Crimson Throne

The castle smelled of cold stone and something sweeter underneath, like fruit left too long in a bowl. I noticed it the moment the iron doors groaned shut behind me. That smell. Apricots maybe. Or plums. Something on the edge of turning.

I should've turned around then.

Instead I followed the servant, a silent woman with gray skin and eyes that never blinked, through corridors lit by candles that burned blue at the edges. My boots left prints in the dust. Nobody had walked these halls in a long time. That much was obvious. The tapestries on the walls had faded to ghosts of their former colors, and the suits of armor standing guard in alcoves wore rust like jewelry.

"You're the traveler," the servant said. Not a question.

"That's what they call me."

"They call you many things."

We climbed a spiral staircase. My legs burned by the third landing. The servant didn't seem to breathe hard at all. Her feet made no sound on the stone. I focused on that instead of the smell, which had gotten stronger, thicker, almost wet in my throat.

At the top of the stairs, a door made of black wood waited. The servant stopped.

"She's inside."

"And if I change my mind?"

"Then you walk back down. But you won't."

She left before I could ask what she meant. Her footsteps faded into nothing, and I stood alone in front of the door, listening to my own breathing. The candle flames bent toward me, like they wanted something.

I pushed the door open.

The room beyond was nothing like the rest of the castle. Warm. Bright. A fire roared in a hearth big enough to stand in, and the walls were draped in red silk that caught the light and threw it back doubled. Incense curled from brass burners in the corners. And there, on a chaise longue by the fire, was the woman who'd sent for me.

She wasn't what I expected.

I'd heard stories, of course. Everyone in the valley had. The vampire queen who'd ruled these mountains for three hundred years, who never aged, who never left her castle, who kept secrets that would curdle milk in the next village over. They said she was beautiful. They said she was terrible. They said she'd eaten a man whole in 1743 and worn his ribcage as a crown for a decade.

Looking at her, I believed maybe half of it.

She was beautiful, yes, in the way a knife is beautiful. Sharp features, pale skin, hair the color of dried blood falling past her shoulders. But she was smaller than I'd imagined. Almost delicate. She wore a black dress that left her arms bare, and her feet were tucked under her, bare toes curling against the velvet cushion. She looked like she'd been waiting for me for an hour, or a century.

"You're younger than I expected," she said.

"You're shorter than I expected."

Her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. "Sit down."

I didn't move. "You invited me here. You said you had a proposition."

"I did. I do. Sit down anyway."

I stayed standing. It felt important, somehow, to not do the first thing she asked. She noticed. Of course she noticed. Her eyes tracked over me like she was reading a book she'd already memorized, checking to see if I'd changed since last time.

"You're suspicious," she said. "Good. Suspicion keeps people alive."

"So does leaving."

"And yet here you are." She shifted on the chaise, drawing her knees up, making herself smaller. It was a trick. Everything about her was a trick. "You're the one they call the Walker. You've crossed the mountains four times. You've slept in caves and monasteries and once, I'm told, in a bear's den while the bear was still in it."

"The bear was hibernating."

"Still. You're not afraid of much."

"I'm afraid of plenty. I'm just good at pretending."

She laughed. Low and warm, like honey poured over gravel. "I like you already. That's rare. I don't like anyone."

"I'm honored."

"You shouldn't be. Liking someone is the first step toward wanting to keep them. And I have a bad habit of keeping things until they break."

The fire popped. A log shifted, sending sparks up the chimney. I watched them rise and disappear, and when I looked back at her, she'd moved. Not much. Just enough to show me the line of her throat, the hollow at the base of her neck where a pulse should have been beating but wasn't.

"I don't break easily," I said.

"No. I don't suppose you do."

She rose from the chaise in one motion, no wasted effort, and crossed the room to a table I hadn't noticed. On it sat a decanter of wine and two glasses. She poured without asking if I wanted any. The liquid was dark, almost black, and it moved in the glass like it had its own gravity.

"Drink with me," she said.

"I don't know what's in it."

"Wine. Nothing more. I'm not going to poison you. If I wanted you dead, you'd have died at the door."

She handed me a glass. Our fingers brushed. Hers were cold. Not the cold of winter, but the cold of deep water, of things that lived where sunlight never reached. I took the glass and held it without drinking.

She raised hers to her lips and sipped. Her eyes never left mine.

"My name is Seraphine," she said. "Though you probably know that already."

"I know the name. I don't know if it's yours."

"It is. Names have power, and I've never been afraid of power."

"Why did you bring me here?"

She walked back to the chaise and sat down, arranging herself with the same care a cat takes when it knows it's being watched. "Because I have a problem. And you, I think, might be the solution."

"I'm not a problem solver."

"You're a survivor. That's better."

She set her glass aside and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and for a moment she looked almost human. Tired. The kind of tired that comes from carrying something heavy for too long.

"I need someone to keep a secret," she said. "One secret. That's all. In exchange, I'll give you anything you want. Money. Power. A night you'll never forget."

"I've had nights I'll never forget. Most of them involved almost dying."

"This one won't involve dying. Unless you want it to."

I finally drank the wine. It tasted like the smell of the castle, sweet and dark and slightly wrong, but it warmed me from the inside out. I felt it spread through my chest, my arms, my fingertips. It didn't feel like poison. It felt like the opposite of poison.

"What's the secret?" I asked.

"If I told you now, you wouldn't believe me. You'd have to see it."

"See what?"

Her smile widened. "Me. The real me. Not the version I show to villagers and priests and would-be vampire hunters."

"And if I see it and I want to leave?"

"Then you leave. I won't stop you."

"You said you have a habit of keeping things."

"I said I have a habit of keeping things until they break. You're not a thing. You're a person. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

She tilted her head. "For me, yes. I've known a lot of things in my time. Furniture. Jewelry. Cities. People who became things because they let themselves. You haven't let yourself become anything yet. That's why you're interesting."

I finished the wine. Set the glass down on the floor because there was no table near me. She watched me do it, and something flickered in her expression. Approval, maybe. Or hunger.

"Alright," I said. "Show me."

She stood again. This time she didn't walk. She was simply across the room, standing in front of me, close enough that I could smell her. Not the incense. Her. She smelled like rain on hot stone, like the air before a thunderstorm. Her hand came up and touched my chest, right over my heart.

It was beating fast. I hadn't noticed until she pointed it out with her palm.

"You're afraid," she said.

"I told you. I'm good at pretending."

"You don't have to pretend with me. That's the point. That's the whole point."

Her hand slid up to my throat. Not squeezing. Just resting there, feeling my pulse. Her eyes had gone darker, the brown almost swallowed by black, and I realized I'd been wrong about one thing. She wasn't delicate. She was contained. There was a difference, and the difference was terrifying.

"I'm going to tell you what I am," she said. "And then I'm going to show you. And then you're going to decide."

"Decide what?"

"Whether to stay."

She stepped back. The warmth of her hand lingered on my skin, and I had to resist the urge to touch the spot where she'd been.

"I'm not just a vampire," she said. "I'm the first. The original. Every story you've ever heard about my kind started with me."

"I've heard a lot of stories."

"Most of them are wrong. But the core is true. I drink blood. I don't age. I can't die, or at least I haven't found a way yet. But that's not the secret."

She moved to the fire and stood with her back to me, silhouetted against the flames. The light made her dress look like it was burning.

"The secret is what I do with the people I keep."

"You keep people?"

"I told you. I have a habit." She turned her head, just enough to show me her profile. "I don't kill them. I don't turn them. I keep them. For a while. And then I let them go."

"That doesn't sound so terrible."

"It is. Because I don't let them go whole. I take something from them. Something they don't get back."

"What?"

She turned to face me fully. The fire behind her made her into a shadow with burning edges. "Their desire. I take it. I drain it out of them, slowly, over weeks or months or years, and I use it to feed myself. Not blood. Need. Want. The thing that makes people reach for each other in the dark."

I didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say.

"After I'm done," she continued, "they don't want anything anymore. Not food. Not sleep. Not love. They go on living, but they're hollow. Empty. I've done it to forty-seven people. I remember every one of their names."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I'm tired." Her voice cracked, just a little. "Because I've been doing this for three hundred years and I'm tired of being a monster. Because I want to stop."

"Then stop."

"It's not that simple. I need it. The way you need air. If I don't feed, I wither. I age. I die. And I'm not ready to die."

"So you want me to help you find another way."

"I want you to resist me."

The words hung in the air between us. The fire crackled. Somewhere in the castle, a clock struck midnight, and the sound echoed through the stone like a warning.

"I've never met anyone who could," she said. "I've tried. I've tested. I've brought people here, strong people, willful people, and they all break. They all want me too much. They give in, and I take, and then they're empty and I hate myself a little more."

"And you think I'm different."

"I think you might be. I don't know yet. That's what tonight is for."

She crossed the room again, but this time she didn't stop in front of me. She walked past, close enough that her shoulder brushed my arm, and sat down on the edge of a large bed I hadn't noticed. It was draped in black silk, and the pillows were arranged like an altar.

"One night," she said. "That's all I'm asking. Stay with me until dawn. Let me try to break you. If you're still yourself when the sun comes up, I'll give you anything you want and let you walk away."

"And if I'm not?"

"Then you'll stay. You'll be empty, but you'll stay. I'll take care of you. I always take care of them."

"That's not a comfort."

"I know."

I looked at her. Sitting on the bed, hands folded in her lap, hair falling over her shoulders like a curtain. She looked small again. Fragile. But I knew better now. The fragility was a mask, and under it was something ancient and hungry and desperate.

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because you walked into a vampire's castle without a weapon. Because you didn't flinch when I touched you. Because you're still standing there, looking at me like I'm a puzzle you want to solve instead of a monster you want to kill."

"You don't know me."

"I know enough. I know you're lonely. I know you've been running from something for a long time. I know you don't let people close because when you do, they leave, or they die, or they turn into something you don't recognize."

I felt that one in my chest. A direct hit. She'd been reading me the whole time, cataloging my weaknesses, and I'd let her because I was curious. Because I was stupid. Because the wine was warm in my stomach and her eyes were dark and I hadn't been touched by anyone in longer than I wanted to admit.

"You're good," I said.

"I've had practice."

"What happens if I say no?"

"Then you leave. And I find someone else. And I keep being what I am."

"And if I say yes?"

She smiled. It was a real smile this time, or close enough. "Then we play."

She held out her hand. I didn't take it. Not yet. I stood where I was, feeling the heat of the fire on my back and the cold of her gaze on my front, and I tried to think. Tried to be rational. Tried to remember all the reasons this was a bad idea.

There were a lot of them.

But I'd spent my whole life running from bad ideas, and where had it gotten me? Alone in a castle at midnight, being offered a deal by a vampire queen who wanted to use me as a test subject. It wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to me. It wasn't even in the top ten.

"What do I get if I win?" I asked.

"Anything."

"That's not specific."

"It's as specific as I can be. I don't know what you want. That's the problem. I never know. People want things I can't predict, and I can't give them what they need because I don't understand need anymore. I've been taking it from others for so long that I've forgotten how it feels to have my own."

She lowered her hand. The firelight caught her face and I saw something I hadn't seen before. A crack in the mask. A glimpse of the thing underneath, the thing that had been alive for three centuries and was tired of being alive but too afraid to stop.

"I want to want something," she said. "That's what I get if you win. I want to remember what it's like to be hungry for something other than other people's hunger."

"That's a lot to put on a stranger."

"You're not a stranger. You're the first person in two hundred years who's looked at me without flinching."

"I flinched. You just didn't see it."

"I see everything."

"Then you know I'm lying."

"I know you're scared. That's not the same as lying."

She stood up. The movement was slow, deliberate, and she didn't come toward me. She walked to the window instead, pulled back the curtain, and looked out at the night. The moon was full, hanging over the mountains like a coin someone had tossed and forgotten to catch.

"It's beautiful here," she said. "I used to stand at this window and watch the seasons change. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Over and over. The same mountains, the same trees, the same sky. After a while, it stopped being beautiful. It just became... pattern. Repetition. The same thing forever."

"Is that why you collect people?"

"Partly. They're different. They change. They grow old and die, and I stay the same, and I get to watch them become something else. It's the only variety I have."

"That's sad."

"It's pathetic. I know."

She let the curtain fall and turned back to me. The moonlight cut across her face, dividing her into light and shadow, and I thought about how easy it would be to walk out that door. How simple. How safe.

I didn't walk out.

"One night," I said.

Her eyes widened. Just a fraction. Just enough for me to see that she hadn't expected me to agree.

"One night," she repeated.

"I'll stay until dawn. You can try whatever you want. But if I say stop, you stop."

"Of course."

"I mean it. I don't care if you're a queen or a god or the first vampire. If I say stop, you stop."

She nodded. "I understand."

"Do you?"

"I've been alive for three hundred years. I've learned a few things. Consent, for example. It's not a concept that existed when I was young, but I've picked it up along the way."

"Good."

I walked to the bed. Sat down on the edge. The silk was cool against my palms, and the mattress sank under my weight like it had been waiting for me. She watched me from the window, still as a statue, and I watched her back.

"Well?" I said. "You wanted this. Here I am."

She crossed the room. Slowly. Each step deliberate. She stopped at the foot of the bed and looked down at me, and for the first time, I saw her as she really was. Not the queen. Not the monster. Just a woman who'd been alone for too long and didn't know how to ask for what she needed.

"I'm going to start now," she said.

"Start what?"

"The game."

She climbed onto the bed. Not gracefully. Not seductively. She moved like someone who'd forgotten how to share space with another person, awkward and uncertain, and that uncertainty made her more human than anything else she'd done. She knelt in front of me, close enough that I could feel the cold coming off her skin, and she reached out and touched my face.

Her fingers traced my jaw. My cheekbones. The bridge of my nose. She touched me like she was memorizing me, like she was afraid I'd disappear if she stopped.

"You're warm," she said.

"Most people are."

"I'm not. I haven't been warm in a long time."

She leaned in. Her breath was cool on my lips. She smelled like rain and stone and something older, something that had no name. Her eyes were so dark they looked like holes in the world, and I felt myself falling into them, felt the pull of her, the gravity of her.

And then she stopped. An inch from my mouth. Waiting.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Testing."

"Testing what?"

"You."

She pulled back. Just a little. Just enough to look at me without our noses touching. Her hand was still on my face, her thumb moving in slow circles on my cheek.

"Most people close their eyes when I get this close," she said. "They can't help it. It's instinct. But you're still looking at me."

"Why would I close my eyes?"

"Because it's easier. Because looking at me is hard. Because I'm not something people want to see up close."

I reached up and took her wrist. Her skin was cold, but under my fingers I felt something else. A pulse. Faint, slow, but there. Beating. She had a heartbeat.

"You're not as dead as you pretend to be," I said.

She flinched. Actually flinched, like I'd hit her. And then she smiled, and it was the saddest smile I'd ever seen.

"No," she said. "I'm not. That's the problem."

She pulled her hand away and sat back on her heels, putting distance between us. The fire crackled. The clock in the hall struck the quarter hour. I waited.

"I was human once," she said. "A long time ago. I had a family. A name that wasn't Seraphine. I had a life, and I lost it, and I became this instead."

"What happened?"

"I died. And then I didn't."

She laughed. It wasn't a happy sound.

"I was thirty years old. Same as you. I had a husband, a child, a house by the sea. And then a man came to town, and he was beautiful, and he wanted me, and I wanted him back. I didn't know what he was. I didn't care. I let him take me into the woods, and he drained me, and he left me for dead."

"But you didn't die."

"No. I woke up three days later with a hunger I couldn't understand. I killed my husband first. Then my child. Then half the village. I didn't mean to. I couldn't stop."

She looked at her hands. Turned them over. Studied them like they belonged to someone else.

"I've been trying to stop ever since."

The room was quiet. The fire had burned down to embers, and the shadows had crept closer, and I could feel the weight of her words pressing down on me. Three hundred years of guilt. Three hundred years of trying and failing. Three hundred years of being alone.

"Why didn't you just die?" I asked.

"I tried. Many times. But I heal. I always heal. I can't even starve myself. The hunger takes over, and I wake up with blood on my hands and no memory of what I've done."

She looked up at me. Her eyes were wet. Vampires could cry. I hadn't known that.

"So I learned to control it. To take only what I needed. To find people who were willing, or who wouldn't be missed. To make deals and keep secrets and pretend I was something other than a monster."

"And the people you keep? The ones you drain?"

"They're not dead. They're just... empty. They live out their lives in the village at the base of the mountain. They don't remember me. They don't remember anything. They just exist."

"That's not living."

"No. It's not."

She reached out and touched my knee. Just a touch. Just her fingertips on the fabric of my pants.

"I don't want to do it anymore," she said. "I want to feel something. I want to want something. I want to be human again, even if it's just for one night."

"And you think I can give you that?"

"I think you can try."

I looked at her. Really looked. Past the beauty, past the power, past the three hundred years of practiced seduction. Underneath all of it was a woman who was broken in ways I couldn't imagine, and she was asking me to help her put herself back together.

It was a terrible idea. It was probably a trap. It was definitely going to end badly.

"Alright," I said. "Let's play."

She smiled. And this time, it reached her eyes.

The game, as it turned out, had rules. She explained them while she poured us more wine, her voice low and steady, like she'd been rehearsing this speech for decades.

"First rule," she said. "You don't touch me unless I ask. Second rule. You don't close your eyes. Third rule. You tell me the truth. Always. No matter what I ask."

"That's three rules."

"There's a fourth. But I'll tell you later."

She handed me the glass. I took it. Drank. The wine was warmer now, or maybe I was. The fire had died down, but the room didn't feel cold. She was doing something, I realized. Something with the air. Something with the light. Making it feel like a dream.

"Why the rules?" I asked.

"Because I've spent three hundred years taking what I want. Tonight, I want to give. But I don't know how. So you have to teach me."

"Teach you what?"

"How to be with someone without consuming them."

She sat down on the bed again, cross-legged this time, facing me. The black dress pooled around her like spilled ink. Her feet were bare. Her toenails were painted red.

"I'm going to ask you questions," she said. "And you're going to answer honestly. And then, when I've learned enough, I'm going to try something. And you're going to let me."

"What kind of questions?"

"Personal ones."

"Fine."

She thought for a moment. Took a sip of wine. Set the glass down on the floor beside the bed.

"When was the last time you were in love?"

I almost choked. "That's your first question?"

"It's the most important one."

I thought about it. Really thought. There had been women. A few men. People I'd met on the road, in taverns, in the spaces between one place and the next. But love? Real love?

"I don't know," I said. "I'm not sure I ever was."

"Never?"

"Never."

She nodded like that made sense to her. Like she understood.

"Second question. What are you running from?"

"I'm not running."

"You are. I can see it. You have the look of someone who's been moving for a long time. What are you running from?"

I drank more wine. The truth was complicated. The truth was something I didn't talk about. But she'd asked, and I'd agreed to answer, and there was something in her eyes that made me want to tell her.

"My brother," I said. "He died. Five years ago. And I wasn't there."

"How did he die?"

"Fever. It took three days. I was two villages over, chasing a job. I didn't know until I got back."

"You blame yourself."

"I don't blame myself. I just... I should've been there. He was alone. He died alone."

She reached out and touched my hand. Just a brush of her fingers. Just enough to let me know she was listening.

"I understand," she said.

"Do you?"

"I've been alone for three hundred years. I know what it's like to die alone. I've done it many times."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It does if you think about it. Every time I lose someone, a piece of me dies. And I'm alone with the piece. Alone with the death. Over and over."

She pulled her hand back. Folded it in her lap.

"Third question," she said. "Why did you come here tonight?"

"Because I was curious."

"That's not the truth."

"It is."

"You're lying."

"I'm not."

She leaned forward. Her eyes were dark and deep and I could see myself in them, small and distorted, like a reflection in a still pond.

"You came here because you wanted to die," she said. "Or because you wanted to feel something. Or because you wanted to be seen. Which is it?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"All three," I said.

She smiled. Not a happy smile. A knowing one.

"Good," she said. "We're getting somewhere."

She stood up and walked to the window again. The moon had moved, but the night was still deep. Dawn was hours away. I could feel the time stretching out in front of me like a road I hadn't decided to walk yet.

"I'm going to tell you a secret," she said. "A real one. Not the one about what I am. A different one."

"I'm listening."

"I've never done this before. The game. The rules. The asking. I've never tried to be with someone without taking from them."

"Then why now?"

"Because you're the first person who's ever looked at me like I was worth saving."

She turned around. The moonlight caught her face, and for a moment she looked almost young. Almost human. Almost hopeful.

"I don't know if I can be saved," she said. "I don't know if I deserve to be. But I want to try. And I want you to help me."

The fire had died completely now. The only light came from the moon and the candles that still burned blue at the edges. The room was full of shadows, and she was one of them, and I was another.

"Alright," I said. "I'll help."

She smiled. And then she walked back to the bed, and she climbed onto it, and she knelt in front of me, and she said, "Then let's begin."

The first thing she did was take off her dress.

Not slowly. Not seductively. She just reached up and pulled it over her head, and then she was kneeling there in nothing but her skin, and I couldn't look away. Her body was pale and perfect, untouched by time, and there was something almost painful about it. Like looking at a statue. Like looking at something that wasn't quite real.

"Rule four," she said. "You don't ask me to stop unless you mean it."

"I thought the rule was that I could stop whenever I wanted."

"You can. But you have to mean it. You can't say stop just because you're scared. You can't say stop just because it's hard."

"And if I do?"

"Then I'll stop. And you'll leave. And I'll never see you again."

I nodded. She reached out and touched my face again, and her hand was still cold, but it didn't bother me anymore. I was getting used to it. I was getting used to her.

"Now," she said. "I'm going to try something. And you're going to let me. And if you don't like it, you tell me. But you don't say stop unless you mean it."

"What are you going to do?"

She didn't answer. She just pushed me back onto the bed, and then she was on top of me, and her hair was falling around my face like a curtain, and her eyes were so close they filled the whole world.

And then she sat up. And she moved. And she positioned herself over my face.

I understood then. What she wanted. What the game was.

"Breathe," she said.

I breathed. Her scent filled my nose, my mouth, my lungs. Rain and stone and something older. Something that made my head swim and my heart race and my hands clench in the sheets.

"Good," she said. "Now stay still."

She lowered herself onto me.

The weight of her was warm. Warmer than her hands. Warmer than her breath. She settled onto my mouth like she belonged there, and I felt her thighs on either side of my head, and I felt her skin against my skin, and I felt her.

"Don't close your eyes," she said.

I didn't. I looked up at her, and she looked down at me, and the world narrowed to just the two of us. Just this moment. Just this.

"Now," she said. "Show me what you can do."

I did.

I don't know how long it went on. Minutes. Hours. Time stopped meaning anything. She moved above me, slow and deliberate, and I moved beneath her, and we found a rhythm that wasn't quite a rhythm, a dance that wasn't quite a dance. Her hands were in my hair. Her breath was coming faster. She was making sounds I hadn't heard before, small and desperate and real.

And then she stopped.

"Wait," she said.

I waited. She was trembling. Her thighs were shaking against my ears.

"I can't," she said. "I can't do this."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm feeling something. Something I haven't felt in a long time."

"What?"

"I don't know. That's the problem. I don't know what it is."

She climbed off me. Sat on the edge of the bed. Her back was to me, and her shoulders were shaking, and I realized she was crying. Actually crying. Tears running down her face and dripping onto the silk sheets.

I sat up. Reached for her. She flinched away.

"Don't," she said. "Don't touch me."

"Why not?"

"Because I'll take it. I'll take whatever you're feeling and I'll drain it out of you and you'll be empty and I'll hate myself and I'll do it again tomorrow and the day after and the day after that."

"You don't know that."

"I do. I've done it before. Forty-seven times."

She turned to look at me. Her eyes were red. Her face was wet. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"But I don't want to do it to you," she said. "I don't want to take from you. I want to give. I want to feel something and not consume it. I want to want you without needing you."

"Is that possible?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out."

She reached out and took my hand. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was strong.

"Stay," she said. "Stay until dawn. Not for the game. Not for the deal. Just stay. Be here. With me."

I looked at her. At the vampire queen who'd killed her own family. At the woman who'd been alone for three hundred years. At the monster who was trying not to be a monster.

"Alright," I said. "I'll stay."

She smiled. And this time, it was real.

We didn't do anything else that night. We just talked. She told me about her husband, about her daughter, about the man in the woods who'd turned her. I told her about my brother, about the fever, about the guilt I'd been carrying for five years. We talked until the candles burned out and the moon set and the first gray light of dawn crept through the window.

And when the sun rose, she was still there. Still herself. Still cold.

"I didn't take anything," she said. "I didn't drain you."

"I know."

"I felt something. I don't know what it was. But I felt it."

"I know."

She looked at me. The sunlight was on her face now, and she didn't burn. She didn't sparkle. She just sat there, looking like a woman who'd been up all night, tired and hopeful and scared.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"I don't know. I've never gotten this far."

She reached out and touched my face. Her hand was still cold. But it didn't feel like the cold of deep water anymore. It felt like the cold of a winter morning. Like something that would pass.

"Stay," she said. "Stay another day. Another night. Let me try again."

"And if I say no?"

"Then you leave. And I let you go. And I spend the rest of my existence wondering what would've happened if you'd stayed."

I thought about it. About the road. About the running. About the loneliness. About the woman in front of me, who was broken and dangerous and desperate and maybe, just maybe, worth saving.

"One more night," I said.

She smiled. And for the first time in three hundred years, she looked happy.

"One more night," she repeated.

And somewhere in the castle, a clock struck six, and the sun rose higher, and the day began.