Page 4 of Blackthorn

“So you have it?” Alek asked.

Luis shook his head. “He wants a trade that I was not qualified to make.”

“What does the vampire demand?”

“A bride,” Luis answered. He pulled a letter out of an inner coat pocket. “A bride and an anchor. He wrote down his terms. He asks for a year and claims she can leave after her, um, duty is done.” Luis then added, like it would help, “He’s probably telling the truth.”

It did not help, but the proposition intrigued Charlotte.

The crowd fell silent. The Marechals looked at each other like they had lost the battle before they had fired a single shot.

“I suppose that’s that,” Solenne mumbled.

“Yes. I said I’d send word, but how could we ask—” Luis trailed off.

“An interesting fellow, but an unreasonable demand,” Miles added.

That family. Charlotte loved them, but they lacked imagination and had a disturbing forgetfulness when it came to history. They squabbled amongst themselves, demanding to know the terms of the negotiation or if Luis just accepted the terms without protest.

Alek and Miles watched the exchange, amused and exhausted.

A year with a vampire? One of the oldest creatures on the planet? Not just old, but an original settler from the Endeavor…

Imagine the knowledge he had. The lost history.

Charlotte was a student of history, particularly the time humans settled on Nexus, but she lives in a village on the fringes of the civilized world. Requesting books and waiting for them to be shipped took ages, and she long gave up hope of accessing contemporary source material. To read the original diaries and logs of the colonists, she’d have to go to the university in Founding, which was not an option. Her father’s controversial opinions made him, and by extension her, unwelcome at the university. She did her best with the books and reprints she could get, but her mind reeled at the possibility of speaking to an actual Endeavor passenger.

It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

“I’ll go,” Charlotte said.

No one heard her.

“I will go,” she repeated, raising her voice to an unladylike decibel.

The family faced her as one, as if they had just noticed her presence.

“No,” Solenne said. “Out of the question. You’re not giving yourself to a blood drinker. They’re dangerous—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Send me. This is what I do, isn’t it?” Charlotte retorted. “I marry monsters.”

Draven

West Lands

The Aerie

The new arrivals waited in the tunnel between the gates. Five this time.

Once, Draven would have observed his guests through cameras and on screens. Now, he watched from a slit cut into the rocks. It was one of several that lined the long tunnel connecting his fortress to the world. Unless one of the people below had exceptional eyesight, they would not see him.

But he saw them, as did the soldiers that stood at the other slits.

It was an old defense design, basic but brutally effective. The gate opened, and people shuffled in. If they passed inspection, the far gate opened, allowing them into the fortress. If not, they were trapped while fire and hell rained down upon them.

Raiders and outcasts arrived all the time, seeking refuge in his fortress, begging for miracles from a lost age. It was a hard life in the West Lands. They were either sharpened to survive or they were beaten down, lucky to have survived for as long as they did. Some were murderers, thieves, and the most dangerous sorts of persons. Others were the foolish innocents who thought they could live off the land and find balance.

Draven did not care. Dangerous or foolish, they all had their uses, as long as they were who they claimed to be.

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