Into the Fire

Yeah, well, I didn’t feel like doing one of your over-the-top slices, I replied, once again pretending that I’d known all this beforehand.

You take a big risk contacting me, Mircea said, scowling at me from the darkness. Do you want them to kill us?

Them. There was our confirmation that more than one sorcerer held Mircea captive. Why would they care? I asked, then answered my own question. They don’t know we can communicate telepathically this way, do they?

Why would they? Mircea said. No one has ever survived the initial effects of this spell before, and since you’re logged into my mind, I have something to show you. You might be able to psychically relive memories through touch, but I can do so by will alone. Now, Leila, look upon who really brought us both to our current, sorry conditions.

Mircea touched his temple, and I fell forward again, the cave around me dissolving into the black-and-white images of a past memory. I dissolved, too, and became someone else.

I danced ahead of my mother, ignoring her repeated urgings for me to slow down. Father was finally home! I couldn’t wait to tell him I had learned to read and write in two languages, and I had also learned how to do courtly duties, but I hated those things. Father hated them, too, Mother had said. We were so alike. I danced again before sprinting ahead. There was Father now, climbing off his horse in the courtyard!

“Mircea,” Mother yelled. “Return to me at once!”

I continued to race ahead. My older brothers were away, so this time, I would have all Father’s attention for myself. Father’s men gathered around him to welcome him home. They had missed him, too, but not as much as me. I burst through the crowd, tugging the back of his shirt and laughing when he turned around. “Father!” I said, throwing my arms around him.

He pushed me back. His hands were rough and scarred, but I didn’t mind. One day, I would be a great warrior like he was and have rough, scarred hands, too.

“Mircea, what are you doing here?” he said. Then he straightened and looked past the crowd. “Ilona! Get your son.”

“Father, wait,” I said, fighting as one of Father’s men began pulling me away. “I have to tell you—”

“Not now,” Father said, turning away. “Ilona, take him.”

“Father, wait!” I cried again.

He didn’t turn around, and I was pulled backward until Mother caught up with us. She sighed as she bent down and wiped the tears from my cheeks that I hoped Father hadn’t seen.

“Why won’t he speak to me?” I asked, fighting a sob.

“Mircea,” she said in a soft voice. “Your father is the prince, and he has many duties. He will see you later.”

I turned away, ducking so my hair hid my face. “You said that last time, but then he left.”

She sighed again. “There was a battle. You know this.”

“There is always a battle,” I cried. “He would rather be at war than spend any time with me!”

Mother tried to smooth back my hair, but I jerked away. What had I done to make him hate me so much?

I fell back into the cave with tears from Mircea’s memory still streaming down my cheeks. The memory continued to cling to me, filling me with an ache that was as poignant as it was familiar. I knew how much it hurt to be rejected by your own father, and that’s what Mircea had believed Vlad to be.

I can show you dozens more memories like that, Mircea said, a weary bitterness tingeing his tone. Would you like to see the one where I waited every day for a year in the hopes that Vlad would visit what he thought was my grave so I could tell him I was really alive? Yet he never came. He didn’t care enough to.

Mircea wasn’t trustworthy, but psychic memories didn’t lie, and neither did the feelings they transmitted.

After he made me a vampire, Szilagyi told me I wasn’t Vlad’s real son, Mircea went on. But I spent my entire boyhood believing that I was, and I exhausted myself trying to excel at every task in the hope that Vlad would notice me. When he didn’t, I blamed myself. He loved his firstborn son, so I believed his aversion to me had to be my fault.

It wasn’t, and Vlad was a dick for treating you like that, I said, and meant it. But it doesn’t give you an excuse for everything you’ve done since then, I continued. For starters, you tried to murder me before we even met. You’re quick to judge Vlad, but what kind of person does that make you?

My father’s son! he flung back at me. I spent my first twenty years as Vlad Dracul’s son, so I am a ruthless warmonger just as he is. Then Mihaly Szilagyi changed me and I became his son for the next five centuries, so I am on a never-ending quest for vengeance against Vlad just as he was. Finally, the blood of Radu Dracul runs through my veins, so I am insanely jealous of Vlad just as Radu was. Am I not all of my fathers’ sons? he finished, the bitterness in his voice turning to despair. Did I ever have any hope of being anything different?

I sighed. Yes, Mircea could have fought to be a better man since other people had been born into as much tragedy or worse. Still, the odds had indeed been against him, and while it didn’t excuse what he’d done, I finally understood why he’d done it.

It was so much easier when I believed Vlad was incapable of love after he became a vampire, Mircea went on, sounding wistful now. Szilagyi would prattle on about how he’d make Vlad pay, and I’d nod and play along, but I never helped him in any serious way. I’d mostly forgiven Vlad, you see, because how can you hate someone for not loving you when that person is too dead inside to love anyone? ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">