“Radu,” he whispered.
Chapter 38
I stiffened in disbelief. That was the name of Vlad’s brother, who had died back in the fifteenth century. Good Lord, what if he hadn’t? All at once, I remembered the deep copper color of the necromancer’s eyes. Add a ring of emerald around the irises, and they would be identical to Vlad’s.
The necromancer’s laugh was cold. “No, though Mihaly often said that I favored my father a great deal. That would have caused serious problems for my mother if you hadn’t stayed away for the entirety of my childhood, but she knew others would notice the resemblance. That’s why she sent me off to Oradea.”
Now the look Vlad gave him was calculating, if no less amazed.
“Mircea.” A single, humorless laugh escaped him. “Ilona’s lover was my own brother. No wonder Szilagyi pushed so hard to have me marry her. The irony of me claiming Radu’s children as my own would have delighted him.”
“And would have put one of Mehmed’s loyal subjects on Wallachia’s throne, eventually,” Mircea concurred with a shrug. Then his gaze gleamed. “But while Mihaly groomed my brother to replace your son as prince, he had other plans for me.”
“Yes. He turned you into a vampire and then turned you against me,” Vlad stated, his tone now emotionless.
“Mihaly didn’t need to do that,” Mircea said instantly, his scent sharpening with hatred. “You did it yourself. Until I was turned, I didn’t know that you weren’t my father. All through my childhood, I loved you, yet you cared nothing for me. You didn’t even visit me enough to notice that I was the spitting image of the brother you hated and hounded to his death!”
“Yes, I left you and your brother in your mother’s care,” Vlad said in a toneless voice. “Is that why you plotted against me with Szilagyi for centuries?”
“Yes,” Mircea hissed. “He was a cold, cruel substitute for a father, and yet more of one to me than you ever were.”
I’d stayed quiet, mostly from surprise at the revelation that the sorcerer was Vlad’s stepson and nephew all rolled into one, but I couldn’t any more at that.
“Don’t you dare use bad-daddy syndrome as an excuse for what you’ve done,” I snapped. “I was pushed aside by my father, too, yet you don’t see me casting evil spells, crashing planes, and committing God-knows-how-many other acts of mass murder!”
“Then you’re not as strong or driven as I am,” Mircea said curtly.
Vlad’s hands became engulfed with flames, signaling that he was done discussing the necromancer’s motives. I yelled “Stop!” at the same time that Mircea said something very fast in Romanian.
“He’s tied to me now, Vlad,” I confirmed, feeling his suspicion sweep over me. “The spell did it. Look.”
I dragged a fang over my palm and Mircea held up his hand, showing the bloody slice that appeared in the same place. Then he pulled out a small, silver dagger from a concealed sheath on his back and laid open his cheek to the bone.
I fought the urge to grab my cheek at the instant, white-hot pain. Silver hurt worse than any metal for vampires, and I didn’t think it had been an accident that Mircea had gone for that knife instead of using his fangs like I had. No, I realized as I saw the malevolent gleam in his eyes, he’d wanted to hurt me, and he’d wanted Vlad to see him do it.
“You can’t kill him without killing me, too,” I said before Vlad could respond in the violent way he wanted to. “So we need to let him go.”
“I will do no such thing.” Each word fell like a hammer. “I can keep him alive without leaving him free to wreak more havoc on you, me or mine.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Mircea said, his beautiful features twisting with hatred. “I would rather be dead than your prisoner, not that you could ever hold me.”
At that, Vlad smiled, as charming as if he was trying to sweep Mircea off his feet. Then a wall of fire blocked the tunnel, cutting off Mircea’s only means of escape.
“Is that a dare?”
Oh, shit, I thought, bracing myself, but Mircea smiled back with equal charm.
“I only stayed to save her life since it’s currently tied to mine. Now that that’s done, so is my work here. Good-bye for now, Uncle, but don’t worry. We will see each other again.”
Vlad lunged at him and Mircea made no move to sidestep him. He just . . . disappeared, causing Vlad to grasp only thin, smoky air where the necromancer had just been.
“Spread out, this is a trick. He’s still somewhere in this room,” Vlad said at once.
“No, he’s not,” Maximus replied in a low voice. “He’s really gone.”
“Impossible,” was Vlad’s flat reply.
Maximus sighed. “Szilagyi didn’t trust me enough to tell me about Mircea until he thought I’d raped Leila. Then he took me here and I met him. The things Mircea can do . . . That’s why Szilagyi wasn’t afraid to come after you. He just waited until the boy had grown powerful enough because he needed Mircea’s abilities to build his army. Otherwise, your allies and even some of your enemies would have been too afraid of you to side with Szilagyi.”
Vlad’s bark of laughter startled me. It was hard, ugly, and foreboding, all at the same time.
“If that’s true, then what you’re telling me is that I’ve finally killed my worst enemy, but the threat against me is still very much alive.”
“Yes,” Maximus said steadily.
The two men stared at each other, and a new kind of tension filled the air. Maximus had saved my life, kept me from being raped, enabled me to escape, gave Vlad the location to Szilagyi’s lair . . . and yet everyone in the vampire world thought he’d betrayed Vlad in the worst way possible. Even if he wanted to, could Vlad let Maximus go without it looking like an act of extreme weakness? With the precarious position we were still in, would Vlad risk that, knowing that his enemies would use it as a rallying cry against him?
“Vlad,” Maximus began.
“Don’t.” The single word was edged. “I can never forget what I saw on that video. Despite Leila’s assurances, every time I look at you, I will see a replay of you raping my wife.”
Maximus bowed his head in resignation, and Vlad’s hands slowly began to fill with flames.
“Don’t,” I said with a gasp. “Vlad, you can’t!”
He ignored that and grabbed Maximus. Not by the shoulders, as he had with Szilagyi, but by the head. As soon as he touched Maximus, the flames extinguished, and he brought their faces close together.
“Aside from Mencheres, you are the truest friend I have ever had.” Vlad’s voice was so thick from emotion, it was almost choked. “And yet I meant what I said. A good man could forget, but I can’t, and so I cannot reward your loyalty with what I promised. You have no place in my line, Maximus, and you never will.”
A harsh sigh escaped Maximus and my heart broke as his shoulders began to shake with suppressed sobs.
“I didn’t do this for a place back in your line.” Each word was a rasp. “I did it for you.”
Vlad kissed him, once on each cheek. Maximus bent his head until their foreheads touched.
“You are my friend forever, voivode meu,” Maximus murmured.
“Princes don’t have friends, they have subjects,” Vlad said in an equally low voice. “You are no longer my subject, but even though I will not see you again, you will forever be my friend.”
He kissed Maximus one more time on the forehead, and then released him. “Go,” he said, the word as ragged as the regret strafing my feelings.
Maximus bowed, turned . . . and paused. “I can’t. The floor’s molten rock and you caved in the only way out.”
The barest smile twitched Vlad’s lips. “Rather ruins the moment, doesn’t it?”
Maximus’s mouth curled faintly as well. “Good thing neither of us is sentimental.”
As I watched them, I felt a flicker of hope that was uniquely mine. Vlad thought he could never get over the illusion that had so devastated him; it had pushed his powers to
a new level. Yet I believed that, with time, he could look at Maximus and see the true friend he loved, not the painful images of deception. After all, Vlad’s powers weren’t the only thing that had grown under our horrible circumstances recently. So had his capacity for love and perhaps most surprisingly, for mercy.
“Leila, were you the only one who followed me down here?” Vlad asked, bringing me back to our present issues. “Or did Petre and Samir ignore my commands to stay at the bridge, too?”
“I don’t know,” I started to say, but Maximus turned and, sidestepping some slowly spreading puddles of steaming rock, went to the cameras lining the walls.
“Petre’s still at the bridge,” he said after a moment. “Samir isn’t. I don’t see him on the other cameras in the tunnels, but over half of them aren’t working anymore.”
“Find him,” Vlad said to me.
I was confused for a moment until the obvious dawned. “How did you know that Samir grabbed me when I told him I was going after you?” I asked as I ran my right hand over my upper arm.
Vlad grunted. “If he didn’t, then he didn’t try hard enough to stop you.”
Samir’s essence imprint flared beneath my fingers. Good thing he’d been sufficiently mad at me when I wrenched away from him. I followed the link and saw him in the antechamber, trying to remove the rocks blocking the tunnel, piece of stone by piece of stone.
“He’s in the antechamber with the honeycomb cells,” I said.
Vlad glanced upward. At first, I thought he was thinking, but then I felt that painful, crushing sensation as his power began to swell and contract in ever-increasing rotations.
It took far longer than it had for him to melt the stone walls, but I was still awestruck when he flew me through the hole he’d created all the way back up to the surface. Maximus flew himself out, and then the three of us went around to the original hole that Vlad had blasted into the tunnels to get Samir. That was easy since the way to the antechamber hadn’t caved in. Just the way leading deeper into the dungeons had, and Samir—loyal friend that he was—hadn’t been willing to leave until he knew that Vlad and I were safe.
Samir had also tried to kill Maximus on sight, proving that we had a lot of work to do before people knew what had really happened. I intended for that to be sooner rather than later. Maximus deserved to be recognized for his bravery and loyalty. Not reviled for crimes he hadn’t committed.
But first . . . “Now what?” I asked as we crossed over to the bridge.
Vlad scanned the island, which looked deserted since Petre had been making sure that tourists left while also keeping police and any other interested parties away.
“Now I do what I should have done many years ago,” he said, closing his eyes. “Destroy the past.”
From our distance, the subsequent explosions felt like a series of percussion grenades going off. I couldn’t see the flames that Vlad ravaged the former dungeon with, but from the power pouring off him, he was converting all of the awful memories this place held for him into fierce, destructive fire. It was obvious when those explosions set off the bombs that Szilagyi had lined beneath the tunnels. The ground shook so hard that the tall, triangular tower fell, landing in the first of many deep impressions that began to snake across the ruins. Soon, the rest of the few remaining monuments crumbled into the deep, sunken patches of earth around them, until not a single structure from the former palace remained standing.
I waited until the flames extinguished from his hands, signaling that he finally was done with this dark, brutal chapter from his past, before I took his hand.
“Now what?” I said once more, very softly.
His smile was faint, but after everything that had happened tonight, I was grateful that it was genuine.
“We return to Romania. What has been destroyed can never be resurrected, but it can be rebuilt, so that is what we will do, Leila. Rebuild.”
I squeezed his hand, tears of happiness stinging my eyes. “Then let’s go home and get started.”
Epilogue
We returned to Romania, but our first stop wasn’t the castle we’d lived in that Vlad had burned to the ground. It was another castle he’d destroyed, only we didn’t go up to the top of the mountain to see the crumbled ruins of Vlad’s former home when he was a human prince. We walked along the banks of the Arges River instead.
I didn’t notice the small stone cross in the tree line along a sharp curve in the river until Vlad pulled back the brush to reveal it. The inscription had weathered off until it was unreadable, which was a good thing. Otherwise, Clara Dracul’s grave would have been desecrated decades ago, her remains on display for tourists along with all the other pieces of “authenticated” Dracula history.
Vlad traced his hand over the stone and a myriad of feelings began to interweave with mine. Regret, as well as a wave of remembered love that was as poignant as it was difficult for both of us to feel.
I braced myself for what I’d see once I touched her bones, which was why we were here. I didn’t know which would be worse for Vlad to discover from what I found: if Szilagyi had told the truth and murdered Clara? Or if she had jumped to her death of her own free will, as he’d believed for so long?
“You don’t have to be the one to dig her up,” I said quietly. “I can do it.”
He looked at me, a rueful, almost self-deprecating smile curling his mouth.
“Neither of us is digging her up. Back at the island, I decided to let Clara rest in peace. If she jumped of her own free will, I forgave her for it long ago. If Szilagyi pushed her, she’s been avenged. However her death occurred, much like my time in those dungeons, it needs to remain in the past.”
I was so relieved to hear that, and not just for selfish reasons. Yes, it would have been hard for me to relive parts of Clara’s life through her bones, which would have been necessary for me to find the events of her death. I didn’t want to see Vlad through her eyes, whether she’d loved him unconditionally or had been driven by inner demons to commit suicide. The Vlad she knew wasn’t the man I loved. Our pasts might shape us, but they weren’t the end sum of us.
Most of all, I was glad Vlad’s decision meant that he was letting go of pain that had haunted him for too long.
“If Clara could whisper through eternity, I bet she’d tell you she was happy that you’re letting her go,” I said, wishing the inadequate words could express how proud I was of him.
He let out a short laugh. “Probably, though she’d also tell me that I had taken far too long to do it.”
“Wives are usually right,” I said with a smile.
He laughed more naturally this time, touching the headstone once more before turning and briskly walking away. I followed him, not saying anything. The sounds of the forest and the winding river were the only noises around us, and they were as soothing as whispered reassurances in the dark. This place deserved a little peace after its long, bloody history, as did the man striding by my side.
After several minutes of walking in silence, Vlad’s emotions became tinged with steely resolve, as though he were bracing himself to do something truly painful.
“I didn’t only bring you out here to witness my saying goodbye to Clara for the last time,” he said. “There’s something I need to tell you, and this is a remote enough area that it won’t be overheard by anyone else.”
I cast a glance at the seemingly endless forest and river. No, no one could overhear us out here. We were the only two people around for miles.
“So . . . what did you want to tell me?” I asked tentatively.
He closed his eyes and cut off our emotional connection, which concerned me. Was it so bad that he didn’t want me to know what he was feeling?
“Over a hundred years ago,” he said quietly, “I swore that I would never repeat this to another soul, yet now I am going to break that oath because you deserve to know.”
“What is it?” I asked, a fearful alarm snaking through my veins like fast-acting poison.
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Vlad opened his eyes, torment reflecting in his coppery green depths. “I am responsible for the Dracula hype.”
I stared at him, certain that I must have briefly gone insane and misheard him. “What?”
His jaw clenched with such force that I could almost hear his teeth grinding together.
“In the late eighteen hundreds, I was in a . . . dark mental state, which probably doesn’t surprise you, and I did something incredibly stupid. I procured a substance known as Red Dragon, which is blood tainted with the equivalent of a vampire narcotic. Either I overestimated my tolerance to its effects or the dose was stronger than advertised, because it rendered me in a state of inebriation the likes of which I hadn’t experienced in over four hundred years.”
My gaze continued to widen, until it probably looked as though my eyes were about to pop out of my head. “And?” I managed.
He shot me an irritated glance. “I did what all drunken fools do: something I regretted. At a bar, I met a writer who was looking for a nasty historical figure to base his new novel on. In my intoxicated state, I thought it was the height of hilarity to relay the most horrid lies about my past to this stranger. I never touched Red Dragon again, which should have been the end of it. Then, years later, the damn writer’s book came out. I was mortified when I read it, but I thought it would fade into obscurity as most literary works did. Instead, it kept growing in popularity and growing until over a century later, it’s infected every form of media ever invented—”
I burst out laughing, which part of me felt bad about since this was a huge reveal for him, yet I couldn’t hold it back any more than I could stop the glower Vlad leveled at me.
“Th-that’s why you can’t s-stand to hear th-that word!” I crowed, laughing so hard that I could barely speak. “It reminds you of when you did a s-stupid, totally humanlike move. Oh, Vlad, I love you even more knowing this!”