Page 246 of Dragon Slayer

~*~

“He’s not dead,” Eira said. She strode boldly across the floor, heedless of the blood that stained the trailing hem of her skirt. When she reached the body, she knelt beside it, sniffing, lip curling in distaste.

“He will be,” Vlad said, hand resting on the pommel of his sword where it jutted upward, still embedded. “If I can actually cut his heart out.” He glanced down at the body and frowned; already, the flesh was trying to heal around his sword, the heart repairing itself.

Cicero, human-shaped again, came back to them with the head, fingers threaded through the thick curly hair. The features had gone slack, the eyes shut, and the stump of the neck so longer bled. But Romulus didn’t look dead; asleep, only, and almost peaceful. Cicero held the head out away from himself, face caught in a snarl. “How did he heal himself? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Eira stood, dusting off her skirt, brow knit. “I have,” she said, grimly.

“What?” Vlad and Cicero asked together.

“The old gods,” she said. “All the pagan ones. I haven’t met them all, none, actually, save one, once, when I was a girl. I’ve had this theory, ever since. That they aren’t gods, maybe, not really. But they aren’t like regular vampires either.”

Vlad glanced down at his uncle’s headless body. “Can they be killed?”

“Your father was,” she said, in a soft voice. “Romulus isn’t a god – only the son of one. I think you can kill him.” But there was a note of hesitance there.

“Mother?” he prompted.

She sighed, and sent him a look that was almost pleading. “I hate him. More than anyone, you know I do. But we know no one like him. No one else with this power.”

With a lurch, he realized what she was suggesting. “You want to keep him.”

“Preserve him,” she corrected. “And I don’twantto. But I wonder if his strength” – she gestured to the head Cicero held – “is something we could learn from. You’re only one more generation removed from Mars than him, Vlad. It’s worth trying to figure out the secrets in his blood.”

“Where has my vengeful, Viking mother gone?”

“Nowhere,” she said, lifting her chin in a challenge. “But she’s tired of fighting, and she’s grown wiser, in her old age.” Softer: “I’ve lost too much, Vlad. Remus, and Val–” She bit her lip until it turned white. “I understand the violence in you, my son, because it lives in me, too. But I think maybe this is a time when mercy is the wiser choice.”

“Mercy,” he echoed. That was her name, after all. His merciful mother. “Sometimes death is a mercy.”

“I agree. Is it one he deserves?”

He felt his brows go up. “Perhaps a mercy for the rest of us, so we can live without the threat of him.”

She nodded. “I’ll leave it up to you, then.”

Vlad looked down at the body again, still but warm, its skin still flush with life. He’d never seen anything like this.

Was it worth something?

Worth keeping?

He searched his heart for some scrap of love. This was his blood relative; his father’s twin. And a figure of legend as well, even among humans.

But there was no love. Only pragmatism.

He lifted his head to search out Cicero’s gaze, and found his wolf watching him, unjudging, curious.

He nodded. “I won’t keep him here.”

“No,” Eira agreed. “Put him away to sleep. And hide him. Bury him deep.”

“Yes. Very deep.”

~*~

The stood over the body, still, when a sharp rap sounded at the throne room doors; they creaked open a moment later to admit a guard whose face had gone pale with shock. “You grace,” he gasped, bracing a hand against the heavy wood. “Your uncle brought men with him – only two. The advisors he mentioned.”

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