Page 66 of Dragon Slayer

He was struck again, across the back of his head this time. He tasted blood.

Val let out a frightened, strangled sound.

Shut up!

“That’s enough,” the sultan said. “He can’t agree to anything if his mind’s addled.”

Vlad braced a hand on the floor. The tile beneath was blue and white, patterned like flowers. Or stars. Blood dripped from his lip in regular splats, the bright crimson a contrast.

“Prince Vlad,” the sultan said from above him. “You can resist this if you want to, but it will be easier for you if you don’t. Easier for both of you.”

Head still ringing, it took a moment for the sultan’s words to sink in, but when they did…

A chill skittered down Vlad’s back. That was how they would manipulate him, then: by threatening his little brother.

He lifted his head, and found the sultan staring at him.

“Do we understand one another?” Murat asked again, voice smooth and cool.

Vlad swallowed a mouthful of his own blood. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

~*~

They were taken to a bathing chamber, one with a sunken center full of steaming water, tiled in cool blue. Very Roman, Vlad thought, before his clothes were stripped off and he was shoved unceremoniously in. Val tumbled in after him, yelping. Vlad steadied him with a hand on his small shoulder and pulled them out deep into the water, until their heads were the only things breaking the surface.

Through the haze of steam, Val looked at him with tear-filled eyes. “Vlad,” he whispered. “I want to go home.”

“I know, but we can’t.”Not yet, he added silently. Because they were only boys, and it would take time to formulate an escape plan. But as slaves joined them, with sweet-smelling oils and floral soaps in their hands, Vlad made a vow that someday, hopefully soon, he would get his brother out of this beautiful prison, and take him home.

After, when they were scrubbed pink and clean, dressed in soft silk kaftans andsalvar, they were escorted to a chamber with barred windows that looked down on an elaborate garden below. Two beds were made up, in the Turkish style, a series of doubled-over and stacked carpets cushioned with silk and satin, across from a washstand with basin and ewer, a wardrobe full of clothes. Ottoman clothes.

Their guard, a stiff-backed, armored contrast to the lavishness of the palace, said, “You will be sent for in the morning,” in Slavic, and then retreated. He closed the door behind him, and a key grated in the lock. When his footsteps had receded down the hall, Vlad said, “Fuck,” with great feeling.

Val, who’d been valiantly fighting his tears for hours, dissolved into silent, body-wracking sobs, his hands covering his face.

“Oh, Valerian,” Vlad sighed, and crossed the room to pull his brother into his arms. Val buried his face immediately into Vlad’s chest, his little arms going around his waist. His breath rushed hot and quick through the buttonholes of Vlad’s kaftan, fanning across his chest.

Vlad held him close and smoothed a hand through his soft golden hair, still damp from the bath, smelling of roses and lavender. “Listen to me,” he urged. “I know this is terrible, and frightening. But I’m going to get us free. I promise you that. You just have to trust me and not draw any attention to yourself.”

Val mumbled something.

“What?”

“What happened to Father?”

Vlad took a deep breath, and tried not to let it shake on the exhale. “I don’t know,” he said, which was mostly the truth. He feared Father had been tortured for information – a prospect made more likely by the fact that someone had told Murat that they were vampires. Did they know Father was? Had they pinned him down, as his blood gushed across the stones, and cut out his heart? “I’m sure he’s fine,” he told Val.

“Will he come for us?” he whimpered into Vlad’s collarbone. “He will, won’t he?”

“Maybe.”

Vlad looked up, over his brother’s head, and out the grilled window, into the garden below, melting into rich sunset golds and indigos as the shadows grew long. The high, smooth white walls gleamed faintly, sheer and shiny, as if polished. Not a toe-hold in sight.

He took a deep breath and forced his panic down deep in his gut. No doubt it would eventually fester, might boil and rise to choke him, a black sickness of worry and dread. But for now, it settled, a cold lump that he could still breathe around.

“I’m sure Father will negotiate our release. This is how this sort of thing works. We’ll be kept here a bit, and when Father pays, the sultan will send us back.”

But will he?a tiny voice asked in the back of his mind.

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