The Prince

"I've been watching you for a while now, you know."

Princess Anezka sits bolt upright in bed, clutching her blanket to her chest. Perched in her room, at the foot of her bed, is a man. Her first thought is He's going to kill me. Her second thought is I can't look away.

He raises a hand, says gently "There's no reason to be frightened. I don't mean you any harm. I didn't know of a better way to introduce myself. I'm not really...part of your household, so to speak. They don't know I'm here."

"Who - who are you?"

He smiles, and she can see his teeth glimmer in the moonlight. He is tall, she can see, even hunched over, and graceful, even elegant. "You can call me Rune. Because for now, I am your secret."

He's dressed like an aristocrat beneath the dark cloak that obscures his silhouette. She whispers a spell to let her see more clearly in the dark, and he comes into stark relief.

She sees he is unarmed, but is undeniably dangerous.

He shifts, then steps backward off the bed and stands up. He tosses part of his cloak over his right shoulder and bows slightly, his eyes never leaving her face, her body never even considering moving from where it is. His eyes are like a starless night sky.

"I hope we can speak again soon. We will, if you wish it. If not, then you will not see me again. I believe there is a lot we can offer each other. You are a woman of beauty, intelligence and guile. You've shown yourself to be very strong, already mistress of this great keep, already...learning a great deal. I am quite accomplished in my own right. I am a...man of means, of skills you will find useful, of knowledge you need."

"You aren't meant for this place. Not at all. This great keep will someday become a prison to one such as you. No, I know you. I have watched you. You have grander designs than this."

"As it turns out, so do I."

They talk. The guards, slumped in deep sleep outside her door, do not hear. But in another part of the keep, an old woman who is more than merely a woman gazes into a dim image in a mirror and smiles a slow, cold smile.

The Crone

Skaina is old, but she is most certainly not a woman. Do not let your eyes fool you.

You cannot trust your senses.

Long, long ago, when the winds over the stones of Lhazaar were wild, there was a storm-tossed island, on which lived dour, fierce people with cold blue eyes. At the heart of this island was a cave deep in the side of a hill, and in this deep cave lived the Crone.

(It was said that at the back of that cave, hidden behind an ancient stone, was a door, and that the door led all the way down to Khyber. If such things are to be believed.)

The people and the Crone lived together, shared that small storm-tossed isle, and yet they only met once a year. That was the time of Sacrifice, when the winter storms brewed on dark horizons. In exchange for the Sacrifice, the Crone would sing down the winds. She would protect them, even from the ravages of time. She granted them an unnaturally long life, and was their secret which they jealously guarded.

The price was merely a single child. And so the weakest was chosen by the elders, and brought to the Crone, left for her, and never spoken of again.

Before the first cold-eyed people came in their long boats, the Crone was there, and it was believed that she would be there long after. But it was not meant to be.

Many years ago, following a great war between Dragons and Elves, there came a lone woman to that isle. She was fleeing great powers, and yet she hid within herself the greatest power; that which all life must answer to; none other than Death. She came to the isle weakened, grieving, broken, her body stitched together by dread energies drawn from a thousand graves.

She and the Crone met. They spoke. And it is said that, slowly, with creaking limbs, the Crone did what she had never done.

She bowed.

A sacrifice, of sorts, to be sure.

And when that dread woman called upon the Crone once more, after long years had passed, she came, and answered, and traveled to a certain keep in Lhazaar which was once her home, to inquire of a certain family whether they were in need of a nurse for their newborn daughter...

The livid purple birth-mark bothered her not at all. She only smiled, and cooed, and waited for the girl to grow up at last.

The Lord

Two years ago.

Princess Anezka, now Lady Anezka, carefully slips out of her bedroom, past the guard who gives her a knowing look. She does not sleep in the same room as her husband unless he...comes to her at night. She does her duty and nothing more. This distance from him most nights is good for a variety of reasons - tonight, it gives her freedom to do what she needs to do.

The final step.

She meets up with Skaina, still here despite no longer having a determined roll. They incline their heads together briefly in the darkness, lit only by a shuttered lantern held between them and casting ghost-story shadows on their faces. What they say cannot be heard, but they continue down a hall, through a door, deeper into the keep, and finally, to a dark stair leading down.

They descend.

In a dank stone room beneath the keep a man is huddled, shivering. He is chained to the floor, and his fingernails are bloody shreds from trying to claw his way free somehow. He has pulled on the chains until his wrists are red and purple and raw. He has prayed, but has heard nothing but his own harsh breathing for hours, perhaps days.

Then there is light. He cringes and tries to become smaller, to sink into cold corner, to somehow slip away unseen, but he is the only living thing in the room.

She enters, the Lady Anezka, with her witch-hag from the Lhazaar Principalities, and two other young women the man recognizes from the keep - Danneke and Joli. Danneke is plump and pretty and dark, and is a foster from another noble family - essentially a hostage, kept and taught and protected, but not allowed to go so that there is always a reason to keep the two houses from clashing. Joli has the harsh pale face of the Lord, her uncle once removed or somesuch. She is tall and does not miss opportunities for petty cruelty.

As they enter, they stop speaking.

There is no one else alive down here.

He is gagged to stop his shouting, but he forgets to shout until the gag is already in. He is lifted up on to a table that is brought in, and his arms and legs are tied together under the table so that he cannot move. The strain on his shoulders is painful, but he almost forgets it, watching them work. Then they stand aroud him, with the Lady Anezka at the head of the table - at his head. He can strain and see the witch-hag at his feet. She looks to Anezka.

"Are you prepared?"

Anezka nods, and pulls a glimmering black blade from under the cloak thrown around her shoulders. She shrugs the hood back and looks down at the man bound before her. She is about to speak -

When the Lord Kronan strides through the door, a man-at-arms at his side.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?"

Everyone freezes - the Lord does not shout, but his face is livid and his breathing heavy.

Everyone, that is, but Skaina, who shouts a harsh syllable and reaches out, touching Kronan on the chest, just above the crest of his house embroidered onto his doublet.

He gasps, and then his breath hitches in his throat. The stench of death fills the room and the color floods from his face, leaving it bone-white, even his straining lips.

The man-at-arms shouts and his sword rings free, but Anezka raises a hand silently and something dark and cold passes between them. He shudders and slumps, suddenly exhausted and feeble. She draws a quick breath through her teeth and flinches before she regains control of herself.

And then Joli is there, ramming a kitchen-knife into his chest. It catches on his chainmail, and he struggles to push her away, but enfeebled as he is she writhes free and strikes again, this time slashing his throat. A spray of blood paints the wall and he slumps to the floor, gurgling up at her.

The Lord Kronan is still struggling in vain to move, to speak, even to exhale. Skaina laughs.

Anezka looks to her teacher, the witch-hag, trembling slightly, gripping her left forearm as if it suddenly pained her. "What are we going to do now? He wasn't supposed to know - "

"This changes nothing," Skaina growls. "Have you lost your resolve? No? Good. Then we continue. You are ready."

"But - but what about Kronan?"

Skaina turns to the Lord, straining, his pale eyes rolling in their sockets. Joli watches. She's wiped the knife off on the man-at-arms' tabard, and hasn't noticed the spattering of blood on her face and chest and right hand. Danneke looks slightly ill, but makes no move to leave.

"Kronan...we will deal with together, and quickly, before he is missed. I doubt anyone heard him down here or will interfere. Doubtless they assume he is...disciplining you. But once you have made the final sacrifice to the Vol, once you have given yourself over to her, I will show you what comes next. You have enough power, enough knowledge...Kronan will serve you, my lady."

"Forever."

The Princess

It is three years ago.

The Last War has only recently ended, but as she steps onto one of her father's ships to sail to Karrnath, seemingly a world away, Princess Anezka isn't thinking about war. She is thinking about her soon-to-be-husband - some grim Karrnathi nobleman named Kronan, known only for his age, his military power, and his inability to find a suitable woman in his own damn country.

The offer of marriage arrived during the Last War, and Anezka had hoped that her father, Prince Rahn of Traglorn and Tempest Isles, had entirely forgotten about the offer.

Clearly, he had not.

Anezka is young enough, and more importantly, unpredictable enough, to still travel with her Nurse, an older woman of great faith and wisdom named Skaina. She is a common woman with an uncommon secret, which she has passed on to Anezka alone among Rahn's many children sired with many wives.

Tucked beneath a false board in one of the ornate trunks carrying her clothing, even now being loaded onto the Dread Spray, her father's fastest ship, is a dagger of mage-hardened onyx. Its pommel is a gaping, fanged mouth. Blood-thirst is its most recent name, thought it has borne many in the past. It is the symbol of the secret, handed down from Skaina to Anezka, many nights ago, when she was initiated...

Into the Blood of Vol.

Now the Dread Spray will carry her away to her intended husband, a man she has never met, but whose image, sent with a polite letter, left her quite cold. This Kronan is a powerful man, but one lacking ambition. Anezka is a Princess of Lhazaar, daughter of Princes and Kings before them, daughter of pirates and brigands and explorers.

She has enough ambition for both of them. Marriage or no marriage, she would make her father notice, make the world notice. She is not a prize to be handed off, a political favor, an offering.

If anyone is going to choose who the offering is, it will be Anezka. Blood will flow, and death will have dominion.