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  "The castle would be reduced to a wasteland." His father shook his head, resentment plain on his face. "Annoying as it is to have her up there, the power binding her here will only free her if she chooses to become flesh."

  Herald could almost read his father's sour thoughts as the man smiled. Of course, she would prefer imprisonment to someone drinking her blood.

  "Exactly who am I guarding her from?" The fortress successfully blocked off outside intervention in the castle and those living here obeyed his father's orders without question.

  "Your sisters, mostly." Ștefan wasn't usually a man to jest, but Herald thought he did now. No matter what, none of his father's children would dare risk their father's life. "The angel seems to inspire an urge in them to break the crystal." Sullenness fading, his father glared at him with newfound irritation. "Have I sated your curiosity enough for you to leave me be?"

  Herald wished to ask more, but unlike his brother, he knew when it was best to do as commanded. In any case, it would probably be easier getting answers from the angel than his father when he was in one of his moods.

  The drastic switch of emotion did little to faze him. Although he'd never had the desire to test his theories, Herald had long believed the emotional swings to be a side effect of being undead. Many of his siblings that had become strigoi exhibited the same instability and he considered it fortunate that few of them were at the fortress.

  Replying with only a bow, Herald left his father to be alone with the hushed twitters of the birds. At least in the tower, he only had one person to ignore. If she annoyed him too much, he could always spend his time on the steps.

  Chapter Four

  The sound of people moving about the castle reached his ears as he made his way to the tower steps. Yet no one, perhaps having heard the many rumours about him from the fortress, surfaced to bother him. A strange clang echoed from above as he started the long climb up the stairs, muffled by distance. He paid it no mind. The old building often made strange sounds during the winter.

  Again, the clang rang through the tower.

  He paused mid-step, listening for it to sound a third time. That wasn't the building. Someone was up there and, whoever they were, was pounding on something hard. Like stone. He frowned at the darkness ahead. There was nothing above but the walls of the room. Why would they be trying to knock out a wall?

  Another clang. This time deeper, more solid. The stranger had hit their mark. He could almost picture the old stone and mortar that made up the walls chipping. No. He thumped his thigh, silently cursing his foolishness. Not the wall. The crystal!

  Herald raced up the steps, taking them three at a time. His legs wobbled with the speed. He stumbled, righted himself, and continued. The thought of the crystal's destruction reducing the castle to nothing pushed him into running faster. What sort of imbecile would risk killing everyone just to be rid of the woman, the angel?

  He shoved at the door. The hinges gave a soft groan, swinging freely to slam into the wall. Herald halted in the entrance, gripping his sword hilt. The angel's attacker had her back to him, hammering at the crystal with the remains of a platter. The angel inside cringed at each blow, her hands clamped over her ears. Despite the noise, the crystal didn't seem to bear any new cracks. Tougher than it looks. At least strong enough for it to deflect an attack from the makeshift weapon.

  Herald drew his sword, barely hearing the hiss of the blade slipping free over the ringing of metal. Using the flat of the blade, he tapped the woman's shoulder, hoping to get her attention without moving close enough to be hit. There were rumours that some of his sisters had become skilled at unarmed combat, learning through a master back at the fortress. He knew a few such siblings, had bested some and been bested in turn. Now was not the time to discover if this sister would defeat him.

  His half-sister spun, dark brown eyes widening as her gaze fell upon the sword tip. It was the same fair-haired child who had told him of the spirit.

  His focus shifted to the angel as she straightened. The confidence in her stance and her calm expression chilled him. Surely she must know what would happen if the crystal shattered. She merely looked at the girl with sympathy. Did she not care that it would destroy everything? Why would she? Little lived in this valley beyond his father's children, Hell-spawned beings such as himself. Why would an angel care if they died?

  "H-Herald," his sister finally said. "I know father doesn't want us to, but you have to let me get rid of her." She held the platter before her as if the object would be strong enough to use as a shield against his sword. The edges were severely dented, although her dainty fingers worked to remedy the damage. It slowly rotated in her hands, glittering in the torchlight. "You're the best defender this valley has. We cannot afford to lose you, to have you fall like the others."

  "So you'd rather obliterate the castle and everyone in it?" he softly asked. He hoped it would have a calming effect on her. Did she not know what would happen should the crystal break? He stared into her eyes, saw the chilling conviction burning in their depths. She knows. Knew and did not care. "Where is the logic behind killing me to keep me safe?" Did she believe he would be spared?

  However had she come to the choice between destroying the crystal and losing him? To fall. How? And to what, exactly? There was nothing here but the crystal. And the angel. He could feel her watching him. The knowledge had his heart pounding faster than any terror he'd faced throughout his long life.

  His sibling's bottom lip began to tremble and her dark eyes shone with frustration. "But..." She averted her gaze. The tray turned faster in her hands, fingernails tapping on the metal. "I—" She looked back at the angel as if she would have the answer. "She—"

  The terrifying, maddening notion of becoming naught but dust purely because this chit thought it for the best rolled through his mind, overriding the attempt to understand her reasoning. How dare she presume she had the right to risk the life of her family, of her father? Wrenching the platter from her grasp with one hand, he indicated the open door with the point of his sword. "Leave..." It occurred to him as he stumbled to remember her name, he'd forgotten to ask what type of plant their father had named her after. "Just... go."

  Shaking as if he'd slapped her and her eyes glittering with unshed tears, the girl scampered out of the room.

  Herald sheathed his sword, trying not to hear his young half-sister's crying as she descended the stairs. The fortress women were hardier than this lot. If they hadn't arrived to him hardened, they soon learnt.

  The weeping finally vanished. He sighed, the sound of it loud and harsh in the fresh silence. Unlike some of his half-brothers, reducing his siblings to tears never brought any joy, no matter their age.

  He turned to give the surface of the crystal another inspection. The angel leant against the inside of her cage. Standing this close to her, he could see the swirling variations of blue and grey in her eyes. Like clouds rolling on a windy, moonlit night. Herald stepped back. A watery shadow moved across the surface of her eyes. He glanced behind him. Only the wall and the closed door.

  "Not exactly a charmer, are you?" Her pale pink lips curved upwards and his heart skipped a beat. Smiling, she shone with a frail, porcelain kind of beauty. But no less icy or distant. To see her smile without the chilling visage... he'd be willing to work at it.

  Shaking his head, Herald tried to gather his thoughts, to make sense of what had just happened. He didn't think his young half-sister was insane, although it could be hard to tell with some of them. Could the angel have provoked her? "What did you say to her?"

  "Say?" She laughed, the raw purity of it pulling at something deep inside him. "I said nothing. I never have to since it seems my very presence is enough to stir their hatred of me. Although I suspect it wasn't me she wanted to see." She indicated the floor with the bob of her head. A lock of wheat-coloured hair tumbled across her shoulder.

  Swallowing in an effort to ease the sudden dryness coating his tongue, he looked down. Two g
oblets lay nestled against the base of the crystal. They hadn't been there when he entered the first time. He would've smelled the contents. Herald nudged one with his boot. Blood pooled beneath the golden bowls. She was here for me. Recalling that he still held the platter, he dropped it in disgust.

  Centuries had passed since anyone dared to attempt courting him. He'd not forgotten the gut-wrenching repulsion that drove him to prefer solitude over the comfort of a woman. But there were only his sisters or his father's prey. What a choice. "You must've said something to instigate her behaviour I doubt she would just suddenly decide to destroy you."

  The angel shrugged, the blue in her eyes giving way to grey. "They require no logical reasons."

  His hand closed on his sword hilt, the feel of the ancient leather soothing. How could she stand there looking so unconcerned with the apparent devastation the crystal would wreak? "Are you not scared of dying?" Even his father was afraid of that. And Herald... he'd no desire to leave this world. No wish to be anything more, or less, than what he was now.

  "I shall only die if this crystal is shattered. The castle will become dust." She smiled again. This time her lips carried a faint, malicious twist. At first, Herald thought himself mistaken. But no. She relished the thought of burning this valley. A cleansing of fire. "My passing would serve to rid the world of several hundred strigoi."

  She thinks we're all strigoi? At last count, the valley housed close to two hundred people, the swell of their numbers slowing now that his father was settled and the valley secure, but only a few dozen of his siblings could be considered strigoi. He supposed it was possible to turn all of his father's children into undead. Difficult and foolhardy, but possible. "What about the people trapped in the dungeon? Wouldn't the destruction kill them?"

  "And they do not die having their blood drained from them?" Anger flared through her voice and lingered in the darkening of her pale cheeks. "Yes, the destruction would kill them. I would be powerless to stop that."

  "What if you exchanged the crystal for a body?" Obviously it would not have the same drastic outcome. Of course, her blood. With the crystal, she was trapped and at the mercy of those who watched over her. Without the dubious protection of the quartz, she was merely cornered until her father drained her. "I could escort you out of the valley, if that is your wish." Where she'd go afterwards wasn't any of his business. "You needn't endanger anyone's life." His father would prefer her gone, wouldn't he? Without the angel, there'd be nothing to guard. No reason for Herald to be here. Surely Ștefan would rather Herald returned to the fortress.

  His face heated as she raised a pale brow, her lips twisting into a wry smile. "Do you think me a fool? That you are the first to offer me such a deal?" Her hands balled into fists. The rage that still flushed her cheeks flickered to life in her eyes, turning them leaden as she glared at him. "I've tolerated this prison for centuries to make sure no strigoi ever gets the chance to taste my blood."

  "I give you my word that no one, including myself, would harm you." How he'd get her out without people suspecting something was off, he wasn't sure, but he swore he would do everything in his power to make it so. Although he hadn't truly needed the skill for some centuries, the art of stealth was a talent he kept honed and escaping the castle with its indolent inhabitants should be easy. The fortress would be the greater barrier to her freedom.

  She laughed, the sound as musical as the tinkling of many bells and colder than the wind outside. "Do you honestly think I'd believe someone like you would keep his word?" Blonde hair bounced joyfully about her face as she shook her head, at odds with the heat in her voice. "Never will I trust the undead."

  He tensed, standing to his full height. The first time she'd referred to him as a strigoi had been momentarily amusing. Now she dared to call him undead? "I assure you, I may've been spawned from the acts of an undead man, but I am very much alive." And at least some small part of him was human. He had to have inherited something from his mother beyond the slight similarities in his face.

  "You kill humans and drink their blood, do you not?"

  "I only kill those who are trying to kill me." His hand gripped the sword hilt until his arm shook. The lack of sleep pounded through his head. Herald scrubbed at his face, fighting the urge to draw the weapon, though he knew not what he would bring the sharp edge down upon if he did. "Ever since I've walked this realm, I've drunk nothing but goat's blood." The old memories of what he'd fed on before touching this realm flickered to the surface of his thoughts for a moment. Faces not unlike his own. Other clans. Another's siblings. Their death necessary to keep himself and his kin alive. "Humans are reserved for my father."

  She stared at him, her face clouding with doubt as she bit her bottom lip. Like with the humans, the blunt row of teeth was a strange sight. As if someone had filed them. The very thought made his fangs itch.

  "Before I was trapped," the angel said, the doubt vanishing from whence it came. "I saw one of your battles down at the fortress." She sneered. "You lure men into the shadows where you capture them and send them here."

  "Better them than us," he muttered. Turning from her searching gaze, he went to retrieve his waterskin. It was far better to let strangers fall prey to his father's hunger instead of his kin. Ștefan had already proven himself capable of feeding off family to survive.

  Chapter Five

  There'd been but one time when they'd never had humans in the valley. Just family and goats. The land had held fewer of both in those days. Fewer of everything, really. Herald had yet to build the fortress. His brother hadn't succumbed to the men and their weapons. Back then, his family didn't dare venture far from the protection of the castle and the humans of the nearby villages were ignorant of their presence. People vanished to wolves and their own kind so often that they had no knowledge of the danger lurking so close to their homes.

  But that'd been some eight hundred or so years ago. Now, their presence was well and truly known. The winter made that year's raids the leanest they'd ever been. Their hunger had led to so many blunders. Letting a few humans slip through their attack on a now-abandoned hamlet being amongst the gravest.

  Herald thought his father would turn to the goats that fed the rest of his family. But no—Ștefan willingly preyed on his own children, for were they not part human? Yet their blood proved less sustaining. It took thrice as many of them to sate his father's cravings. If the humans hadn't returned in the spring to cleanse the valley of the demons—and kill his brother in their fervour—his family might've been wiped out by the very man who'd created them.

  Of those who had survived both their father's internal culling and the human's external attempt on their lives, many had long since shut away the bitter memories. Herald couldn't. No more than he could stop recalling how his brother died.

  He unstoppered the waterskin and drank deeply. Blood, half congealed from his trip across the snow-covered valley, slid down his throat in quivering clumps. He shuddered, diligently applying himself to the task of convincing his stomach that it had no cause to reject the solid matter. Blood, no matter its form, shouldn't make him nauseous. Not like when he'd tried flesh or the tough plants the humans referred to as vegetables.

  Movement from the crystal drew his gaze. The angel watched him whilst he fought to push aside the queasiness. She eyed the old goatskin, revulsion plain upon her face. Was that look for the item itself or the contents? The sight of either one could not be new to her. Not after seven centuries of confinement.

  He drew the waterskin opening from his mouth and licked the blood drops from his lips. "What difference does it make if I drink animal blood to survive? Humans consume all sorts of flesh without retribution." And, at times, that consuming was to excess. Like with his siblings in the castle who glutted themselves on as much blood as they could manage.

  "So you compare yourself to humans. You believe you are their equals?"

  "No." He laughed. "I do not kill to eat." Not anymore. Not when there was a bet
ter alternative. "Most of the animals here die of old age." Once that would not have been so. But nowadays, the bleeding process, which had become little different from milking them, did not risk the goat population. Too bad the same could not be said of the sister who'd created the method. Dead five centuries now, beheaded in some senseless raid. How many remembered her?

  "Most," the angel echoed. "But not all?"

  One side of his mouth twitched upwards. "We have to feed our captives something." There wasn't much point in capturing the men and women who became his father's meals if they were then left to starve. And starving people do not produce the best blood. Not as far as he knew, anyway. Herald hadn't ever tasted a single drop. Not that the thought of trying had never surfaced. But it came along with the fear of becoming like his father.

  He glanced up from his musing to see her blue-grey eyes widened in horror.

  Had he spoken aloud? How much had he said? "Although, if the decision was left to me, the valley would only house my father and those of sînge suflet origin." Ștefan had proven in the leaner years that he didn't need to feed on human blood, only loved to. His father's desire for it was the main reason for many of the attacks on the fortress. If they hadn't engaged in quite as many raids, hadn't over-extended their reach, they might have lived more or less peacefully with the humans. Or at least, less violently.

  "Sînge suflet?"

  Herald froze, struggling to keep his face neutral whilst his mind overflowed with a stream of curses. Most of his siblings preferred to have others believe them to be no less strigoi than their father. Not that people bothered to differentiate between the two or ask questions. Both drank blood and that was all they needed to know. Still, he shouldn't have let that slip. Who could she tell? Shut up here, anyone who possessed the means to get so close would already be aware that there were two distinct beings living in the valley. "It is a clan name," he said.