Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
I’m sitting at the top of the stairs, my thoughts wandering to what might lurk on the lower floors of the castle. The problem with investigating is light. I could barely see when I went to the next lower level, the one with the husks. I swallow hard at the thought of them. Would they come after me if I went deeper along the staircase? Or could there be more of them below?
It’s an exercise in futility. I realize that. But I can’t just sit in my room any longer. I’m slowly going insane and find myself counting cracks in the stone ceiling and walls. I have to get out, even if ‘out’ means somewhere else in this dark cave.
I’ve yet to find whoever is leaving the meals outside my door. It would be nice to know, if only so that I didn’t feel so completely alone. I’d also like a chance to go outside again, but I suppose after my last escape attempt, Valen isn’t too keen on letting me out into the world. I groan at the thought of never seeing sunlight again.
I’m stuck in here. So here is where I have to focus my efforts. One thing in particular has been itching at my mind—how did all the vampires get to the ball? I didn’t have a chance to pay too much attention, but I doubt they arrived through the decrepit garden. It doesn’t seem fancy enough. Trudging through mud and weeds in their fine clothes? No way. So they had to have gotten here through some other means, and if they can get in, maybe I can get out.
I head down to the Green Flame landing, my ears pricked up for any sound. I don’t want to run into Valen during my snooping, but I have the feeling he isn’t here. He’s gone most of the time, out committing genocide in the name of his father. I shake my head at myself—why the hell would I even think about treating him? Even if it meant I’d get a chance to see how the vampires tick, it’s not worth it. Maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome or simply a trauma bond. Or maybe I’m just lonely and pathetic.
The halls are silent down here, the rooms in their usual state—unoccupied and untouched. I hurry past the interrogation room and move deeper through the connecting rooms. I’ve been this way before, searching for the castle’s secrets. This time I move even slower, my body on high alert as I approach the doors that lead to the library. No voices this time, no hint of anyone inside.
Pushing the door slowly ajar, I peek inside. Nothing moves. No one’s here as far as I can tell. Still, I stay as quiet as I can, practically tiptoeing past the sitting area where Valen met with Coal. Beyond the fireplace, there are some glass cases filled with artifacts. I don’t know what they are, not specifically. One has a jeweled cup, another some sort of cross made of ruby and silver.
A table sits farther back, the top of it littered with books and scrolls. A single lamp burns beside a well-worn side chair, a book open on the arm. I ease closer to it, looking around for almost a minute before I dare to pick it up.
It’s heavy, the pages thick and the binding wide. There’s an illustration in gold on the front of a dragon, a snake, and a crow. I don’t recognize the language, and as I flip through the pages, I find notes scrawled in the margins. Most of them are in a foreign language, though here and there I can make out a word or two in English.
I sit and lay the book in my lap, turning the pages and inspecting the illustrations within. The first one is of a tree, a single fruit hanging from it. On the branch of the tree sits a black crow, on the ground beneath it slithers a green snake, and in the clouds above flies a crimson dragon. It’s almost like the Garden of Eden story, though I don’t recall any mention of a dragon in that one. I turn page after page, finding notes of “blood bond” and “compulsion” here and there with underlined sections.
This one book seems to contain a wealth of information, maybe a way for me to understand the vampires, a way to fight them. If only I could read it. I keep looking until I come to a page with the most margin writing. The image on the opposite page is of a child, a vampire child based on the look of it. She’s holding hands with what must be her mother, a beautiful vampire with a snake draped on her shoulder. Blood runs from where their hands are joined. “Blood bond” is written beside it.