Sulis stood before the wizened old woman, turning over the facts. It was all very generous toward her. Free the people of Gronsburg, return her castle to functionality. Call the tribes to the senate in Scotland at her will. And give Ansa the choice of who she served. And all it would cost would be gifting powerful objects to a sinister spirit. Oh, and imposing the supernatural world on Lucy once again. The sireless folded her arms, deep thought overtaking her expression. The Lady could cajole and manipulate all she wanted but she wasn’t a child. She wasn’t about to damn the world for her own comfort. If that was indeed the crone’s plan.

“What does the ring do? I’m not having Lucy come to any more harm” Sulis warned with a finger pointed squarely at the shorter woman’s nose. It looked so absurd. A muscular woman taller than most men terrified of a stoop-backed old dear. Most people would be terrified of her, the sireless supposed. She’d left more than enough ruined lives in her wake.

“The ring shall hide her from the influence and servants of the black goat,” the Lady answered with a displeased expression. Sulis’ frown deepened before looking expectantly at her ethereal merchant. “Their meeting would be calamitous. Like your beloved Ansa, the black coat would become spiritual enabler to her basest instincts,” she appended, her discomfort growing. She was unlikely to elaborate by the vampire’s estimation.

“Tallas’ vision stops around the 80s while you seem to know what will happen next,” she commented suspiciously. Sure, there were orders of magnitude in power between the two entities. But influence with the beyond didn’t translate to a lack of foresight. “You wouldn’t happen to be lying again, would you?”

“Mortals lie. I have no need,” the Lady hissed. Sulis didn’t believe that for a second but allowed her to continue. She was curious. “I do not foretell of these events. I have predicted them. Much like Tallas, I know everyone that comes before me. Much like Tallas, I am continuously bored.”

“Well, we’re truly sorry we can’t be better entertainment,” Sulis replied with a condescending smile. With all the facts known there was only one conclusion. She had to protect Lucy, Ansa and all the good souls she could from the Lady’s malign influence. “I will bless this spear” she conceded as she removed her flint knife. Her prized possession, so steeped in her craft not even the edge would erode. “But you must promise me you nor your servants won’t hurt a single vampire. My people have seen enough horror.”

Ignoring the Lady’s accusatory voice, she set the flint to flesh and parted it with a small wince. Taking the spear from the ancient prosecutor, she felt her arm practically seize with its strength. It was like trying to hold back lightning from striking. Just before she pressed her palm to the spear’s blade, her eyes flicked to the Lady. She stood with a transfixed expression, abject worry seeping into her gaze. Noticing Sulis’ pause, she reluctantly gave her consent to sparing vampires. With her condition met, the sireless dripped the most cursed substance in witchcraft onto the spear.

The weapon’s reaction was immediate, lashing out like a starving animal as it drank the blood using grooves as its gullet. The looping knots became filled with a red metal darker than bronze. Out of curiosity, Sulis looked into the spells that bound the spear. She saw craft designed to bind the wielder, protect them from harm. It had been infused with the poison Ansa brewed, secreting it whenever the true wielder used it. To the sireless, it felt like a true Excalibur or Gae Bulg. Something to be wielded by kings and queens, great warriors.

“What is th…” she asked before realising where she was. Her surroundings and spear had vanished, replaced by a dreary mist-ridden expanse of forest. A forest that held no trees or flowers she’d encountered before. A few even glowed in the dim nocturnal light. The sky above her was a dim patchwork of stars that made no sense, galaxies cut off by seams of other stars.

Panic began to rise in Sulis’ throat as she sniffed the air experimentally. Her nostrils filled with loam, small animals and pollen. Only a solitary human’s scent sullied the amethyst leaves about her. She ran her fingers over the red bark of the trees, narrowing her eyes. Tentatively, she expanded her senses only to be bombarded by power from the beyond. She reeled in place, coming to the conclusion she was probably in the spirit world. So, this was the Lady’s idea of helping her find herself. Throw her into dreamscapes and damnations.

Sulis wandered, following the scent of the human for someone to talk to if nothing else. Experimentally, she flexed her fingers to let her claws manifest. With a twinge of sadness, she watched as they sprung free of her fingertips with the familiar tug of pain. Her tattoos remained, reminding her of her position as the ancient mad priestess.

She found a small cliff, likely forged by an earthquake some years past. The moss was still young, the stone too sharp under her hands. She shrugged off her coat, tearing a few strips to make climbing grips. Arms bare and soaking in the rain misting down about her, she hauled herself up the almost sheer face. With a sudden dread, her fingers grazed a bird’s nest. Long since abandoned and bereft of eggs. She half expected birds to attack her but after a momentary pause, none did. She continued her journey to the top of the cliff, unease beginning to build in place of panic. If the Lady wished it, she could be stuck in the spirit world forever. Repeating the same loop. What an ironic end to the Draugr Queen.

As her clawed fingers bit into the soft purple grass at the top, she realised where the birds had gone. They were lying there, strewn all about the entrance to a barrow. A dreadfully familiar barrow. Perhaps that was where Tallas had gone. Walking with bravery she didn’t feel, the sireless ducked her head and began to crouch-walk along the passage. Unlike her time here as a human, the skeletal bodies in the alcoves propped themselves up on their elbows or reached out with bony fingers. Their whispering was accusatory, demanding that she continue their legacy. Sulis dismissed them with curt batting of her fingers, a disgusted expression on her features. But confusion was there, she knew it. Who were they? And who was she to them?

It was only when she entered the main chamber that she began to understand. A young dark-haired girl sat on the same stone she’d occupied all those millennia ago. Before her, rather than the ancient alter, sat desecrated bones. The yawning jaws hosted no teeth, the stretched-out hands missing the upper phalanges. Her empty sockets bore the savage marks of flint tools. The bones had been blackened by fire, securing Sulis’ deduction. The remains of Tallas’ mortal life, the suffering of her final hours plain as day.

“Hello!” the child greeted her in an enthusiastic voice. She’d turned to face Sulis, brilliant blue eyes shining in the dimly lit room. It was only when the sireless noted the missing front teeth that she put it together. “I’m making a crown! See?!” she added enthusiastically, holding it up to the grown woman. It had been constructed with wire and Tallas’ fingerbones, the feathers of the birds outside providing flair. Swallowing her discomfort, Sulis smiled in return and told her it was very pretty. Her younger self, barely eight, beamed at the compliment before returning to her grisly work. She remembered meeting an old woman at that age. An old woman who showed her a seed before making it bloom in the palm of her hand. Young Sulis’ first introduction to witchcraft.

Her bones froze over as she heard a familiar call, one she’d heard many times. The sweet voice of her mother, calling her for food. Her younger self looked to the wall it had come from, pouting before handing Sulis the crown with a sullen look.

“You keep it,” the child said earnestly. “It’ll keep you safe.”

“No, I don’t think it’s ever done that,” Sulis laughed sadly, her fingers intertwined over the bones that made up the circlet. “I’ll look after it though. For when you get back.”

Her younger self looked at her with a concerned expression, narrowing her eyes before running off through the solid wall to her left. Sulis watched her go with mixed emotions, a taste of nostalgia flitting across her mind. The days when she was considered gifted, spearing fish with her father like any girl her age. Then nature had done its damage and called her toward a woman whose hand stretched from the spirit world.

“Put it on,” the voice of Ansa commanded from behind her.

Sulis whipped around, the barrow melting away. Wooden spars grew from the ground, canvas unfurling from them like growing leaves. Woolen blankets dropped onto the rush mats that kept them dry, pillows of duck feathers rising beneath the reclined form of her ex. She wore her tribe’s traditional woollen garments, knitted with intricate patterns and wooden beads. Her dark hair had been hung with the charms that bound her familiars, falling in long braids over her shoulders. The vampire’s sharp nose caught the scent of Ansa’s blood and saw her forearms were hewn open; the bloodied flint held loosely in her hand. The night she’d awakened her.

“Wasn’t my loving you enough?” Sulis sighed. She placed the crown on the ground, righting herself before pain exploded across her right cheek. The ancient witch had crossed the yurt in a second, sending Sulis to the ground with a forceful punch.

“What? No sarcastic comments about how cliché and played out this trope is?” Ansa taunted with a cruel grin. She grabbed her fellow vampire by the hides she somehow wore now and leered inches from her face. “You can lie like the best of them. But not here. We both know what you’re like. We both know what you said in here.”

Sulis’ eyes widened briefly before a deep shame overcame them. She averted her gaze, trying to reason her way from the only conclusion. But reason had nothing to do with it. Her fingers curled in defiance of the accusation, slinging a fist at her ex with a fanged grimace. Even from her lowered position, the sireless had always been the better fighter and Ansa was staggered, releasing her.

“We both know you’re not real,” the sireless retorted bitterly. She whipped the flint knife from her belt and held it at the ready, prepared to open the shade from tip to tail if she had to. “The Lady just put me to sleep, animated my worst accuser. You’re no more Ansa than I am.”

The shade scoffed at her summation, shaking her head. Then came another blow, driving Sulis from the yurt with a brief flight and spasming stomach. Heaving against her winded body, she rolled to her feet and felt the warmth on the back of her neck. At risk of taking another rib-cracker, she took in her surroundings.

A forest on fire. All about her, the trunks had grown blackened branches sporting leaves of flames. Rubble and charred bodies littered the clearing they were inhabiting. What remained of a tribe dedicated to the Sky Father. Sulis chuckled, an almost cynical grin taking over her features. As Ansa walked towards her, the sireless readied her knife.

“This her plan, is it? Guilt me into bowing my head?” Sulis demanded with a cavalier tone. “These people treated their women like broodmares, their children like possessions. They treated men as workhorses while the chiefs grew fat off their labour. Why would I regret snuffing out a tribe like that?” she questioned with an incredulous expression.

“If that’s how you see it, why’d you stop?” Ansa heckled. “Better yet, why did you let it spread?” she pondered facetiously. Not that the sireless was impressed. She’d avoided asking why she’d killed so many precisely because she hadn’t. The women and men who could be saved were. Their children spared without exception. The tribe died but the people survived. Which was ultimately why she stopped.

“What’s the point of all this?” Sulis sighed with a roll of her eyes. “I’ve already been down memory lane. Seen what an awful person I was. But I’m different now.”

“Are you?” Ansa challenged with her arms folded. She walked closer then, her former love holding the knife to strike. But Ansa took no notice, slipping beneath her guard with a simple motion. Her hand came up to rest on the taller woman’s, dainty smirk teasing her lips into a curve. “You’re sick of being condemned for it. Tired of being held liable for things others did. But that cruelty you visited on their superstition? Let’s not pretend we didn’t enjoy it. If Agata didn’t have such pretty eyes you’d have drank her dry a year ago,” the woman teased. Sulis felt a flush come over her cheeks as she heard Ansa’s flirtatious tone. One she remembered well. Her wits were a little addled by it, tongue stalling as she tried to find some argument.

“It was like trying to kill ants with axeblades” Sulis observed ruefully, arms enfolding her former love. Real or not, she was a comfort. Even centuries after they’d ended, the most brilliant witch she’d ever known had been something of a confessional for her. “They were determined to do it, so I shrank my aspirations. You didn’t like that,” she added with a recalcitrant laugh.

She felt herself falling then. Like an anxiety dream it was over before she’d fully registered anything beyond that sensation. Ansa was gone, replaced by the sedate waters of the Nile and the grand stone home of Iset’s family. Sulis found her hand in a bowl of dates, staring at them before laying them aside. The women Kha had provided were too scared to let her bite, she remembered that much. So there she sat, brooding in a corner like some rogue while the party raged around her.

Eventually, Hetepheres came over with a pretty Nubian woman at her side. The older woman had been trying to ingratiate herself for a while now. She introduced her friend as Auset, bringing a smile to Sulis’ features. Her memories had enhanced that first meeting, giving her eldest wife an almost ethereal beauty. They sat together, the rogue still in her Daughter of Ashes persona at this time.

“I don’t want your blood,” Auset corrected once Sulis had been honest. How people used her as a ticket to immortality or as a butcher for hire. “I want to know what it’s like in the cold lands. Is it true the sun never shines?”

“It might if you were there” Sulis answered, just as she had centuries ago. A corny line, one that made them both giggle at how saccharine it was. “I probably shouldn’t be flirting. Ansa will like you. She likes the clever ones.”

“More of your people? Yes!” the wig-sporting woman agreed breathlessly. “You’re all so old. I bet you have the best stories,” she smiled as she imagined the wonders and sights of the north. Then her expression dropped somewhat. “But you’re all dangerous. Especially to our enemies. Promise I’ll be safe?”

“Ansa and I will protect you,” Sulis assured her. “You’re far too smart to be scared of those animals.”

Once more, the world shifted. Marble columns sprung from the sand like rapidly growing trees, unfurling their canopies to create the great arches of Rome. The smell of humanity, their hustle and bustle could be heard outside the house of some patrician. Auset and Dominika were arguing. She didn’t remember what it was about at the time. Likely something to do with Egyptian and Macedonian vampires. Her eyes had fallen on a blonde woman toying with her hair while she watched proceedings from the doorway. Livia of the Julii. A vision of loveliness that had wrapped her parents about her little finger, promising to select a husband worthy of her. An arrangement that had been in place for a decade at this point, Sulis remembered with a proud grin. Her wily little politician, her testudo. The woman she’d impressed with a little magic on Saturnalia.

She reassured Auset that the Romans would give preferential treatment after Ptolemy’s nonsense. Then she got to her feet, dusting off her dress. Livia’s attitude to prospective husbands had always been grim. Her bar for romance had been buried in Tartarus and a woman had stepped over it. After their usual small talk, the blonde asked the question that had led to her becoming a vampire.

“Why do they respect you?” she asked, arms folded with a scornful look at the senators taking lunch with her father. “They waste our money on failing fleets while allowing you to heckle them.”

“To them I’m not a woman,” Sulis replied, remembering her response well. Even the scent of Livia’s perfume was right. The paintings on the wall just as vivid. “I’m a monster wearing the shape of one. They listen to me because they’re scared of me,” she grinned, displaying her fangs to prove her point.

“I’m not scared of you” Livia asserted with a mischievous gleam. “Or your wives, for that matter,” she added with a licentious grin at the quarrelling pair. A chuckle escaped the tattooed barbarian, ruffling her testudo’s hair irritatingly. “I’ll see you tonight. You can mess up my hair properly then,” the Julii instructed with a kiss to her cheek. At first it had just been fascination. Then infatuation. By the second Punic War, Livia had transformed from fresh noble vampire to beloved consort. And she wasted no time in plying those political connections and the newfound respect her fangs bought her. In that moment, Sulis felt a glow of pride at her wives and the dizzying heights they’d risen to. More than just the brides of a butcher.

There was an almost contemptuous shift of the dream then. The whole world lurched over like a breaching whale, Sulis falling backwards into a richly upholstered wooden chair. She looked about in confusion for a moment, noting the playing cards and baroque table before her. To her left, rain lashed at a window with expansive well-manicured gardens beyond. Her guests had retired to the ballroom while an unfinished letter had appeared in her hand. One written to Sam. He used a different name at the time, but his pleas for peace and reconciliation were very on brand. If only she could control them again, assert her will. With a sigh, she took up the quill once more and began writing. She leant over the parchment, writing words she now knew Sam wouldn’t heed. To explain to him their savagery, their lust for riches and luxury.

Sigrun cleared her throat, fingers interlocked behind her back in militaristic pose. She wore a fine officer’s uniform, given to her by Monmouthshire and his fellow ‘marshals’. Sulis looked over, smiling sadly at her. She wore a sabre at her hip, hair tied in a tight bun as she seemed to wait for her orders. The sireless looked down, noting a dressing gown and unkempt black hair. She even wore a nightgown, bare feet kicking thoughtfully at her table’s sturdy legs.

“I don’t know what she wants me to do, Siggy,” Sulis said in a small voice. She hid her expression with her palm, leaning back. “Secure what French vampires we can. Let the humans have their blood sport.” Her orders were noncommittal, given a lofty voice to make it seem beneath her notice. As always, the colonies commanded her full attention. The revolution had scuppered a great many vampiric designs. Even Sam and his tribes were lost on who to support. He’d probably see her support of the British colony as self-serving. But she’d known then as she did now exactly what humans unchecked would wreak.

“This is a chance to take our place in the world!” Sigrun tried to reason. On behalf of Ansa, most likely. They operated in lockstep in those days. “Say the word and our people in Paris shall take our nation! A place where we might walk without fear of discovery!”

Sulis stood then, pantomiming what she’d done in the past. She walked with a dreadful stare towards her protégé, back hunched with the weight of her burdens. She looked briefly to the doorway, her ears picking up the footsteps of one of her wives. Only they were allowed into her apartments without permission.

“Mark me well, Sigrun,” she began with the invocation of the ice-eyed vampire’s full name. “If we rise in the wake of such senseless pain, they will forever associate us with it. They will flee into the arms of the Sky Father and carry his name on their tongues as they butcher us to the final seven.”

“Do you have so little faith in our people?” the warrior questioned with disbelief. “With sufficient fear, they will bend the knee. When did you lose your will to fight?”

Sulis felt her hand snap up to Sigrun’s throat, as it had done then, and toss the woman with a thud against the wall. She loomed over the retching Viking, eyes black as the space between stars. She stood with momentary anger, mind searching for a way to spin that as Livia would have.

“Conserve your forces and materiel for battles that need fighting,” Sulis seethed before righting herself with folded arms. “Your inability to hold back is concerning, Siggy. I’m disappointed” she surmised with a shake of her head. She’d even coloured her voice as if she were a scolding parent.

Dominika had appeared at the door then, asking the two women if they would like to join her in watching the boxing downstairs. Sulis looked to her solitaire game then to Sigrun, who rubbed her throat. Their eyes met with an understanding before the soldier righted herself and bid Sulis change before she presented herself before the clan chiefs. Sulis snorted at the very notion.

“They can call me a queen if they want but I’m not playing the game,” she admonished before kissing her wife with a grin. Her sullen mood melted away as the younger vampire presented her arm. Dominika had always looked good in men’s clothes, particularly with a ruffled shirt. “A chiefess doesn’t care what her rabble thinks,” she asserted over her shoulder to Sigrun. The blonde smirked as if they shared a secret, nodding approvingly.

“A chiefess also gives all her work to her wives,” Dominika teased with a pinch of her wife’s stomach. “My bride only seems to enjoy talking to anyone so long as it arrives in letter form.”

The dream shifted a final time then, Sulis falling between the tiles of her home in Scotland and into the darkness beneath. A vast empty expanse that strained her eyes with any inkling of light. Then, the Lady appeared in her true form. She towered over Sulis, head crowned with ram horns engraved in looping knots. Her therapod-like feet shifted as her flowing purple robes rustled over her clawed hand. Within her grasp, she held a great golden crown which she flung to Sulis’ feet.

“Put it on,” she said once again. Her featureless blue eyes were cold, dark lips parted in a fanged smile. The sireless’ eyes flicked to the barbed tail whipping behind her like an agitated cat and shook her head.

“I’m no queen” she asserted. “Doesn’t matter who crowns me. Who needs me to be,” Sulis considered with a saddened expression. “You were surprisingly helpful. I think I’m ready to go back.” She dipped a hand into her pocket, impossibly pulling Tallas’ shackles from it. She offered them to the towering monster. “Here, your payment.”

The Lady took the shackles with a strange expression, somewhere between fear and vindication. A woman who’d secured a weapon she hoped never to use. She then uncurled her fingers, offering the ring to Sulis who took it without complaint. Then, the horned harridan that had been the doom of nations turned and walked into the shadows, leaving the sireless to fall into something resembling sleep.

Eventually she felt herself beneath thick quilts, cracking her eye open for fear of what she’d see next. What greeted her was a modern-seeming room, painted white with closets built into the walls. A TV had been set up opposite the large Victorian bed she occupied, towering windows leaking moonlight around their thick curtains. She looked to see herself in plaid pyjamas, the kind she often saw Livia wearing in her profile pictures. She seemed more relatable, apparently.

“I think you fucked up, Lady!” Sulis called as she looked to the bare roof spars above her. They hung with wicker charms and protections. A few decades old by their wear. “I’d like to wake up now!”

“I think you’re already ‘wake, cher,” the familiar voice of Eddie spoke from the doorway. He leant against the doorframe, arms crossed in a worn T-shirt and pyjama bottoms. “Gonna make my life interestin’?” he grinned.