Aldramodore, the red-eyed monster—the villain who tormented and tortured my family before feasting on us—is but a man. I am sure that he is powerful. His age, and the way he treats the royal family, certainly describe a man that is beyond the scope of my understanding.

But he is still a man.

He can be a monster, and I’m sure that he’ll prove himself that again, especially with what Lysis has done to him for my sake, but that is not all that he is. A man has weaknesses and flaws. Even the cruellest of people can be reasoned with as long as you understand them; when you know what they value and what you can offer them.

I do not know if peace can ever be found between him and I, but war is no solution for me. I must find some means of surviving under his influence and power. No, I must find means to thrive.

But then, there is the greater question that I am forced to face. Who am I?

Just yesterday asking the question would lead me down a dark path of thoughts that would have me consumed by dark and awful thoughts. I would be left criticising myself as a failure of a noble, and a monster who is losing control of all sense, only seeking the pleasures of the hunt.

I wouldn’t be wrong in that conclusion either, but it is incomplete as there is something much more important that I must hold onto.

Who I would become.

It’s something I’ve considered many a time but always from a negative view. I’ve always seen it as a struggle against myself to reach for that future, but today I step forward with a little bounce in my heel, though I know not why.

Somehow, in this night that I cannot remember, my beating heart has returned to me. I can face the cruel truth of my curse, my nature, and my many failings, without simply losing myself in a pit of self-disgust.

All of my terrible failings simply mark where I stand today. It is the start of my new path in life for me, and focusing on that future, lightens my step by a good measure.

If I am a failure of a noble, then what might I do to be something more respectable?

If I am allowing the monster in me too much control, then what must I do to tame myself?

My thoughts drift back to one man.

Lysis.

He was a cruel and terrible sort of man. I am quite certain that even at the moment of his death, all he sought after was to fulfil his selfish want to be remembered fondly. I do not think he genuinely cared if I lived or died, so long as he was remembered as a hero for having sacrificed himself.

Not even once did he show any hint of regret for the pain that he’s caused others, and his apology to me was entirely insincere.

Yet, he still died to protect me.

He was compelled to act selflessly, for a selfish goal. He, after meeting with Merry and his band of religious maniacs, found a way to twist his selfish nature towards kind and good ends.

To think that such a man could give me lessons in morality and tempering one’s own behaviour. Though he is dead, I suspect that for times to come I will be thinking back on his sacrifice, allowing him to live on in my mind just as he wanted. Perhaps there are yet more lessons to be learned from him.

I nod my head to a stranger in passing, who replies much the same. We keep a distance from one another, as all here do, and continue on. It is a simple interaction, but one that is still fresh to me. To be seen as a peer to the common man.

To breathe the air, tainted by ill-natured scents, and walk unguarded through a dangerous road. Everything feels as if I am experiencing it anew and even the less tasteful things are something interesting that I would otherwise have ignored.

I ignore much too much.

For some reason that I cannot comprehend, I no longer feel dread when considering the future. I will one day find my knight; my one true love. I have all of time before me after all.

I will find someone who will love me for all that I am, but I would not want them to discover me as I am today. If you are to meet your paramour, is it not best to wear your best dress, and have the time to properly prepare your hair? One must show the best of themselves, and I am not my best today.

I will show my knight a brilliant young lady on the day that we meet.

So, I must grow to be the person that I wish to be.

I tread slowly through the clamorous city, not as busy as it has been—as it should be—walking back to my estate. Those around me look upon me with suspicion, well deserved considering what has occurred within this city.

These people are not deserving of what is happening to them, they have either been born here or come here in hope of finding a better life for themselves. Each and every one has the potential to bring something grand to our society, and yet they are wasted and left to rot as if waste themselves, all because of cruel mismanagement.

I must correct this, but I cannot do so here. My power is limited, and the most I can hope to achieve under the power of Aldramodore is to act as another executioner as Pharisa has done before me. I cannot help these people so long as they remain here, where others hold power over us all.

Such is why we all seek to escape.

In the distance, and all around, I can hear the panicked packing of the common class seeking to leave with as much as they dare to pack. With a population of this size rushing across the land, the consequences will be terrible for all.

It will be as a plague, starving out the small towns nearest to us, and only spreading from there. Yet, I can think of nothing that can be done to stop it now. The coward in me would have us rushing ahead of the tide, but it is much too late for that. The lady in me, the young and naïve noblewoman wants to help them.

I do not have the money to pay merchants to bring food to the starving refugees. I have no influence or ability to force my way, thus my first true task is to find some means that I’ve overlooked. I lack power, but worse still, I lack the wisdom to properly use the little power that I have.

I will need to discuss this with others who are wiser than I, then I might straighten out my goals and see to it that we do not simply flee this city but stride out of it with pride.

I breathe in the scent of morning bread, letting it settle through me. A human thing that I no longer need to do, but then even the monster that is my sire still acts human for his own reasons. Perhaps, I do not need to pretend.

While my stroll through the city has been productive in finding a mindset that will see me to my goals, I’m broken from it as I near my estate.

It is quiet.

Home is never a particularly loud place, but this day it is quiet enough to suggest that only ghosts remain in the halls. I find my dagger which I’ve strapped to my leg, steady myself, and prepare for battle.

My estate isn’t ruined by signs of battle, but there remain some few troubling changes. The guards are missing from the gates, and the house is nearly perfectly silent and still. I cannot smell blood in the air, but I’m not convinced that they’ve all fled. It would be good if they had, but I do not believe that we are so fortunate.

I hurry my step into what I know is a trap, listening more closely than ever before. I cannot hear any ongoing battle, and with a cold heart I take in the sights of burning grass. They have fought back. Whatever, or whoever, has defiled my home and harmed my people will suffer for it.

Marching through the front doors of the house, I pause in the foyer, unable to understand the sight before me. My staff lie against the wall, not dead, though their breathing is weak, there is not a mark on them from what I can see of them.

“Aldramodore,” I say his name, facing the monster that stands before me, as he looks down over Riese, the leader of the freed slaves, and missus Arneut, my head maid, both of whom remain conscious, answering his questions with their eyes aglow with his magic.

“You would dare defile my house a second time?” I ask drawing upon the cold magic that I’ve let rest in my morning stroll. I meet his glowing gaze and I sheathe my dagger; this is not a threat that I can oppose with force.

“Defiled?” he asks, smiling in amusement and shaking his head. He truly does not see what it is that he does.

“I ask that you leave and return tomorrow after I’ve had time to repair the damage that you have done here,” I say, levelling my gaze at him, trying not to shiver as his glowing eyes nearly steal me back to that night of my death.

“Christina-” he starts but I cut him off.

“You are concerned for your children,” I say, stepping closer. “Have I not already proven to you that I am made sick by your presence? Have I not proven to you that your words are a poison that invite my death? If I must cross words with you again, then let it be in a day, when my staff have recovered enough to serve us tea. Perhaps I will have found a means of surviving your presence without wishing for my own death.

“Or, you can stay, and I will forever curse you, seeking your death and my own with the eternity that you’ve gifted me,” I say, forcing my lungs to still. Though I need no air to stay conscious, I have a dangerous want to breathe faster.

Panic.

I am in a panic. An emotion that I would have denied as mere imitation just yesterday.

I do not think that I hide it as well as I intend to, and Aldramodore offers me a moment of sympathy.

I quietly wretch.

Sympathy from his glowing red eye, his bloodied face, and dripping fangs. A blend of corrupted and twisted emotions flood through me, most of which I cannot hope to comprehend.

His face should be that of a villain, but he wears it as if a father worried for his daughter. I would claw that expression from his face if I could get away with it. I would tear him apart, and let him see all he loves be destroyed before his very eyes.

“There is just one thing that I must ask,” he says, his voice filled with power as he takes his cloak and covers his shoulders.

“Then speak it and be away.”

“Do you know of a necromancer alive today?” He asks, his voice cutting through to my core. “Have you heard any rumours even?”

My heart pounds painfully in my chest, splinters of ice cutting through it. Yet there is warmth inside, something that cannot fight against my sire, but it does not need to. It offers me comfort in the terrible storm that he forces over me.

“No,” the word is pried from me, I do not even have the dignity to answer for myself.

“Very well, I will send someone to take care of you,” he says. “Perhaps I can do things differently this time. You will still serve me, but you are too weak and ignorant as yet. Learn and grow, little one. You will in time become worthy of the immortality that I have gifted you.”

He leaves, and as the door closes, I lose the strength to stand. I hit the ground hard, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it should.

Aldramodore doesn’t pause though I know he can still hear me.

Tears are dripping down my cheeks as I remember what this house was like the last time he visited, but the manic laughter I hear from myself is something different.

I am truly glad to feel this pain and terror. To know that it is mine, and not reject it as some lie. I am still who I was, and accepting that, I can make myself something more.

Today, I am suffering, and in pain. Tomorrow I will be a step closer to my goal.

Aldramodore.

My monster, my villain. He is a man that I can deal with, with words and schemes if not violence. I can plan a future for myself.

I am Christina Greystone.

I am a vampire.

I am a noble.

What might I become tomorrow?