Midnight's Daughter

“Louis-Cesare asked me to take a look at your mysterious Fey,” Mircea said, not attempting to deny it. “He thought Caedmon might really be Ǽsubrand or Alarr, bringing their war into our world. And because of the work I do for the Senate, I have met both of them.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I did not kill Vlad, Dorina. The lovely Olga did that.”

“After you maneuvered him into position.” He raised a brow and I scowled. I wasn’t in the mood for games tonight. “I’ve never seen you fight that poorly,” I said flatly. “You wanted him to die, but you didn’t want to do it yourself. Why?”

“Because it was what he wanted.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He wanted to die by my hand. Wanted to force me to do what I blamed him for, and fracture the family yet again. I denied him that.”

“What family?” I asked, my voice bitter.

“We were a family, Dorina, however dysfunctional. We watched each other’s backs; we killed for each other; we saved each other’s lives again and again. And, yes, sometimes we hated each other. But we did not betray each other. We did not prey on each other. Only Vlad did that.”

“Radu attacked him first.”

“No.” The air between us suddenly felt tangible. “The family was broken long before that.”

I swallowed, the fear in my throat thick enough to taste. I’d asked to meet him—demanded it, really—but now I wasn’t certain it had been such a good idea. Maybe if I just let it go, refused to acknowledge those stupid dreams as anything important, I could ignore it all a while longer.

Cool fingers closed on my wrist. The odd lighting cast strange shadows on Mircea’s face, leaving him lean and elegant, but also austere and forbidding. I decided I wanted another drink. “Dorina… be very sure.”

“It’s my right to know,” I said automatically. Taking the opposite side from Mircea was so ingrained that it was out before I’d really decided anything. And then it was too late.

“I left her,” he began simply, without preamble. “I saw to it that she was financially secure, but I left. I couldn’t begin to comprehend what had happened to me; how could I ask her to do so? I didn’t want to see her turn away when she realized… what I had become.”

I didn’t even try to pretend that I wasn’t following him. “And when you came back?”

Lounging in the swing, Mircea looked completely at peace, though there was a tension to his body that spoke of leashed energy, as if staying so perfectly still was a matter of conscious will. “When I came back, I found her village burnt to the ground and its people dead, of ‘plague’ or so I was told. It was not implausible, such things had happened before. And yet…”

“You didn’t believe it.” Mircea lied. It was what he did, what he’d always done, one of his essential tactics for survival. And when unavoidable circumstance forced him to tell the truth, he told as little of it as possible. If anyone could spot a lie in another, it was him.

“No, I didn’t believe it.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. The pressure welled up in my throat until I thought I would choke on it. Whatever it was, I wanted it over—I wanted to know. “Just tell me!”

“After I left, your mother realized she was with child. She intended to keep you, but once your… condition… became known, she was subject to a great deal of pressure by superstitious villagers to give you away. It was an act she almost immediately regretted. But you weren’t in a fixed location, at a home where you could easily be retrieved. The Gypsies wandered where they would, often even across borders into other lands. She looked for you for years, spending most of the money I had left her in the search, but to no avail. Finally, in desperation, she went to Tirgoviste.”

“Why?” No Gypsies in their right minds ever went there. Drac had viewed them as leeches on the landscape.

“To beg Vlad to help her.” Mircea’s voice was raw.

I stared at him, not sure I’d heard correctly. “She went to Drac? For help?”

“I was his brother; you were his niece,” Mircea said quietly, his eyes bleak. “She had reason to think he would be receptive.”

I shook my head in shocked disbelief. She must have either known nothing about the man or been criminally naive to think she could show up with a story about his undead brother and a half-vampire bastard and expect anything except… my blood ran cold. “What happened?” I whispered, knowing what the answer had to be.

“He ordered her executed for telling slanderous lies.” Mircea’s voice was winter, but what I saw in his eyes was a hate so pure it burned. “He left her writhing on a stake for days. They said she died still calling out my name. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t come.” The hand that rested so casually on his knee clenched into a fist. I stared at it, air suddenly in short supply. “Dying was a laughably inadequate punishment for his sins.”

I closed my eyes, seeing that frozen corpse again, the stiffened limbs tossed about by the freezing wind, the glazed, staring eyes. Starbursts of bloody violet flared behind my eyelids. I half rose from the chair, to do what, I don’t know. She was dead; the monster who killed her was dead. There was nothing left to do, not even a grave to visit. Nothing. I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back down, and I followed its direction blindly.

After a long moment, Mircea continued, voice as calm as if that moment of uncontrolled anger had never happened. “When I returned, Vlad realized that she had told the truth, after all, and that he had murdered my mistress. He was… concerned… that I would find out. In an attempt to keep his secret, he tracked down everyone who had known her, and put them to death.”

Painful clarity dug sharp fingers into my mind. “Everyone?”

“He hired some men to find the Gypsies who had adopted you and kill them after drugging their wine,” Mircea confirmed. “They were supposed to kill you, as well, but were too superstitious to touch a dhampir, even though you were as unconscious as everyone else. They left you where you lay, assuming you would die of exposure or starvation, with no one to care for you.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because you told me. Enough, at least, for me to discern the rest.”

“I don’t recall that conversation.”

Mircea ignored the implied question, and I was still in too much shock to call him on it. “Once your adopted family was dead, you determined to track down your real one. You arrived in time to pick through the burnt-out refuse of your mother’s village.”

“He killed her entire village on the chance she might have mentioned him to someone?”

“He knew what would happen if I found out the truth. He circulated a rumor that they had died of plague, and that he’d burnt the village as a precaution against it spreading. As I said, I did not believe him. Despite being a pathological liar, Vlad was remarkably poor at it.”

“Everyone else believed him.”

“Everyone else found it prudent not to question his word,” Mircea corrected. “But I began to investigate, and discovered there had been a child. But years had passed by then, and Vlad had killed most of the people who might have been able to tell me any details. I was left with the dilemma that had faced your mother. I had no idea where to look for you.”

“I’m surprised you bothered.” He must have known what I was. Must have realized that even if I wasn’t a raving lunatic consumed with bloodlust, I wouldn’t be happy to see him.

“Comoara mea—”

“Don’t call me that!” It was a growl, half-choked, but at least my eyes were dry.

Mircea drew me close. The warm leather of his blazer was buttery smooth against my face, and the thumb that stroked my cheekbone was gentle. “And why not? You are my greatest treasure, Dorina.” There was honey and gold in the soft tenor, and sincerity so real I half believed it. “You always were.”