Vero sat on Mama’s lap and rested her head against Mama’s chest.

  She looked up at Mama’s smiling face. There was no one in the world that Vero loved more. So long as Mama held her, everything was perfect.

  She closed her eyes and curled herself into a ball. She focused only on the steady, regular beats of Mama’s heart. When Vero opened her eyes again, the world was dark, but she was warm and happy.

  She could still hear Mama’s heart beating, and felt her presence all around her.

  Mama was singing, and Vero could hear her voice reverberating all around and through her.

  Virgil was with her. All three of them were there together.

  Vero would never be alone again.

  And then she woke up to her real life.

  As time went on, Vero did her best to memorize the labyrinthine halls of Elizaveta’s home. Because of the constant press of the mountains, there were many dead ends. According to Elizaveta there were also several rooms which had been completely sealed off and could no longer be accessed.

  The Black Palatine, and thus also most of his court, remained mostly within the castle’s towering donjon. They seem to want nothing to do with either Vero or her hostess, although Elizaveta assured her that they were only feigning disinterest. Eventually their curiosity would get the better of them. Her host predicted that it would come sometime under the new moon.

  “The stars will be right for it then,” she informed Vero.

  Until that time came, Vero assisted the vampyress in her arcane research. Elizaveta was a student of all the occult sciences, but she was preeminent in divination- with an understandable specialization in necromancy. The work they were presently engaged with focused on a unique form of geomancy matched with astrology.

  The subject was a fascinating one, and Vero found it very easy to fall into the role of doting adherent. It was remaining wary of her new companion that she found difficult.

  Her weapons and most of her equipment were kept under lock and key, but Elizaveta was able to have the nymph's garb returned to her. It was welcome, because the vampyres kept their castle devastatingly cold. Inside her cloak, it was almost comfortable, the material insulated so miraculously well.

  Elizaveta always escorted her when they passed through the donjon, to take air samples or observe astrological orientations from the observatory at the top. The observatory was once quite beautiful, or so Vero believed. Now, the Black Palatine had done a deliberate job of defiling it with heretical images. The markings were obviously inauspicious, but none of them held genuine arcane power. No doubt to preserve the function of the room.

  Vero wondered if that might not be worse, as it made clear the graffiti was intended only for vicious malice. The optics all still worked with precision, and the charts were undamaged. Stargazing went part and parcel with divination, and they often had occasion to ascend the tower.

  In all the time Vero was with her, Elizaveta exhibited few emotions. Even, and especially, when they made love. But speaking of the opportunity to study the coming eclipse with her newly fashioned optics exhilarated her. Elizaveta had already devised a plan to protect herself, and observe the event through a filtered glass developed in Whitegate. During previous eclipses, she studied the resilience of a vampyre, namely herself, to sunlight in and around the totality.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Vero was astounded by the careful record taking of her experiments. Only once half the sun’s luminosity returned would undead flesh burn. According to Elizaveta, this matched with her observations regarding sunrises as well. Before that point, the light caused extraordinary pain and weakness, but the flesh would not ignite.

  When they were in bed together, Vero took note of faint burn scars down Elizaveta’s forearms.

  Elizaveta thought of her condition very clinically, and was not embarrassed or suspicious to answer any questions regarding undead physiology. In fact, she was fascinated to discuss Vero’s anecdotal observations as a slayer. She addressed the destruction of her own kind with the same professional detachment as an anatomist.

  Elizaveta theorized that a person’s living humors altered the shape of their undeath. This very much confirmed Vero’s own beliefs, as she had seen both embodied and ethereal forms of revenant take on many different classifications. Hence the Black Palatine’s raw power in hypnotism, contrasted with Elizaveta’s grace and perceptiveness.

  Vero never had the opportunity to spy on the Black Palatine’s private chambers, but she found more superstitious talismans around its exterior. Further evidence that the chief resident there was unsound of mind.

  Those less debased members of his court slept lower in the donjon. Vero would occasionally see one of them in the library, or out walking the courtyard grounds. They never spoke to her.

  Vero counted the human guards, and there were nearly three dozen of them in total, only thirty-five remained. They slept in a barracks across the courtyard from the castle for exactly eight hours at a time, in batches, over the course of three watches.

  The man she killed was scheduled to sleep during the daylight watch.

  Every night a fresh blood tithe would arrive from a nearby village. The small murders were the grizzly ticking of a clock, counting down until almost a fortnight hence, when Heward and the others would be discovered.

  Vero asked Elizaveta where the human thrall’s food came from. She was informed that the Black Palatine let nothing go to waste, and repurposed the drained flesh of the blood tithe as feed for his human chattel.

  The notion turned Vero’s stomach. Elizaveta assured her that she kept small stores of more reasonable food for her own guests.

  The vampyress put her onto a specific daily regimen of herbal infusions she claimed would give Vero the best chance to survive near-exsanguination. They warmed and stimulated her humors to suffuse as much blood into the flesh and muscle of her body as possible. The theory was sound.

  Elizaveta was also concerned her bathe with the nymph may have altered the dormant poison in her blood. They kept careful track of Vero’s humors. Elizaveta taught Vero all she did as she brewed her concoctions, carefully explaining the principles lying behind each action. It was all rational enough.

  Her manner of instruction reminded Vero almost precisely of Mama.

  She’s seen your memories.

  At least Vero knew what she was putting inside her body- which she preferred to Iosephus and his mineral salts. These infusions also made her awash in feminine energy, and she needed to compensate cognitively for losing so much of her aggressive instincts.

  Was that Elizaveta’s intention?

  It would be a typically vampyric notion to take such a behavioristic approach to the human mind. But this animal carried more sense in her head than a trained rat.

  Or, at least, Vero hoped she did.

  According to Elizaveta, her reproductive system was also functioning normally again. The contraceptive effects of the infusions she usually prepared for herself had been flushed from her system. There were no men Vero intended on taking to her bed at present, but it was something to keep in mind for the future.

  Vero noticed Elizaveta also brewing large quantities of an oral sleeping solution. The vampyress was not hiding the act from Vero, so she had no fear of being the target. The amounts were also far larger than a single subject could necessitate. She suspected Elizaveta was preparing to deal with the human underlings once their master was dispatched.

  Elizaveta possessed a different beauty than Dora. She reminded Vero most strongly of Jean’s wife. But that made her no less appealing to Vero’s azure tendencies. The vampyress was frequently fawning over her, or playing with her hair. Vero delighted in the constant affection, but the chill in the touch reminded her that she must remain alert.

  The vampyress knew her memories, but in what granular detail?

  When the door to the laboratory was unlocked with a key, the mantrap on the other side was held safe by a mechanism. It was always Elizaveta who opened the door for them. Vero noticed that her tampering with the wards over the doorframe were still intact, but they had been expanded and altered. With Elizaveta always beside her, she could never examine the spell-work in detail.

  She was lucky enough to be put in charge of managing the storeroom, something Elizaveta considered amusing. When Vero had time alone there, she retrieved her lockpicks, chisel, and skeleton keys from their hiding place.

  If you're in a position to support my work financially, I have a Uncut versions of all publicly released chapters are available there at the free membership tier, as well as pieces of flash fiction not available here on Royal Road. The early chapter reward tier list is hidden in spoiler text:

  $3 - 5 early chapters, this tier is available as a one week free trial

  $5 - 10 early chapters

  $7 - 15 early chapters

  $10 - 20 early chapters

  $15 - 30 early chapters + the exclusive short stories

  If you've enjoyed this book you can also leave a rating, review, follow, and/or favorite. According to my analytics, most of you aren't members of Royal Road, but even without an account, you can still support my work just by sharing, boosting, and recommending this story to anyone you think may enjoy it. I have listings on and

  Also find me on and .

  Thanks for reading!