Something sticky covered her lips.
She rubbed at it and pulled her hands away. Something dark, congealed and clinging, covered them. It wasn’t only on her hands either. It was on her breasts as well.
And her belly.
It had left streaks down her legs.
And matted the hair around her sex.
Her father’s blood had coated her when she’d torn his head off and shoved her face into his fountaining neck.
Ruxandra Dracula screamed.
It was the sound of a feral animal, howling in pain and desperation. She didn’t want to look at the bodies of the men she’d killed. Each time she turned her head she saw another, lying bent and still on the ground. On all the faces were expressions of terror.
She pressed her face to the wall and squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t help. She could feel the men’s flesh opening in her mouth, taste the hot blood pouring down her throat. She remembered her pleasure as she drank them, and it sickened her. She recalled the scents of the five men and how each one’s blood tasted different and how each life felt different as it faded from existence. The last one had been the best, bright and steady and smooth as she drank.
She screamed again and again and again. When she could no longer scream, she prayed for deliverance. But God would not deliver her, she realized. He would look upon her and strike her down. She stopped praying and began to weep. She thought of Adela and Valeria, of her clean white bed in the small bare cell of the convent.
Where I had the audacity to be discontent.
Then Ruxandra, Princess Dracula, sobbed for her lost childhood.
When she was numb inside, she remembered her father telling his men that he would return in the morning.
They will find me. And they’ll find the bodies, and they’ll think I did it . . .
I did do it. She shuddered.
The fear of being discovered overrode the horror of what she had done. She pushed off the ground and rose to her feet. To her surprise, her legs didn’t shake. She would leave. Maybe she could walk back to the convent. It had only been a day’s ride, and the road was clear. All she had to do was get there. She would say . . . something. Anything. She picked her way through the puddles of blood and stepped over the bodies and went to the outer cavern.
Her clothes were destroyed.
Every piece had been cut open. The cloth stuck to the blood on her fingers. She picked up the remains of her shift and scrubbed at the blood on her hands and arms. It didn’t want to come off, and she had to scrape at her skin. She dropped the shift and started to cry.
I have to get out of here. I must leave before they find me.
Her tears stopped. Anger flared at what her father and his soldiers had tried to do.
I will not take the blame for this.
She picked up the boots—they were intact, at least—then went back into the inner chamber. She looked over the four dead men on the floor, unable to bear looking at her father and his blood-covered corpse. The man nearest the door was closest to her size. He wasn’t a light man, and the armor he wore beneath his cloak and surcoat meant that he would be even heavier and harder to move, but she needed to get clothes if she was going to walk back to the convent. She reached down and tugged on his cloak.
To her surprise, his body moved easily across the floor. To her even greater surprise, she was able to lift him.
There was some blood on the collar of the cloak but nothing compared to what covered her skin. She sat him up and stripped the cloak and surcoat off him like he was a sleeping child. She wrapped both garments around her body. It wasn’t the same as the warm clothes she had before, but it would do. As an afterthought, she took his belt as well and wrapped it tight around her waist. Finally, she put on her own boots and left the cavern.
The light outside was as bright as day, and the air didn’t feel as cold as it had the night before. Ruxandra started walking back along the path her father had led her down. Ahead, she could hear soldiers arguing.
“It’s been a night and a day,” one said. “He said he’d be back in the morning, and he has yet to return. None of them have.”
Another, older voice said, “So whatever they are doing, they’re still doing it. Or her.”
One of the soldiers snorted. “That girl is a harlot? Looked like a novitiate to me.”
“Thought it was his daughter,” said another soldier.
“One of his by-blows more likely.”
“Well, either way, he’s not going to be sticking it in her.”
“I don’t know. You nobles are strange.”
Laughter rippled through the company of men.
“Enough,” snapped a voice. “He said he would be out in the morning. We must assume something is wrong, and must go look. I’ll lead. Who is coming with?”
Three soldiers in turn said, “Me.”
“Then let’s go.”
A torch flared to life then another. Ruxandra stepped into the shadow of the cavern. Then she realized it was the wrong thing to do. She’d been planning to sneak up to the camp, find the road, and follow the horses’ tracks back to the convent. But with the men coming toward her, there was no way she could take the path back. She stepped off the path and into the forest. The brush swished around her, sending snow scattering. She began running. The snow wasn’t deep, and she could move well enough, but it made noise. She dared a glance over her shoulder. The men’s torches were little sparks of light, twinkling through the trees.
Ruxandra stopped, confused.
She could hear the men walking on the hard snow of the path, and the others talking and grumbling around the fire. She spotted them through the trees, and could see the bright steel of their helmets reflecting the torchlight, and their breath coming out in small frosted puffs.
She was seeing and hearing them as if they were 10 feet away, though they were easily fifty times that
And why do they have torches in the daytime? She glanced skyward.
The sky was clear and bright and the sun was nowhere to be seen. A thousand stars shone upon her, lighting the world as bright as daylight ever had.
What… how?
She took a deep breath to calm herself. Then another. Then she noticed that, when she breathed out, she could not see it. In this cold, her breath should have been an icy fog in front of her, but there was nothing. She took another breath and blew it out harder. Then another. Still no fog.
Do not think about it. Not now.
It wouldn’t be long before the men reached the cave. When that happened, she had to be far away. If they caught her—
Get away first. Get away and find the road and think about it all later.
She began walking, ducking under branches and trying not to shake the snow off them. She listened as she walked, waiting for the men to shout for reinforcements. No sound came. She turned in the direction she thought the road might be and kept going. She could find it soon enough, she was sure.
Then I can return to the convent. Once I tell Mother Superior, I am sure they’ll take me in. And maybe they can bless me and take away the sins of what I’ve done.
What my father did.
The thoughts went round and round in her mind, though she knew there was no answer to be found or one she could accept.
He did it because he could.
Because I did not matter.
She thought of the fallen angel’s scorn—and kindness. Could a fallen angel care more about her than her own father? Yet what kind of care was it to make Ruxandra commit such crimes?
Well, she was a fallen angel.
My father didn’t know what he was doing summoning her. Fool, she thought.
Hours later, she had yet to find the road or anything at all.
Lost. I’m lost.
The fear she’d managed to suppress started welling up. She moved faster and faster until she was running through the trees, knocking down snow and cracking branches.
I should have followed the guards.
I should have stayed close, not gone in the opposite direction. I don’t even know where I am.
Think, Ruxandra.
A valley. The cave was in a valley. She looked for any sign the ground was rising. I‘ve been running the length of it instead of going up.
The ground to her left seemed higher. She turned, then ran harder. The woods passed by in a blur. The ground rose and fell then rose and rose and rose until she was sure she was out of the valley. She roused a burst of speed and broke through the woods into a clearing.
She skidded, trying to stop, and plowed to a halt halfway across the clearing. She looked back in surprise. The marks stretched back thirty yards.
How fast was I going that I would do that?
She tried to calculate it but couldn’t. She had to have been moving very, very fast. Faster than anyone had ever run. Faster than a horse.
It isn’t possible. None of it.
And yet I am doing it.
And I’m still lost.
She had hoped the clearing meant she was near the road, but there was no sign of it. No sign of anything except the gray and brown branches of the trees, interspersed with the green spikes of the evergreens. She turned in a slow circle. There was no sign of people—no buildings, no smoke rising, no paths through the forest or stumps marking a woodcutter’s work. As near as she could tell, she was alone in the world.
The sky was growing lighter. The dark firmament with its many bright stars was giving way to the deep blue of predawn. Soon the sun would be visible, and the snow would be even brighter, and she would be better able to see where she was going.
Perhaps then there will be people out. Perhaps I cannot see anything because it’s night, but when the sun is up, I’ll be able to see the smoke and hear anyone nearby.
She looked for a place to sit and found a log that wasn’t too covered in snow. She dusted it off the best she could then sat.
At least I don’t feel cold.
I should be cold.
It was one of those things that, like many others, she decided not to think about. She wrapped her arms around her body and waited.
I wonder what Adela and Valeria are doing right now.
Praying, most likely. Ruxandra hoped Sister Sofia was doing far worse penance. Preferably something involving the pigs.
Cleaning the pans, she decided, on her hands and knees with nothing to use save her bare hands. It was a silly fantasy, Ruxandra knew, but it passed the time, and kept her from thinking of what had been done to her.
How could he have done that? My own father.
She turned her mind away from it and turned her eyes to the sky. She could see sun beams, peeking through the trees.
It was bright enough to hurt her eyes.
She watched as the sunshine slipped through the branches and crept its way across the ground. She had to squint, it was so bright. The closer it came to her perch, the warmer she grew until she felt like taking off the cloak. She should have been freezing, not hot. But as the light came closer, she felt like she did on a summer’s day when the nuns excoriated the novitiates for removing their wimples to cool off.
Her eyes began hurting, almost as if she was staring into the sun, instead of watching the light dance among the woods. Ruxandra closed them, letting her body bathe in the warmth. The sun would touch her soon, and then the long night would be over. And with luck, she would be able to find her way out of the woods and back to the convent.
And then?
I’ll tell them something.
The sun crept over the snow and touched the toe of her boot. Ruxandra hissed and pulled her foot back. The touch of the sun had burned, right through the leather. The surprise brought her to her feet. Sunbeams pierced the trees and branches and landed on the bare skin of her face.
Then she was on fire and screaming.
RUXANDRA’S FLESH BURNED as if she had shoved her face into fireplace coals. Her hair burst into flame, and her skin erupted into blisters that burst moments later, exposing the charred flesh underneath.
The agony was terrible.
She screamed and hurled herself backward, falling over the log. Ruxandra pushed her face into the snow, rubbing it back and forth to cool her cheeks. She slapped hard at her head. The flames burned into the flesh of her palms. She pressed her hands into the snow, dousing the flames and dulling the pain.
When the sun touched the bare flesh of her calf, new agony erupted. She screamed again and stumbled to her feet. She ran, limping and crying. Sunlight glinted off the ice-coated trees and reflected off the snow. The reflected light hurt her eyes, made her skin heat up, but it was nothing compared to the unbearable agony of the sun’s direct touch. She ran on and on, looking for shelter—any shelter. The sun rose higher, lighting the sky and the earth, threatening to burn her to a cinder.
She spotted a small gully and threw herself into it. There was an overhang on one side. The earth under it had been washed away, leaving a shallow hollow in the side of the gully. She crawled into the deep shadows under it. She squirmed and dragged and pulled until her entire body was in shadow. Her face and calf burned as if the heat were still on her. Tears streaked her face, and cries of pain that she couldn’t control slipped out between her clenched teeth.
Outside, the sun crept forward.
Her eyes watered as she watched it inching across the landscape. It hurt to look, but she couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was her death she watched. If the light touched her . . .
For hours she lay there, her body pressed tight against the back of the overhang, her face and hands and leg all burned in pain as the sunlight crept its way across the ground. She watched the edge of the light roll down the side of the gully until it touched bottom. She was on the wrong side, she realized. When the sun began to descend, it would reach into her little space and burn her alive.
The light slid across the gully floor, slow and unstoppable. And even though it hurt to look, Ruxandra could not take her eyes off the light. The way it glinted off the snow crystals, reshaping them as it went, fascinated her.
It was then she realized she could see the shape of each crystal on the gully floor.
There were thousands of them, and no two matched. They splayed out in spikes and squares and even triangles. And when the sun touched them, they re-shaped themselves, flowing and changing in the warmth of the light. Ruxandra watched them change, fascinated by how well she could see, almost to the point of forgetting her danger.
Sometime in the morning, Ruxandra’s burns began to heal. They still hurt, but it had become the dull, throbbing pain of flesh repairing itself. And they itched, like ants crawling under her skin. She scratched and opened the healing flesh, bringing new pain.
She turned her eyes back to the snow, watching the crystals.
Then the sun started sliding down the far side of the sky, and the light began creeping under her overhang.
Ruxandra pulled her body as far back from the sun as possible. She wished she were willowy like Valeria and that she were back in the convent. She wished she were kneeling naked in the convent courtyard with the strap coming down on her naked flesh. But there was no escape for her. All she could do was watch as her death crept closer and closer.
I am going to go to hell. I am a murderer and a monster and I will burn in the lake of fire for eternity.
Will father be there, burning beside me?
The light vanished.
Ruxandra stared at the darkened ground. The sunlight was gone, though it was still daylight outside. She leaned forward, squinting out at the brightness. The sun had sunk below the tree line, cutting off the line of light that had threatened to end her life. She giggled, then laughed, howling with joy and relief. She had lived!
Somewhere in the midst of it all, the howls of laughter turned to sobs that shook her body so hard they threatened to send her tumbling back out into the daylight.
She would stay alive for another night.
And then what?
She w
as still lost in the woods in winter. She was still a murderer. And though she didn’t have fangs and talons right then, she was no longer normal. She heard too well, saw too well, smelled too well. When the sun touched her, she burst into flame.
She had become a creature of darkness.
The thought brought more fear, and worse, an enormous loneliness. One of the nuns had once said that being damned meant being cut off from the divine presence. She had never dwelled on hell’s grislier punishments like the other nuns did. She would only say, “None of us on earth—not even the worst sinner—can comprehend that unending apartness.”
Ruxandra thought now she could.
At some point, in the midst of her tears and terrified thoughts, she fell asleep.
She awoke to howling.
Ruxandra’s eyes snapped open. She cocked her head, listening. She couldn’t judge how far away it was. But whether it was close or not, she knew she couldn’t stay where she was.
She crawled out of the hole. The cloak and surcoat, already filthy with blood, were now caked with a layer of dirt, both inside and out. She was filthy and smelled of death. If the wolves got a whiff of her, they would chase her down.
The howls came again, long, deep, and soul-chilling. She crawled out of the gully and struck out in the opposite direction of the wolves. To her relief, the snow was not deep beneath the trees, and she was able to move at speed. The howling faded far behind her as she walked through the night. The other sounds of the forest filled her ears—small creatures moving beneath the snow, the wind shaking empty branches, the winter birds twittering in their nests. The air was clear and cold, though not so cold as to freeze her, which was a blessing. The snow had an aroma too, like the smell of rain but sharper and harder. Once, she caught the scent of something alive. It was a deep, musky smell, not like any animal she’d smelled before. With it came a deep rumbling snore, somewhere in the earth. She quickened her pace until she’d left it behind.