By: Brianna Lee Hubler
Copyright © 2023 Brianna Lee Hubler. All rights reserved.
Love and Terror in the Deep Night
__________Tick-tock, tick-tock! The brass pendulum of an ancient grandfather clock swayed to the rhythm of the star that governed the passage of time in another realm. It was one of many relics Ihrassius Dafyunesh plundered before Lord Draiden cursed the vampire clan to forever dwell in darkness, far beneath the bright, warm touch of any sun. The clock’s simple, consistent tune brought the taste of Ihrassius’s favorite meal back to his tongue whenever he heard it. Once, he played a long, sadistic chess game against a lonely country mouse. Her patient sorrow so enriched the flavor of her blood that Ihrassius longed for more, even centuries after he drained her heart of both her lifeblood and her unrequited love. The stoic grandfather clock was the only witness of Ihrassius’s merciless checkmate.
__________When Ihrassius’s mesmerizing gaze first glimpsed the tear-stained face of his target, her name was Aurora Edenbrew, though everyone called her Rori. Her name changed twice before Ihrassius claimed her, but on that day, along the cobblestone bridge that arched over the little creek that ran through the Edenbrew homestead, the maiden, Aurora, encountered the dashing, vampire trickster, Ihrassius, who swiftly stole her heart, and who would someday end her life.
__________Rori’s auburn curls bounced against her shapely shoulders, which the low, wide collar of her sun-bleached, linen dress exposed. Although the dress had flattered her elder sister, Lorena, when she was Rori’s age, the skirt and collar draped an inch too low and too long on Rori’s shorter, slimmer frame. Had the collar fallen any lower against Rori’s bust, she would not have been fit to be seen. Already, local clergymen averted their eyes when Rori passed by them. Young men ogled her, as she pressed a hand to her chest when she bent over, or as she lifted her skirt above her ankles when she stepped. She was quite pretty, for a poor, farmer’s daughter—for a human woman of little to no magical or social standing—but neither her bust nor her ankles tempted Ihrassius. It was her exposed neck that extended his retractable fangs and tingled the venom sacks behind them.
__________Even though Ihrassius met Rori along the bridge in daylight, he was like a barn cat stalking a white-furred mouse in the shadows of evening; Rori’s light skin did nothing to camouflage her veins. Ihrassius cupped a hand over his mouth, as Rori approached, and he wondered if the cat’s claws ached before the pounce, as impatiently as did his fangs. It was this curiosity that influenced Ihrassius’s next move.
__________Teary-eyed Rori hauled a burlap sack up the bridge. Its contents kicked her as often as her curls bounced. At the peak of the bridge’s arch, she paused, and loosened her grip on the top end of the sack, just enough to peer inside. Her tears fell silently but ferociously, as she looked from the sack to the edge of the bridge.
__________Ihrassius slowly lowered his hand from over his mouth and gently placed it on her shoulder. His eyes gleamed and his fangs ached, the nearer he came to Rori’s neck. The proximity taunted him, but so did his curiosity. Since he wanted to know what was in the sack, he leaned over Rori’s shoulder and looked inside, where he spied a litter of lively kittens wrestling atop a pile of flat stones.
__________“That’s an unusual way to travel with pets,” Ihrassius suggested. “Are you… all right?”
__________Rori nervously turned her head towards Ihrassius. Beneath his palm, he initially felt her muscles tense fearfully, but once their gazes met, her stance softened. “I’m sorry, Sir. Papa says we’ve too many kittens to care for,” she sniffled. “He… told me I had to…”
__________Again, Rori glanced over the edge of the bridge, and then she choked on her tears, unable to relay her father’s request, let alone follow through with the task. So, Ihrassius swiped the sack from Rori and pulled her into his embrace. He buried his fingers in her auburn curls, as he pressed her ear to his heart and her nose to the musky scent of his natural cologne. A lesser vampire would have bitten her then, as she melted against the strength of his vampiric allure, but Ihrassius was a connoisseur of taste, thus he decided to stew this one awhile longer.
__________He stepped back from Rori, set down the sack of kittens and stones, and slipped his fingers through hers. “These hands aren’t meant to kill,” he told her.
__________“But Papa said…” Rori sniffled.
__________Ihrassius locked eyes with her. “Promise me that you will never take a life,” he said, “and I’ll vow to come to you whenever you call for me.”
__________“I…”
__________Ihrassius interrupted, “If you keep our covenant, one day I’ll share my home with you.”
__________Rori blushed. Could this handsome, wealthy stranger have proposed to her? Could he be the way out from under the crushing weight of her father’s thumb and her family’s poverty?
__________“Surely you jest, Sir,” Rori stammered. “I’m nothing. No one would offer everything in exchange for nothing.”
__________Ihrassius laughed, knowing that the hold his vampiric allure had upon Rori would prevent her from being startled by the sight of his fangs. “If that is so, then why should nothing refuse such an offer?” he teased. “I want for nothing but this covenant between us: To know that you will never shed blood with these beautiful hands of yours.”
__________“So be it, Sir,” Rori accepted. “To whom do I make this pledge?”
__________“Marquis Ihrassius Dafyunesh, my lady.”
__________Rori giggled. No one had ever called her a lady before. “My lord, I vow it.”
__________“I am at your call, my lady,” he agreed. He kissed Rori passionately—sealed their deal—and then pulled away mid-kiss, while the endangered kittens escaped their sack. Ihrassius fled the scene with his vampiric speed, and left Rori to daydream and to wonder: Had any of it been real? Yet, when she called him at twilight, Ihrassius answered.
__________For the next five surface years, Ihrassius courted his prey. He came to Rori whenever she called: He attended to her loneliness and her fears. Beneath the moonlight, they strolled; along the winding dirt paths that led away from the village, her country home, and her controlling father. They strolled over the hills, through the woods, and across the flowery fields; where the petals of bell-shaped blossoms unfolded as stars, dressing the landscape in the garb of the nightscape.
__________Each night, Ihrassius picked a blossom and tucked it behind Rori’s ear. Then he whispered sweet nothings into the ear he adorned. She giggled. He lifted her, spun her, and then kissed her. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes sparkled; whenever their lips touched, and whenever she met his enchanting gaze.
__________Midnight, he placed his hand on her back, her fingers curled around the collar of his cloak, and he guided her home. He hoisted her through her bedroom window, but as soon as her feet met the floor of her room, she turned back towards the window and cried. Her father was a difficult man, whose drink sometimes coerced him to take tough love too far: Rori feared sleeping alone. Thus, Ihrassius climbed through her window and joined her in her bed. The sweet nothings progressed quickly then, for each time Ihrassius lay beside her, his vampiric allure enveloped her, along with his embrace. Elsewhere in the house, the pendulum of the grandfather clock swayed, ticking away those sweet hours of Rori’s troubled life.
__________Later in the night, when Rori’s father thundered into the room, Ihrassius grabbed the man by the shoulders, stared into the man’s surly eyes, and addressed him in a serpentine voice: “Aaron Edenbrew, you have wandered into your daughter’s room in a dream. Go back to sleep.”
__________Ihrassius’s eyes glowed. The same glow flickered in Aaron’s eyes. Immediately, Aaron nodded off. He collapsed; fell to the bedroom floor, asleep. Then Ihrassius kissed Rori’s forehead, redressed, and vanished, as she and Aaron slept.
__________When the light of dawn snuck in through the open window, Ihrassius was gone, but the flower he placed in Rori’s hair remained. Though its petals closed in the daylight, she stuffed it inside the only book she owned: a tattered, leather-bound copy of a classic fairytale. As the flower dried, the book pressed it; Rori hoped to keep it forever. She had quite a collection of these flowers when her father brought her the terrible news that sought to end her secret, five-year courtship with her mysterious, wealthy, vampiric lover.
__________That year, famine overtook Edenbrew Farm, and Aaron could not afford to support his daughter of marrying age any longer. He lost patience, as Rori rejected every gentleman caller, who deigned to propose to her. Even though Ihrassius came to her each night, only Rori remembered him. Whenever they were discovered together, Ihrassius spoke to the witnesses in the same, serpentine voice that tricked Rori’s father. Thus, they each forgot what they saw, and each time, Ihrassius claimed this protected Rori. So desperately in love, Rori believed every lie that slipped from her lover’s lips. Meanwhile, everyone else believed Rori’s talk of a mysterious, wealthy suitor was the childish fantasy of a poor, young country mouse, who longed to broaden her horizons; nothing more, and certainly nothing real. Finally, Aaron gave Rori away, against her will. He married her off to a soldier, whose career flourished, as tensions rose from famine.
__________On Rori’s wedding night, the stoic grandfather clock was moved to the soldier’s cabin. Rori prayed for her groom to return to the front—to perish, so he would not ever learn her precious, defaming secret—but neither the ticking of the clock nor the wedding stalled. As the ceremony commenced, tears streamed down the bride’s cheeks, beneath her veil, so none could see. Rori’s sorrow choked her speech, as it had along the cobblestone bridge: She was unable to call for Ihrassius. None objected to the wedding then, for the bride could not utter her dissent, until the groom took her to his bed. There the soldier discovered Rori had no right to don a veil of purity. Enraged, he struck her, again… and again…
__________“Ihrassius protect me!” Rori cried, as she reached under her pillow for the deadliest wedding gift their guests had presented: a silver dagger meant to deter invaders at the witching hour. Earlier, the groom hastily stashed the weapon there, as he eagerly undressed himself and his bride, but now, his bride drew it out and stabbed its blade through his heart. He toppled backward, and Rori screamed.
__________Ihrassius stepped out from an unlit corner of the room. As he approached Rori, he slowly shook his head, emphasized his disappointment and her shame. “Aurora, what have you done?” he taunted. “Your beautiful hands are stained with the blood of a dying man.”
__________Teary-eyed and shaking, Rori covered her battered body with a blanket and crossed her arms over her chest. “Please Ihrassius, let him take his final breath,” she begged. “Take me away as you promised.”
__________Ihrassius kneeled beside Rori. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her into his embrace, and held her against his chest. He stroked her disheveled curls and watched her dying groom bleed out, until he bled no more. A missed meal, Ihrassius bemoaned, but it shall make this one all the more satisfying.
__________Ihrassius gently pulled away from Rori. He slid off her bed and stood. “Alas, Aurora, your husband is dead,” he declared. “I can no longer come at your call.”
__________Rori dropped her blanket and grabbed onto the cuff of Ihrassius’s sleeve. “But… Can’t you see?” she stammered. “It’s for the best; we can run away together!”
__________Ihrassius yanked his arm away and turned his back to Rori, so she fell onto the floor disgracefully. “You’ve broken our covenant,” he announced coldly. “We cannot be together.”
__________With his vampiric speed, Ihrassius seemingly vanished. He left behind those last biting words of his, so they might ferment Rori’s heart, like the yeast in fine wine. For many years, Rori cried for her vampiric lover, but he did not come to her, until her life neared its close.
__________The knight-captain, who oversaw the rural reaches of the local, ruling lord’s domain, investigated his underling’s murder. The bruises on Rori’s frame vouched for her. The knight-captain determined she defended herself. All charges of murder were dropped by the state, but it was Ihrassius’s charge that haunted her. She cared not that her husband was dead, but that her hands separated her from her first and only love. Everyone comforted her for a loss and a pain that she did not feel. They encouraged her to trust the knight-captain’s decree, as she despaired, for they believed her husband’s death sorrowed her. His end did not sorrow her, for she despaired the end of the fantasy that none but she believed in, even as it cast her into unending melancholy.
__________The knight-captain pitied her. With her father’s permission, he married Rori and took her home to the citadel, where he lived and worked. Her condition never improved. Her sorrow only deepened. She lived quietly and submissively, studiously attending to the domestic tasks her second husband assigned, like a well-oiled machine. The only humanness that remained in her heart still longed for Ihrassius’s return, nothing more and nothing less would revitalize her.
__________When her second husband aged and expired, Rori kneeled before the grandfather clock. The clock had followed her to each house where she dwelled: From her father’s farmhouse to the soldier’s countryside cabin to the knight-captain’s citadel apartment. Wisened from her long-suffering, Rori spoke to the ticking clock. Surely, Ihrassius stalked her from the shadows these many years; he would hear her, and if she planned her words cunningly, he would respond.
__________“I have atoned for my mistake,” Rori began. “I have lived quietly, never raising my voice nor my hands to the second man my father chose. I have accepted my lot in life and served my household, as though my duties of child-rearing, cooking, and cleaning might wash the bloodstain from my weary, withered hands.”
__________“My children are grown and flown,” she continued. “I was there to nudge them from the nest and to catch them when they fell, until they were ready to fly. They have been flightworthy and aloft for many years, and tonight, I laid their father to rest for the last time. Though not by my doing, I am truly alone tonight.”
__________“I no longer entertain thoughts of grandeur,” she concluded. “I seek only an end to my long-suffering, so please, Marquis Ihrassius Dafyunesh, step out from the shadows and bring solace to this old maid.”
__________Ihrassius stepped out from behind the clock and whipped around to Rori’s backside. He gently placed his hands on her shoulders, kneeled, and rested his chin beside her neck. As her veins pulsed beneath his chin, his fangs extended like the claws of a cat, but Ihrassius was exceptionally careful not to pierce his lower lip. He never intended to keep his lowly country mouse as his pet. She was his prey, and he was after her blood, but still her pulse quickened from his touch. Stewed to perfection, he thought.
__________“Hello, Aurora,” Ihrassius greeted. “Fifty surface years have passed since we last embraced.”
__________Rori glanced at Ihrassius and caught sight of the light in his eyes. “And you haven’t aged a day,” she said matter-of-factly, for long ago, she had accepted the truth of what he was. “I never could match your beauty, but I’ve longed for your return all the same.”
__________“It’s a terrible thing, isn’t it? My unchanging face… Our vastly different statuses?” Ihrassius entertained. “I am cursed to remain, and you are cursed to change… For once you were beautiful, but now you wither, as a dying rose.”
__________“And your unchanging heart cannot forgive my mistake, or else you could restore me.”
__________“Ah, but Aurora, the purest blood of Clan Dafyunesh was never meant for you,” Ihrassius admitted, and then—before the ticking clock—he drove his fangs into her wrinkled neck. He emptied her heart, until it stopped, but the stoic clock ticked onward, unbothered by its keeper’s passing.
__________Ihrassius dropped Rori’s corpse onto the floor, as a doll he tired of. “Only a husk,” he remarked, “for now you look as you’ve felt for the last fifty years, but I’ll never forget the rich taste of your sorrow.”
__________He called for a portal to Dafyunesh Manor, and as the portal formed, he lifted the grandfather clock off the floor. He carried it with him, as he stepped through the portal and into his house. There he set down the clock where it would stand for centuries. He closed the portal that tunneled from that world above, and then he descended a flight of stairs, into the basement of the manor.
__________He paused for a moment and admired the lavish signet ring he sported on his left hand. Two small, round jewels were embedded in the ring’s design. The jewels reacted to Ihrassius’s gaze: They glowed brightly as he eyed them, and then two small, black, wriggling leeches climbed out of the glowing jewels and up Ihrassius’s sleeve. Then Ihrassius bit his wrist, and the leeches raced down his sleeve. They latched onto his open wounds and drank from his blood, which still contained the essence of Rori’s soul and her sorrow.
__________Once they drank their fill, Ihrassius grabbed an empty wine bottle from a nearby shelf and withdrew a needle from the wax of a burning candlestick. He startled the leeches’ fangs free with the touch of the hot needle, and then he squeezed the leeches over the neck of the bottle, as if he juiced grapes. The leeches spit their meal into the bottle, so Ihrassius guided them back to his wrist and repeated the laborious juicing, until he filled the empty bottle with his and Rori’s blood.
__________Finally, Ihrassius corked the bottle, and with the trigger word of a spell, he urged the exhausted leeches back into the jewels of the signet ring. He placed the bottle back on its shelf, and he left the bottle there, where it laid untouched for centuries, as he awaited the exceptional occasion that would call for its retrieval.
__________When the occasion called for it, Ihrassius retrieved the bottle, drank from it, and emptied it. He welcomed the sweet taste of Rori’s sorrow back to his lips and into his veins, and then ascended the basement stairs to meet with the woman he left waiting. Before the swinging pendulum of the stoic grandfather clock, he embraced the vampiress he married, for he never intended to marry outside the clan.
__________Veltory Dafyunesh welcomed him back to her with a playful nip at the neck. “An exquisite flavor,” she teased.
__________Ihrassius ran a finger down from her lips to her pregnant belly. “Anything for my girls,” he charmed. “I could never offer you wine straight from the vine.”
__________Veltory laughed. “How long did you age this one?”
__________“Fifty-five surface years and centuries below,” Ihrassius replied.
__________“Longer than we’ve been wed?” Veltory affirmed. “You are quite the strategist.”
__________Ihrassius smirked. “Anything for my girls,” he repeated.
__________Rori’s world forgot her, long before Ihrassius’s daughter, Morgaleath, was born. In the underworld, time passed sluggishly, as befit the belabored groans of its undead residents. Rori’s ancient clock—plundered by Ihrassius—ticked faster than any other clock in the Gravespawn Realm. The stoic clock reminded Ihrassius of his checkmate meal, and it inspired his daughter to inquire of the tale behind its acquisition.
__________After hearing the tale, Morgaleath admired the clock, as a symbol of her father’s cunning and her clan’s golden era. There was a chance she would never see sunlight, woodlands, blossoms that unfold as stars, or even humans not already decayed. The otherworldly clock was proof of lit worlds—warm, unrotten worlds—above the mist of the Shadowlands. This had satiated Morgaleath’s curiosity, until Lord Draiden taunted her clan with an alien visitor: a living person from a surface world. Suddenly, Morgaleath found herself wanting. She wanted to sink her fangs into healthy flesh and drink the warm blood of the alien’s beating heart. She would not stand to be denied forever, but first, she owed a visit to her cousin, Vujeera Dafyunesh, if only to make him miserably jealous of her interest in Draiden’s pet.
__________She climbed out the window across from the clock, and then snuck behind the manor; to avoid Noveirn’s scrutinizing gaze and an ushering back to bed. Behind the manor, Morgaleath climbed a thorny, frozen vine to Vujeera’s bedroom window. She crouched on the outer windowsill and knocked on the glass.
__________Vujeera pulled his blanket over his head. Go away, he said telepathically. I’m not seeing anyone.
__________Oh, invite me in, Morgaleath urged, or I’ll tell our moms that you kept a lady waiting.
__________Vujeera scowled, tossed the blanket onto the floor, and jumped out of bed. He opened his bedroom window, reached out to his cousin, and guided her in.
__________Morgaleath laughed. “I knew you were afraid of them!”
__________Vujeera smirked. “Not at all, Cousin,” he insisted, “but I look forward to telling Uncle Ihrassius just how eager you were to spend the Deep Night with me… You didn’t even give me time to redress.”
__________Morgaleath blushed, and then hissed menacingly, until the redness drained from her cheeks. “You have a robe on,” she countered, “and I’m not interested in you anyway. I came to ask about our houseguest.”
__________Vujeera tossed back his dark bangs and smiled, just enough to show his fangs. “We both heard our parents talking… Since we’re blocked from the surface worlds, there aren’t many options for us,” he recounted. “Once we’re old enough, they’ll match us, just to keep our bloodline pure. With that in mind, Uncle Ihrassius will be pleased to hear you aren’t shy about calling on me in the night.”
__________Morgaleath rolled her eyes. “You’re so gross… I’d think all boys were, if I’d never met our handsome visitor.”
__________Vujeera led Morgaleath to the side of his bed, and they sat down together. “His runny nose and eyes didn’t put you off?” Vujeera teased. “This is all a matter of taste, isn’t it?”
__________“Yes, and you’re too bland for my delicate palate,” Morgaleath insulted.
__________Vujeera leaned back against his mattress and flicked his bangs out of his eyes. “What I’m saying, Mori, is that it won’t matter what we think… or what we feel,” Vujeera expressed. “So long as Draiden’s curse holds, our lives will be subject to predestination.”
__________Morgaleath laughed. “Then our ancestral cousin is more akin to us than we foresaw,” she replied. “That’s something I can work with.”
__________Vujeera sat up and looked into Morgaleath’s eyes. “We’re hunting the same prey,” he warned, “and I don’t think your methods will work on this one.”
__________He looked Morgaleath over, as he added: “You don’t have much to work with.”
__________“Oh, but I do,” Morgaleath argued. She climbed into Vujeera’s lap, rested her head on his shoulder, hummed, and swayed.
__________Afraid she would knock them over and cause a scene, Vujeera wrapped his arms around Morgaleath and steadied her. “Be careful,” he insisted. “You’ll fall on me.”
__________Morgaleath smiled. “See now? Boys are easy to trick, if you give them someone or something to protect,” she claimed, as she slipped out from under Vujeera’s arms and slid down to the floor, as if his lap were a slide.
__________Vujeera poked her in the stomach with his toe. “You always leave yourself wide open,” he complained. “When are you going to figure out how vulnerable you really are?”
__________Morgaleath stood. “Not once my fangs sink in,” she said, jabbing Vujeera on the neck with two of her fingers, “but it doesn’t matter, since you already proved me right.”
__________Vujeera hissed. “May the best hunter make the kill.”
__________Morgaleath turned away and placed a foot on the inner windowsill. “I don’t want to kill him, Cousin,” she confessed. “I want to keep him, and once I have him, you’ll have no one.”
__________Vujeera smirked. “That would free me of you,” he mocked. “Tempting, but not enough to throw me off the chase.”
__________Morgaleath looked back at Vujeera and sighed. “You’re so stubborn.”
__________“Fruyr needs to be instructed, not pampered,” Vujeera remarked. “He needs a lesson my venom is more suitable to teach than yours.”
__________Morgaleath crouched through the open window and leapt off the outer windowsill. You never planned to kill him either, Morgaleath realized. All right, Cousin, but to the victor goes the spoils in hunting, in love, and in war.
__________She landed on her feet at the ground below, as unhindered as a cat. She crept around the manor, and climbed through the window across from the ancient grandfather clock. She lay on the floor, lulled to sleep by the ticking of the clock; her knees and arms folded against her middle, like the petals of the star flower. Morgaleath’s pale skin appeared ghostly in the shadowed halls, as if she were dead. She slept soundly, but unlike Aurora Edenbrew, Morgaleath Dafyunesh would be as lively as ever, once she awoke in the Even’morn.
Endlesslore 