Death After Death-Chapter 225: Unearthed

This one smelled and tasted similar to the last one but different from the guard’s he’d devoured before he’d been imprisoned. Not from around here? He wondered. After drinking more of the man’s blood, he decided they were definitely foreigners.

That was all the proof he needed that his mind was starting to wake up. He’d feared that what had been done to him had caused irreversible brain damage and reduced him to some kind of wild beast. While he could still feel that angry, raging beast inside of him, it was slowly going back into its cage as his mind returned to something resembling sanity.

As he felt his second victim start to weaken, he opened his eyes again, testing the light. This time, he found it tolerable, but only barely, and even though someone was still trying to speak to him, it was still too echoey and distorted to really understand. Instead, he focused on the man he was draining dry, willing his eyes to focus so the details would resolve.

Murani, he thought, as soon as he could see clearly enough to recognize the facial features. The same people we fought in Ionar, but they live hundreds of miles to the north. Why would they…

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Fragments of conversations with Freya, or perhaps with the farmer before he’d been captured by her, started to come back to him. She was at war with them, or at least this kingdom was. What was the name of this kingdom? Brin? Ionia?

None of those were right, but he couldn’t be bothered. He was in a vampire castle high in the mountains, and that was as much about the world he needed to understand as he let his second victim fall free and turned to face whoever it was that had freed him.

Her face was almost as hard to decipher as the horselord, but once it snapped into focus, he was in stunned disbelief.

“Arrraaa…” he rasped, still in denial about it. She’d come back for him, some way, somehow.

Does this mean that the people of the region have overthrown Freya? He wondered. It was a shocking thing, but it seemed the most likely option. He had, after all, taught her how to use magic. Perhaps she’d succeeded where he’d failed.

Still, he doubted that. Something was off. He was sure he’d been in there for decades, and given how she didn’t appear to have aged much, if at all, it couldn’t have been nearly that long.

Was my math off? He wondered. Was I only in the box for a year or two? That would be a horrifying realization, yet even as her mouth continued to move, he finally figured out the discrepancy. She hadn’t aged, but she didn’t have a pulse, either.

The moment she tried to sacrifice her life for her sister came flashing back to him then. It had been decades before, but it was in this very room that she’d begged him to kill her instead of her sister. She’d no doubt made the very same offer to Freya, which meant he’d suffered for nothing.

More importantly, though, it meant that Freya was alive. That anger was what slowly forced the world to come into focus and for sounds to finally complete their transformations into words.

“Where is she?” he growled.

“That’s just what I was trying to explain to you,” Ara signed in muted exasperation.

She might look the same, but she acted differently enough that it was clear she was taking her cues from the mistress of the castle, which meant she was a servant, or even an apprentice, and not a slave or worse. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but before he could decide, she continued. “We don’t know where she is, but we know what’s coming next, and you’re the only one I could think of who might be able to help.”

“To help? Who? Her?” Simon asked. He wanted to laugh then, but he was physically incapable of it, and when he tried, all he succeeded in doing was coughing. “I’d rather die.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged, but that won’t help with the army, which might start coming down from the pass as soon as tomorrow,” Ara explained. “They will sweep through the region in a matter of days, and sooner or later, they will take Gravenstone Castle while I slumber.”

“That’s rough,” Simon nodded, smiling. “Destroying everything that Freya cares about. That would be a shame.”

The vampiress looked like she was about to slap him. Instead, she commanded, “Leave us. I will call when he is ready to consume another prisoner,” in a tone that brooked no argument.

That was the first time that Simon noticed the other people in the room beyond their shapes and their heartbeats. There were guards that obviously belonged to the castle and workmen, but they had several prisoners, too, bound and gagged. It was only when all of the men had filed out that she spoke again.

“You have every right to hate her. I don’t blame you,” she said finally, deflating now that there was no one around she needed to put on airs in front of. “I hate her, and she’s done so much less to me than she has to you, but—”

“But nothing, Ara,” Simon blurted out. “She took your humanity from you.”

“She did,” the vampiress agreed, “But she spared my sister as she promised, so I continue to serve her loyally in all things.”

Simon flinched as his earlier theory panned out. “Well, I can tell you that she’ll be very unhappy with you for waking me up.”

“I doubt it,” Ara shrugged. “I think she’s forgotten all about you, to be honest. If you’ll help me save her castle, then she will forgive me anything, and if you don’t, then I’ll put you back in the box, and she will be none the wiser.”

That last part was said just cold enough that Simon believed it, so, for the moment, he changed topics since that was the very last thing he wanted. “What is it you think I can do for you?” he asked tiredly. “I doubt I can even stand, and you know I can’t use magic anymore.”

“Simon, you are as clever and as fierce a man as I’ve ever met,” she answered, taking one of his bone-slender mangled hands in both of hers. “You saved my father from a vampire and then destroyed Freya’s castle not once but twice, and I have been looking for a justifiable opportunity to free you ever since. All I want is for you to help me save the valley and the people in it, and if you die in the process, then I think we both get what we want, don’t we?”

“The people, huh?” he asked. “You mean your sister?”

“My sister is long dead,” Ara answered with a shake of her head, but her children are grown and have children of their own. Some of those children have children, too, and all of them are spread in a dozen different villages throughout the valley. So, no, I don’t want to save her, or even then, I want to save everyone.”

Simon could respect that. He would have complimented her on it, in fact, if he wasn’t still so blown away by what she said. “Great Grandchildren?” he asked, doing the math. “How long have I been in there, exactly?”

“I-I’m not sure that you want to know,” Ara answered with sadness in her voice.

“Tell me,” Simon said, looking at her with renewed determination. “Tell me everything.”

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