The Mother's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The morning after the wedding, the court still buzzed. The Mother needed Ali alone. But he would not leave the feast while Carmilla's guests watched every move he made. She sent three summons. Each came back unanswered. Carmilla kept him close, under the glass domes, where the whole court could see who owned him now. If the Mother wanted his stones and his rite, she had to break that grip in the open. So she stopped hiding what she was. For a day she had let the court call her spent. No more. She climbed to the center of the great hall of Castle Dracul, veil trailing behind her for miles, and raised her hands. Blue fire ran up her arms. Red light spilled from her palms. She was six hundred years old, no vampire, the mother of all the Strigoi Vii, and she had let them forget it. The stone floor cracked. The glass domes rang. Bat-winged gargoyles above the hall shivered on their perches. Every candle bent toward her at once. Carmilla opened her mouth to speak, to turn the room with her voice. The Mother did not let her. A wall of blue flame rose between the bride and the crowd. Carmilla's honeyed words hit it and died. For the first time, the court did not lean toward the Mistress of Darkness. They shrank from the woman at the center. Jiro Minamoto, General of Dracula's armies, stepped forward with his hand on his blade. He had faced armies and never flinched. He flinched now. "Enough," he said. His voice was clipped. He did not draw the sword. He knew better. Even Dracula watched from his high seat and said nothing. His own wife held the room he ruled. He gripped the arms of his throne and stayed silent. By the far wall stood Iliana Van Helsing, the hunter who had walked into this court with a loaded crossbow to bargain a truce. She had killed monsters her whole life. She lowered her weapon and watched, pale. "I hunted your kind for a living," she said. "I never saw power like that." The Mother let the fire drop. Silence held. She turned to Ali, who stood white beside his bride. "You said a partner with no power is a burden," she said. "Look again. Come now, or the court watches me pull the truth from your wife's mouth." Ali did not look at Carmilla. He crossed the cracked floor to the Mother. "The stones are yours," he said. "The rite is yours. I build with you." Carmilla's face did not move. But the room saw her lose him. The Mother had her partner back, and the court's fear with him. She walked out, veil clean behind her. Now Carmilla owed her a wound, and would repay it.