Red As Blood

Chapter Ten

Red as Blood 10

            Aryan shrugged out of his coat, and Mari carefully folded it and put it away. She was his most faithful companion, the most loyal out of all his servants. She was the one that had closed the door as soon as he had made his proposition.

            He saw the look in Sim’s eyes, the frenzied part of her brain that told her it was the logical thing to run. Then there was the even more logical part of her that said she should stay. It was amazing how quickly she regained her composure.

            “It will not be easy,” she admitted. “And you might lose your life in the process.”

            “You?”

            “I would not join hands with you if it meant any risk to me,” Sim told him. Sim knew she sounded horrible, heartless. But she had lived too long and yet was too young to die. She had to survive.

            “I’ve been studying your laws, your history,” she said. “And I overheard why your brother was killed. I think that is the only way to defeat her. Obviously no single vampire is strong enough to overcome her. We will need to involve your entire family in the effort.”

            “You want to create another vampire? Do you even know what that means?”

            “No. I haven’t thought about the specifics yet. I don’t know whether we will have to actually create another vampire, or simply… trick them all.”

            “My parents can see through lies very easily.”

            “Then we shall have to do it for real.”

            “It will not work then. The queen will not willingly create another vampire, at least not now. And I definitely won’t.”

            “The queen willingly won’t. Knowingly won’t. But unwittingly she may do just that. As I understand it, vampire blood is what causes the transformation isn’t it?”

            Aryan nodded. He had thought her a fragile flower of sorts, but the way she thought was far more malicious than he imagined. She was talking about making another beast in order to kill the one that already existed.

            “Yes. But do you realize that the transformation is basically equal to death. The first few days of the transformation, the person is more dead than alive. It’s a horrible thing to wish upon anyone, let alone actually do it,” Aryan explained.

            “I know that if we choose a good person we will cause more good than harm. And the queen will be dead. Why not choose someone who is already dying, give them a chance to live?”

            “That—”

“Is our only option,” Sim said. “I will give you time to consider it.”

*          *          *

            Morgan stirred the white wine in the goblet. All she needed were a few drops of blood from her future husband. Things would be fine after that. Aryan would die, she would be rid of the nuisance of Margennar. The great royal couple of Margennar would hardly bother her after losing their two precious sons both to their own laws.

            A long time she had thought that Aryan had no heart, no weakness. She had thought that Aryan had no weaknesses, had affection for no one. But after his entry to Mirtlemeadow she saw a different side of him. He had quite the thing for the young girl. Perhaps it was her fragility that drew him, the idiocy of her youth that he perceived as innocence.