By: Brianna Lee Hubler
Copyright © 2024 Brianna Lee Hubler. All rights reserved.
Their Broiling Blood
__________The farther her horse galloped, the faster her heart pounded. The closer the twins’ mother, Nica, came to the land of her birth, the louder her internal flame roared. It fanned the flames behind her irises, and its warm light shimmered in her long, wild hair. Surplus embers ignited the uneven ends of her roguish, red mane and burned holes into her cotton shirt. She pressed her heels into her horse’s belly and pulled tightly on its reins. The horse slowed to a trot, and then stilled before a jungle hot spring. As it dipped its head and lapped the warm water of the geothermal pool, its flaming rider dismounted. She waded into the pool, squeezed her nostrils closed between her fingers, and cupped her palm over her mouth. She closed her eyes, and then she submerged.
__________The warm water smothered the flames streaming from Nica’s fiery hair. While she was enveloped in the opposing element, her heart’s blazing bonfire shrank, until it was no wilder than a small, warming fire. Finally, she stretched out, straightened her back, and cut the water. Once she was upright, she opened her eyes and stripped out of her clothes. She tossed her singed and soggy outfit onto the embankment and rinsed the dust and sweat of the road off her skin.
__________Nica cupped her hands, scooped some water from the pool, and dumped it over her head. Raindrops dripped from her nose, her chin, and the uneven ends of her hair. She watched, as the droplets fell into the water in short, quiet splashes that rippled the glossy surface of the pool. The ripples diminished, as the hot spring welcomed the droplets home.
__________Calm and clean, like Talsis, Nica considered. He’s the yang of his element; the calm before the storm.
__________Unlike me, she continued, as she shook out her hair, like a wolf after a swim.
__________Briefly, a flurry of raindrops bespeckled the air around her, and then crashed into the pool. I’m his yin, she concluded. I’m the storm.
__________She blushed. Her internal flame fluttered, as feelings of love and shame dueled for nesting space within her heart. She had disarmed and redressed herself for a quieter life in the woods, where she could love her placid mate and raise her family peacefully. She had outrun the unrest in her homeland, but somehow, decades later, it had caught up to her. For her hair ignited, as she neared it, and singed her country housewife costume. Nica glanced at the singed, soggy clothes that she tossed ashore and recalled a discomforting, Elferan proverb: Destiny prevails flight.
__________Something darted behind her. Her saddlebags rustled. Her horse lifted its head and peered over its shoulder. It whinnied. She looked: One of the bags was missing. As though her skin brushed against the spikey leaves of a holly bush, a prickly sensation climbed Nica’s spine. Instinctively, her internal flame shot embers through her bloodstream. Her fingertips sparked. Her throat tightened, and her pulse quickened. She pressed her thumbs to her fingertips, crossed her arms over her chest, and narrowed her eyes. With the ammunition her internal flame provided, she readied a spell and searched for the thief.
__________Behind her, she spied a man, who held her missing bag. Nica spun to face him and snapped her prepared fingers. Flaming frisbees spiraled out from her fingertips and bashed the man’s torso from the left and the right.
__________Winded from the impact, the man coughed, but his body absorbed the flames. He covered his eyes, shook his head, and reached out to return the bag. Nica’s jaw dropped, and her eye’s widened. She could not muster words to speak. It’s been a century, she recounted, since we last spoke.
__________The man cleared his throat and addressed her, without uncovering his eyes. “Please, Baby Sister, don your regalia and recover some decency,” he entreated. “This land has twice as many eyes as spies.”
__________Nica closed her mouth and relaxed her jaw. She tossed her wet hair behind her and waded to shore. She took her bag from her elder brother, threw it down, and embraced him. “Ausehriel,” she greeted. “You raised me from seed to sprout.”
__________Ausehriel blushed and patted her back. “Yes,” he answered, “but you’ve blossomed since.”
__________He uncovered his eyes, unclasped his cloak, and draped the cloak over Nica’s shoulders. “There are other men nearby,” he admitted. “Thrilled as I am to see you, I’d rather see you dressed.”
__________Nica frowned but nodded. She released her brother from her embrace and retrieved her dropped bag. Inside was a traditional, Faomekatheer outfit. She passed her brother’s cloak back to him and dressed in the clothes and armor that she had not worn since she retired her sword. “Living in the wilds, I’ve forgotten the stinginess of congregators,” she said offhandedly, “and the tightness of this Eternal-forsaken corset.”
__________Ausehriel laughed. “Always the enemy of patriarchy, yet twice you ran off for a boy?”
__________Nica paled. “The first was for the world’s salvation,” she claimed. “The second was for mine.”
__________Ausehriel sighed. “Have you also forgotten how to smile?”
__________Nica’s lower lip quivered, and her eyes watered.
__________“Only recently,” she confessed. “There was… an accident.”
__________Ausehriel frowned. He gingerly raised his hand and wiped away his sister’s tears. Then he took her hand in his and guided her back to her horse. Nica waited for her brother to inquire of her burdens; to either soothe or scold her. He voiced neither. Ausehriel waited for his sister to explain her sadness; to either whisper her woes into his ear or convey them straight to his thoughts. A moment of silence passed between them.
__________A local, wild parrot interrupted. It swooped down from its nest and landed on Ausehriel’s shoulder. It angrily puffed out its feathers and pecked at the pointed tip of his ear.
__________“An accident. An accident!” the parrot squawked.
__________Ausehriel rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket. He retrieved a small, tin box and opened it. Inside the box was a batch of crispy, cooked, and seasoned grasshoppers. Ausehriel offered one to the parrot, who swallowed it whole and squawked for another.
__________Ausehriel fed the wild parrot some more of his grasshoppers, but whenever it finished one, it demanded another. Finally, Ausehriel dumped the whole batch into the dirt and pocketed the empty box.
__________“An accident. An accident!” the parrot repeated, as it leapt off Ausehriel’s shoulder and swooped down. It landed by his feet, raked the dirt with its talons, and ate as many of the grasshoppers as it could recover.
__________While he watched the parrot, Ausehriel tightened his grip on Nica’s hand. “Where have the smiles gone, Sister?”
__________“I… don’t know,” Nica sniffled, as she covered her eyes with her arm to conceal her tears. “I’m trying… to find them.”
__________Nica’s words were not too cryptic for her elder brother to discern. Her smiles had gone with her sons, and her sons had gone missing. Ausehriel lowered Nica’s arm and met her tearful gaze. He assured her, “You’re not alone in this.”
__________Before Nica responded, Ausehriel mounted her horse and hoisted her onto the saddle in front of him. He dropped the reins in her lap. “Ride for the citadel,” he insisted. “I’ll get you an audience with King Roistreph.”
__________“The jungle will slow Ashtohka,” Nica warned. “We’ll be riding through the night.”
__________“Better to be alert than asleep when the enemy comes knocking.”
__________“Since when does the enemy bother to knock first?”
__________Ausehriel laughed. “Perhaps they’ve become more gentlemanly since you’ve been away.”
__________Nica shook her head. “I wouldn’t count on it.”
__________“Nor would I,” Ausehriel admitted, “but I am counting on you. There’s time aplenty.”
__________“For what?”
__________“To relay how entangled your twins and our ongoing war have become.”
__________To combat the thunderous dashing of Ashtohka’s hooves, Nica raised her voice, as she relayed the events that led up to her sons’ disappearance. Her elder brother was a renowned seeker. He listened to her words, as though they were the tall grasses of the plains. His attention to detail was the machete sharp enough to cut through.
__________“The trail led to a cabin,” Ausehriel clarified, “and there you found residue of the mists?”
__________“Yes,” Nica confirmed.
__________“Then we’ll be searching the Twin Terror Realms for your elf twins.”
__________“Indeed.”
* * *
__________Fruyr clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and glared at the door. She’s knocked three times already, he counted. Can’t she take a hint?
__________Tap, tap, tap! Morgaleath knocked again.
__________“Nope,” Fruyr answered his own question aloud. His answer doubled as a reply to the obnoxiously persistent vampiress, whose toes poked through the gap between his door and the floor.
__________Morgaleath groaned. “Are you ever coming out of there?”
__________Fruyr covered the twin holes in his neck with his palm. They throbbed and burned, like a pair of stubborn wasp stings. Just like wasps, Fruyr thought. One of them bites me, and they all chase me.
__________“You make for a poor watchdog when you won’t leave your den,” Morgaleath criticized.
__________Fruyr rolled his eyes, jumped out of bed, and opened the door. “I’m not a dog,” he shouted, “and you’re not allowed in!”
__________He slammed the door shut, but not before Morgaleath caught a glimpse of him rubbing his sore neck. She smirked. Cruel of you, Cousin, she mentally scolded. No sedative in the bite.
* * *
__________Vujeera skulked to the basement. He didn’t want to be seen. Morgaleath would have smelled his and Fruyr’s blood. By now, she was fuming, like an over-boiled kettle, but Vujeera wasn’t interested in pulling that kettle off the burner: That was what servants were for. The young vampire liked pushing his cousin’s buttons, until she was edgy and uncertain, like a mother hen desperately trying not to stomp on her own, fragile eggs.
__________Meanwhile, there was a bag of magician’s tricks to rummage through. Vujeera drank from the veins of a magical creature. Likely, some of Fruyr’s magical properties passed over Vujeera’s lips along with Fruyr’s lifeblood. Records of Clan Dafyunesh’s exploits suggested acquiring a magical creature’s abilities was an additional perk to slaking the bloodthirst, but the augment was temporary. When the bloodthirst returned, the effects of the prior feeding diminished. Vujeera estimated there were approximately twenty-four hours before he lost the specimen of his study to its absorption.
__________Vujeera rifled through his mother’s emergency supply crates, until he found a dozen candles. Then he knelt on the floor with the candles beside him. He set the candles up, so they ringed around him, and then he focused his gaze upon the candle directly across from him. He stalked its wick as intently as he would his prey. The background blurred. The wick was in his sights.
__________“Burn,” he commanded in Elvish.
__________The wick ignited.
__________“Stretch,” he continued.
__________The candleflame doubled in length.
__________“Split.”
__________The candleflame split into a Y-shaped flame that burned in opposite directions, like a fork in a path.
__________“Spread,” he ordered, and the forked ends of the Y arched. The candles to the right and left of the first candle ignited.
__________“Repeat,” Vujeera finished. His heat-sensitive eyes tracked the jumping flames, as they ringed around him, lighting the circle of candles.
__________Vujeera raised a hand to his cheek. His smooth, pale skin felt prickly and hot. The heat of the candleflames sunburned him.
__________He frowned, as he waved his hand to snuff out the flames. “It’s doable,” he decided, “but the light… I still can’t touch it.”
__________Vujeera turned over his palms and examined them. His skin appeared pigment-less. He had been born into darkness, and Draiden’s curse had assured that he grew enshrouded.
__________“I envy him,” Vujeera whispered. “He who walks in the warmth and light of the sun…”
__________Dust fell from the ceiling onto Vujeera’s dark hair. He covered his eyes with his palm, shook out his hair, and listened. Above, two sets of feet raced, one after the other.
__________“Goodness Child, leave Master Vujeera be!” Noveirn shouted.
__________“Stop chasing me, you haggard thrall,” Morgaleath replied. “I’m the daughter of the Marquis, and I’ll hunt down whoever I please!”
__________“Whomever,” Noveirn corrected. “Must your tongue thrash as rashly as your rage?”
__________Mori’s on her way, Vujeera realized. He uncovered his eyes, collected the candles, and tossed the candles into a cistern to cool them. Then he ran a hand through his hair. When his hand slid off his hair, down the back of his head, he rested it against the back of his neck. A victory in vain, he considered, if her fangs pierce my veins tonight.
__________He searched for descending stairs. Somewhere, below the basement, was the family crypt. There, in silver urns, the ashes of his forebearers haunted the prisoners of House Dafyunesh. The doors of prisoners’ cells were never locked. For, in the scuffle of escape, should one or more of the urns be knocked over and spilled, ancient vampires might arise from their ashes, with millennia-long thirsts to quench. This superstition was a keener warden than posted guards, but Vujeera was familiar with the ruse.
__________He marched downstairs with a posture of grandeur. When he reached the crypt, his red eyes brightened, and his muscles thickened with vampiric vigor. He kicked and flailed; turned over tables, busted shelves, and knocked over the silver urns. Everywhere, ashes spilled and plumed. He wrecked the crypt entirely, and then he removed his cloak. Next, he laid it out on the floor and dropped the empty urns atop it. Then, he pulled the cloak up by its corners and tied the ends together. Finally, he tossed his makeshift bag over his shoulder, straightened his posture, and located the prisoners’ cells.
__________He dropped the bag on the floor and studied the faces of the traitorous thralls, who attacked him and Fruyr in the Even’morn. They were tearful and apologetic. Their inner eyebrows turned up and furrowed their brows. They sucked in their lips. Without words, they bartered for mercy, but they rightly anticipated none.
__________Vujeera tossed an empty urn into each cell. The thralls scurried away from the intruding objects, like frightened rats. Vujeera averted his eyes and raised his spellcasting hands. He waved his left hand before the row of unlocked cells, and with his right hand, he feigned a slice across his neck. Sorrowfully, he declared, “Death by fire.”
__________Whirling infernos blazed beneath the prisoners’ feet. It wrapped around them, climbed their legs, and swallowed them whole. Uproarious, as a sudden rainstorm, the thralls screamed together, and then they were silenced. The infernos ejected the prisoners’ ashes, and then burnt out. Vujeera cupped a palm over his nose and mouth and fell to his knees. A haze of acrid smoke, as pungent and sinister as dragon’s breath, hovered above the ashes that blanketed the floor.
__________Vujeera closed his eyes. From a cumbersome spell backlash, manifested as a ferocious fever, his head throbbed, and his heart raced. His tongue and throat dried, as his bloodthirst returned. The spell had consumed his targets, including every stolen drop of Fruyr’s magic.
__________Then suddenly, the sweet scent of springtime enveloped him; an aura that pushed back the stink of death. Soft, unwearied hands capped his shoulders, and even softer lips kissed his neck. These sweetened two medicinal jabs to the bloodstream: Morgaleath drank her cousin’s blood and cooled his fever.
__________While Morgaleath’s vampiric allure shielded them from the smoke, Vujeera uncovered his nose and mouth. He reached behind himself and patted the back of Morgaleath’s head.
__________“Disappointed?” he challenged.
__________Morgaleath withdrew her fangs, shoved Vujeera down, and stomped on his back. “Where did you hide it?” she demanded.
__________Vujeera coughed, as ashes plumed into his nostrils, but then he crossed his arms and lifted his head to raise himself out of the filth. “Ah, Mori,” he cajoled between sneezes. “Strike one, and that’s the match.”
__________“Maybe,” Morgaleath replied, “but it’s not the game.”
__________She tossed back her hair, jumped off Vujeera’s back, and kicked him in the gut.
__________Vujeera gasped and coughed. He clutched his stomach, as he rose to his feet.
__________For a while, they locked eyes and glared. Not another word passed between either of them. Noveirn came and collected them. The competing cousins went quietly to the baths, while their silver-haired nanny berated them for the messes they made of themselves and their family crypt. Finally, cleaner and calmer than before, Morgaleath departed, and then Vujeera spoke.
__________“I executed the traitors,” Vujeera announced. Bathwater dripped from his wet hair and concealed his tears. He shook out his hair and wiped his face with another of his embroidered towels. “Please convey this to Mother.”
__________Noveirn nodded solemnly.
__________Vujeera hastily dressed and exited.
Endlesslore 