Page 6 of Stolen By the Vampire

“What is all this?” she said with a gasp before she could stop herself when Silas finally stopped at the threshold of a massive cavern.

The space was bathed in gold. Thick veins of glittering metal spindled across the cavern, with piles of gold covering the floor. Not just coins or lumps, but ornately carved furniture, jewelry, and even cutlery. The riches were more than that, the piles punctuated with precious stones that twinkled in the firelight. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, opals.

“This,” Silas said with no small amount of pride, “is our home.”

He set her down, albeit reluctantly, and as if in a daze, Esmae wandered farther in. Her fingers grazed the different piles, the metal cold beneath the tips of her fingers. Any one of them would be more money than she could earn in a lifetime of half-hearted weaving.

Something in the distance caught her eye. Her steps sped up as her heart pounded. It wasn’t just material wealth the vampire had hoarded. He had something that, to Esmae, was even more precious than all the jewels in the room.

Sprawled out on a large table was an open parchment the size of a pony.

“It’s Eurobis,” she breathed.

On the scroll, the eastern border was familiar to her, the sharp, dark cliffs characteristic of the small papers Jared and other merchants used to guide them. This was something much grander, a sprawling depiction. More complete than she’d ever seen, with hundreds of tiny towns dotted and labeled. And not just the Witch Kingdom, but the vampire ones, too. The map was a work of art, with ornaments in the corners, and sea monsters rising from rivers.

“You like the map?” Silas asked over her shoulder.

She didn’t even have it in herself to snap, too overcome. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

His voice took on a curious tone. “You grew up without mirrors?”

She snorted softly, still focused on the map. Something like this would be worth a fortune. To her, who had never even seen their country in full, who had never ventured any meaningful distance no matter how she’d wanted to—who would never get the chance if the curse defeated her—this was priceless.

She must have looked at it for at least ten minutes, resisting the urge to trace her fingers over the parchment lest she smudge any part of it.

“You enjoy cartography?”

“I always wanted to travel,” Esmae confessed. “I wanted to see the entire continent. Something like this would never be found in my home village.”

“There are more,” he said mildly, gesturing to a bin beside the table that held a dozen scrolls of varying sizes.

She reached for one and frowned as she unrolled it.

“Where is this?”

The shape of the land was unfamiliar, narrow and tall, with flat plains and a ridge of mountains in the west.

“Wyrdova,” Silas explained. “It’s a continent some distance across the sea.”

Her gaze snapped from the map in her hands to Silas.

“How do you have this?” The Witch Kingdom was surrounded on four sides; travel beyond the borders was impossible.

“I inked it myself.”

She blinked in surprise. He hadn’t simply purchased the map, but drawn it? She looked back at the table—it wasn’t a place for displaying maps, but for creating them. Now that she looked away from the map, she saw the telltale tools—quills of various thicknesses, straightedges, a compass. If he’d made it, then that meant he’d been to these places. Not just places a few days’ journey into the Witch Kingdom, but far beyond, places she hadn’t even conceived of. And he said it so casually!

“Tell me about Wyrdova,” she demanded. Her cheeks flushed as she realized how rude she sounded, but still— “You drank my blood. It’s the least you can do.”

Silas grinned. “No need to barter, Esmae. I’d tell you anything you like if it pleases you. Come, sit with me.”

He led her over to a small table—gold, of course—and a small chaise.

There were no chairs in the immediate vicinity. Because the vampire didn’t need multiple chairs, or because he’d picked a spot where she’d be forced to sit by him?

With his propensity for touching her and staying close, she’d bet on the latter. But she went along with it, because it was her chance to learn more about the world. She sat on the edge of the chaise and laid the map out for them to see.

Silas sat next to her, his legs sprawled so their knees touched. His arm laid on the back of the seat, behind her shoulders.

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