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My footsteps echoed in the expansive space of the throne room. The noon-day light outside was just enough to light up the tapestries which blocked the windows in thread barricades that turned harsh noon-day sun to dim dusk. The red thread of each illustration showed my homeland’s history of bloodshed and devouring. I never wanted to return here, to these shadowed halls.
“What are you doing here?” Mother stood on the dais, between the ruby and gold thrones. Her lilac and crimson silk fluttered around her like a mist. Time hasn’t touched her skin, not a wrinkle from stress of laugher, nor a grey hair among her auburn locks. Not one blemish. Her eyes have hardened from grassy green to harsh emerald. She looked at me like she’d just stepped in a horse’s leavings.
“I heard of father’s fall and it seemed time to come home.” I stopped at the base of the Dias. Father had died like most vampires these days: to technology they didn’t understand. Once vampire hunters had relied on lore and wit, now they had technology that could slay a vampire with ease. The result was the same, six hundred years of stolen life demanding compensation and turning an ancient body to dust. A part of me wishes I’d been there. An even smaller part of me wishes I’d done it. And a tiny part of me is glad I didn’t.
“The exile, disowned heir.” Her voice is acid etched and burns my heart. This isn’t the woman I know. “Do you think to ascend now?”
“I aim to destroy it. The world is so much more than our little fiefdom.” I pulled the drone from my pocket. Folded up like this, it was the size of an egg. “Marvels beyond what this dynasty has limited us to.”
She laughed, a harsh noise that echoed far too long. “We’re eternal boy. You rejected our offer and now you think you can take it.”
“I never wanted it. Humans are not supposed to live hundreds of years. Can you not feel how it’s changed you?” This wasn’t the woman who raised me. Who held me when I was afraid of the dark. Who sang lullabies to soothe a lonely boy. “Please, Mother, help me end the blood dynasty peacefully.”
Mother scowled turning more monster as her fangs protruded past her lips. “You think you could free them? That you alone are capable of ending this dynasty?”
I had seen the wider world, seen wars and apathy, technology and transformation. Cars and computers, while my homeland had nothing more advanced than a hand loom. They were cattle for the upper class, who sucked them dry in every sense of the word. “If we work together, we can bring them into an age of prosperity.”
“You’re a fool if you think I would allow this.”
I sighed. She wasn’t wrong. I was a fool, and before this day was done I would likely be a dead fool. I’d made my peace with that. “I offer a chance for change so you can be more than a footnote of history.”
“Is that a threat?” Her hand tensed, cruel talons extended from her fingers. “You are no match for me.”
“I don’t need to be.” I pressed the top of the drone, and its wings extended. The problem with vampires was they fell behind. That was worse here, where electricity was only seen in lighting storms. With a buzz like a giant mosquito, it rose.
She watched the drone with contempt. “You think that will scare me?”
“Mother, please, just stand aside. Let the land change.” A single button and she’d be gone. More gone than she already was.
She leapt at me, claws eager, fangs thirsty. I pressed the button; it felt stiff as oak. The brilliant golden light flooded the room with holy radiance. Even with my closed eyes, it was blinding. She didn’t even scream. Her bones smashed me to the floor. Dust, her dust, her remains choked me. The coughs became sobs. My immortal parents both dead and dust.
“I told you she wouldn’t budge.” Diana says through my earpiece. “I’m sorry to be right, Harker.”
“I know.” I took the red rose signet ring from mother’s skeletal finger. “I had to hope. I had to try.”
“We can get into the really hard work now.”
“I know. Now I’m the last.” I expected to feel more. It’s just numb. Like I’m a world away.
A pair of guards comes from the hall. Fools promised a chance of ascension for loyal service. “Are you the king now?”
“I suppose I am.” The ring is heavier than it has any right to be. Just a ring of iron. “And I will be the last.”
“Will you wear the ring then, sire?”
“I suppose I must.” I slip the ring on. Perhaps the first time it’s been around a living digit. Pain surged from my finger. Up my hand. Heart clenches.
“Harker, what’s wrong? Your vitals just went haywire.”
I yanked the ring off, twin piercings bled from either side of my finger. Cold invaded my skin, my bones. Thirst dried my mouth to a desert.
“Harker are you alive?”
Her heartbeat was almost as loud as her words. “When you get here destroy the ring. Don’t put it on.”
“You don’t have a heartbeat.”
“Thank you for the past few decades.”
“Tell me what’s happening.” Her voice is so calm despite the frenetic beat of her heart.
“The ring. Her ring. The signet ring. It turned me.”
Silence. Silence but for the deafening, delicious heartbeat.
“I’m not turning into a monster.” I clicked the drone’s button. Warmth obliterated me.
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