heard that some of the new palazzos being built in the Republic possessed such discrete dining rooms, but she thought the arrangement was probably due to the unusual layered construction of the keep, rather than an element of style.

  The tapestries on the walls showed images overt in either sex or violence, but nothing outright heretical that Vero could see. One end of the room was warmed by a large fireplace, and Vero was glad to see that end of the table cleared for her.

  She doubted it was an act of hospitality by her host, few things could genuinely harm a vampyre- but fire was one of them. They were disinclined to approach it.

  The Black Palatine sat at the head on the table on its opposite end. His creatures huddled nearby and occupied only half the table. On the wall behind them, the Black Palatine had placed a large portrait of himself. Elizaveta informed her that he had taken down the portrait of her father to place it there.

  The Black Palatine was impressive in presence, diminutive in physical space. He stood in mock politeness as they entered and Vero found that he was shorter than she. He was clean shaven in portrait, and looked better as such. In front of her, he had a thin scraggled beard.

  She found such hair charming on a baby face such as Conner’s, but the Black Palatine had the lined and weathered face of a man in his forties behind it. She also saw the early signs of what she believed was syphilis disfigurement, which was also not represented in paint.

  Or it might have been the result of inbreeding. His nose and upper lip were eaten away, regardless how it happened. It only added to the aura of corruption and decay about him that repulsed Vero. His eyes made her feel as though they left a trail of slime behind them as they oozed across her.

  His clothes were shades of deep purple and red, but cut in austere Imperial military style. She found it an unusual dichotomy; Imperials preferred stark shades over rich colors. He wore an ornate sword with a ruby pommel. The weapon looked more fashionable than it was effective, but it might have spells woven into it.

  Closest to him, and apparently the favored of his council, was a woman younger than Dora. If she saw seventeen winters before her death, then Vero would have been shocked to learn it. Although there was no way to know how many years had passed since then, the girl was probably much older than Vero.

  She wore a tight-fitting and promiscuously cut noblewoman’s dress. It only revealed that she was much too young for Vero’s taste; she was short, had no teats developed, and her hips were too narrow. Her hair was a fair color of gold, but even the charming features of her face were marred by a cruel expression. She was not the sort of woman whose waist Vero would have considered putting her arm around.

  The only other woman present wore the veil and habit of the White Sisters, but dyed black- a sign of heresy. Besides her headgear, she was otherwise undressed. She had been elderly at her death, to tell by the wrinkles in her skin. Her breasts sagged, and loose flaps of flesh drooped over her hips and from her belly. For the most part, the hair on her body was grey, but Vero could see patches of black.

  There were five other men present. Three of them wore swords, two of those wore armor. Of the two men in armor, the first had blond hair and was massive in size. He was large enough for Vero to think that he was giant-kin. His face was too disfigured by scars to be handsome, but he looked as though he might be well built under the layers of fur and metal. He sat with a hunched posture, although the roof was elevated high enough that he could have stood without difficulty.

  The other man in armor wore scarves of brightly colored silks under it, and over his face. Vero took him to be an elf of the high caste, although his armor looked like Teutonian ironwork, as was his companion’s. His blade was curved in the elven style, unlike his companions’ straight swords.

  The final armed man had dark skin, which looked odd combined with his bloodless pallor. He was dressed like a wealthy man from the Oasis Cities, but the airy clothes were obviously out of place in the clime. His shoulders were not as broad as his blond companion, but Vero thought his face was finer featured. He had a strong chin and well-groomed appearance. In fact, he and the elf were the only two in their company not slovenly in demeanor.

  Of the two men who were unarmed, one was attired as a merchant, and the other as a beggar. Vero examined the merchant first. He was not richly attired by her own southern sensibilities, but Vero spotted serval obviously deliberate violations of Teutonian sumptuary laws in his dress. His form under his clothes was fat and bell-like. His hair was thin under his cap when he removed it at her entrance, and his jowls were so large they essentially rendered his face shapeless. The front of his doublet bore several dark stains.

  Vero amended her thoughts about the slovenliness of her opposition. Despite being dressed as a medicant, the final man held himself with the same sense of self-respect as the dusky-skinned man and the elf. His clothes were rags, but his posture was able and alert. His body was scrawny and malnourished, but that was no indication of undead strength. Vero considered those three to be the most dangerous, after the Black Palatine. And after Elizaveta as well.

  “Ah! The Lady Veronique and our hostess have arrived at last. Come closer, I want to take a good look at you.”

  Vero hoped her mantras would be more effective now than they had been recently. She moved down the length of the table. The vampyres drank from pitchers and goblets, but Vero also saw cuts of meat on the table. Presumably they were for her, as no vampyre showed any interest in them. It had been cooked, but appeared to have gone cold since then.

  Elizaveta warned her as they approached the dining hall to eat nothing, and that she would have safe food brought for her later. Vero would have liked to avoid relying on either of her captors, but if she must choose, she would rather trust Elizaveta.

  “Closer than that, darling. Let me kiss your hand,” said the master of vampyres.

  It was a request rather than a demand. He could change that in a moment if he wished. Even if she could resist the power of his voice, she was still unarmed and totally within his power. Unarmed except for the poison.

  Vero made a decision. She looked the vampyre lord in the eyes, which smoldered burnt orange, and approached to offer her hand to him. He watched her curiously, but there was also a frenzied mania behind his eyes which she believed suggested the touch of Insanity.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “A docile little thing, aren’t you? Perhaps this shall be easier than I thought.” He took her hand in his with a cold grasp, and kissed the back with dry cracked lips.

  Vero knew she still had the poison. There was no need to rise to his baiting. “Oh? I’m not entirely certain why you’ve extended this invitation to dine with me. Perhaps things between use will be very easy indeed, if you speak your mind clearly.”

  Knowing that he had enough power in his voice alone to place her under his control gave her a kind of freedom. The Black Palatine was unaccustomed to someone meeting his gaze so openly, and it seemed to unsettle him a moment.

  Then he turned her hand over, pulled up the sleeve of her dress, and kissed her wrist. His lips pressed just where her pulse was strongest.

  Vero prepared to complete the spell, but she felt no bite. Then, a rough sandpaper-like tongue darted out and he licked along the length of her skin over the veins. She shivered in revulsion, but resisted the panic impulse to try and pull away until he was finished and let go.

  “I intend to make you my slave.”

  Vero readjusted her clothes. “Well, that was spoken clearly enough. But I don’t believe that things will go easily between us.”

  “You ask me to speak my intentions clearly, but will you not do the same? Why has the notorious female slayer, Dame Veronique de Loix come here to invade my keep?”

  “I was under the impression that the Lady Elizaveta was our hostess.” Vero noticed that the Black Palatine refused to blink, he held her gaze perfectly. There was no way for her to replicate the feat, so she blinked casually with easy confidence, but did not ever look away. She still had the spell. She still had the poison.

  “Yes, of course she is,” he said quickly, after having been lost for words a moment. “But I am her sovereign lord, all that is hers, is also mine. Isn’t that so, Eliza?”

  Vero felt the power in his voice, and he briefly turned to their hostess with his eyes to force her under his hypnotism. Next to Vero, Elizaveta trembled a moment, then collapsed to her knees. “Yes, master. I am yours. All that I have is yours.”

  He turned back to Vero and she met his eyes without reservation. He had just made his first major error.

  If he could do that to Elizaveta, he could turn Vero herself into a mindless husk without effort. That confirmed he must want something from her, something he would not risk destroying by breaking her mind outright. He needed to use subtler methods, and those were not his forte. Vero still could not trust Elizaveta, but she did believe they shared a common enemy, for the moment.

  It was also a naked and unnecessary use of coercion, in response to a simple slight. Not even directed towards the one who had angered him. That spoke to Vero of such a desperate need for dominance that it became megalomania. Another weakness she could turn against him.

  Despite all other factors being opposed to her, those two advantages – and the poison – were the trinity of elements she knew she must carefully maneuver to bring herself out of this castle in one piece.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Why have you come here?” asked the vampyre.

  “To kill you.”

  Vero heard uncomfortable shifting from the others, but the Black Palatine smiled. “It seems you’ve failed.”

  “Have I? Then why don’t you kill me now and have done with it.”

  “You sound almost eager for me to try.”

  “I never court the Veiled One. I simply know your limitations.”

  The eyes flared for a moment. “What do you know of my ‘limitations’?”

  “I know you’re mad. Keeping me alive serves no purpose. All I need is one chance with fortune at my back, and then you shall be ash on the morning breeze. Any well mind could see that you’re doing so only because you have a pathological need. A need to prove your supposed superiority through games that only exist in your own deluded mind, so that these imaginary victories may justify the delusions of grandeur.”

  He tried to disarm her accusations with a smile, but it did not extend to his eyes. “Your chances are slim enough that I believe I shall be adequately safe in risking them.”

  “Every moment I breathe is another roll of the dice you don’t need to take. And yet you can’t help yourself. It is the compulsions which control you now, not the reasoning mind. You long for your own destruction, it’s an unconscious death urge. If it does not come by my hand, then you shall only search out another and another, until you find the one you seek. Your courtiers have already seen as much, they’re only too afraid to say so aloud.”

  His smile vanished. The shifting of the others became more evident. Unlike mortal men, the natural state of a vampyre was complete stillness. They moved only by deliberate choice.

  The Black Palatine was obviously a master of brutality and intimidation, but denied these tools, it appeared that he possessed few fallbacks. He shifted his tone to the interrogative, attempting to regain the initiative. “You’re an independent slayer; you don’t hunt without a contract.”

  Vero shifted her own tone to the coy. “Am I? All the gossip I’ve heard of the Lady Veronique de Loix say she is a traveling cunning woman, and a corruptor of Marquis-es, who seduced her way to noble title.”

  The girl on the Black Palatine’s arm decided to lend her master a measure of support. “Your disguise is only a clever one until someone sees your other half, dear. Virgil the slayer has accrued a vaunted reputation among those who care to hear. A slender Pict-haired hunter who always honors contracts is a rare thing, among so many charlatans.”

  The girl was a weak link. Vero marked her as a target. “So, even you believe that I shall slay your master then.”

  Confusion colored the girls face. “No, I-”

  Her voice was uncertain and halting, and Vero easily trampled on it to interrupt her. “-I always fulfill my contracts; you’ve just said so yourself.”

  The Black Palatine held his followers in so tight a grip that they had long lost any courtly instincts they once possessed. It should have been a simple matter for the girl to laugh, saying that Vero was being ridiculous and misunderstanding on purpose.

  Instead, she looked to her master in an abject terror that could only give greater weight to Vero’s spurious accusation. “She twists my words! I would never say as much- I- I don’t believe it’s true!”

  “Silence!” There was power in his command that silenced everyone, even Vero found she could not bring herself to speak. “I know that you are both the Lady Vernoique de Loix and the slayer Virgil. You have come far to the north, well beyond your usual hunting grounds, and for a purpose. As you have already stated, this purpose is to assassinate me. You shall now reveal who has hired you.”

  Vero felt his will begin to press again her own. It was not overwhelming, only probing. She lowered her head to escape his gaze, but she could still feel it upon her.

  “Who has given you this contract. Tell me now,” he insisted.

  Even facing a fraction of his power, Vero could feel her legs shaking beneath her. She desperately held to her mantras as a shield, but slowly she could feel her secrets being pulled from her.

  Then her bad leg had collapsed, and she was on her knees. Her body lost all control over its functions. She used all the strength left to her, and confessed only Luna’s own truth.

  “The masters of my order gave me this contract.”

  “Don’t be bashful, sweetness. Look me in the eyes.” Vero felt her head raise. The Black Palatine wore a smile of supreme satisfaction on his face. “And why do your masters seek a quarrel with me now, after so long? Who is the ally they sent you to seek?”

  Vero felt as though she were being crushed by a tremendous weight. Only speaking the truth gave her a few brief moments of blessed relief to take her breath.

  “My masters told me of no ally.”

  “Liar! I know there is a traitor!”

  The pressure increased and Vero bowed forward further, until her face was pressed to the stone floor.

  “I swear, my masters told me of no traitor.”

  “Those imbeciles in their tower are not such fools that they would send a simple girl against me alone and unaided, expecting her to defeat me!”

  “They didn’t. They wish me to fail.”

  The great unseen fist which had clasped her released its grip. Her chest heaved with desperate gasps for air.

  The vampyre had found his way into the automatic animal portion of her mind. Her lungs simply ceased to breathe. Then he had seized her motor functions. However, he had not entered her conscious thoughts; he must not have, or all was already lost.

  She intended to act as though her hopes for victory could be realized, so long as she still drew breath.

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