A Tithe Of Blood

The days bled into one another like ink spilled on parchment faint, smudged, and without definition.

Elira moved through Lord Calvorn's estate like a ghost of herself her body growing stronger, her resolve sharper, but her spirit stretched thinner by the weight of whispers and eyes that lingered too long.

It was late one night, long after the silver chimes had rung for curfew, that she heard the first footstep behind her.

She was returning from the east wing, where she had delivered clean linens to one of the chambers. The halls were empty save for her reflection in the stained-glass windows and the slow flicker of torchlight.

But behind her, a soft shift in the air.

She turned. No one.

The next day, a northern coin blackened with age and marked with a crest she did not recognize lay beneath her pillow. She hadn't seen coins in months, let alone one this fine.

The following evening, while cleaning the library, she found a small violet flower, pressed between the pages of a history book. It was fresh.

It was Marta who noticed her discomfort.

"You've seen him, haven't you?" the housemaid asked one evening while stitching a torn apron by the fire.

Elira hesitated. "Seen who?"

Marta didn't look up. "The man in the black cloak who walks without sound."

Elira's hands stilled in her lap. "Who is he?"

"He is Duke Alaric of the North and the first cousin of Lord Calvorn," Marta replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

"The North has always sent its monsters in beautiful wrappings," she muttered. "Pray that he only watches. Pray harder if he intends more."

Elira's breath caught at Marta's words.

Duke Alaric.

The name alone felt heavy, like the toll of a distant bell. She had heard murmurs in the servants' quarters whispers of a northern vampire lord who rarely visited, whose lands were cloaked in snow and silence, whose presence was as unsettling as it was alluring. But no one had expected him to walk the halls of Calvorn's estate.

Not without announcement.

Not like this.

"He shouldn't be here," Elira murmured.

Marta's eyes flicked up sharply. "Precisely. That's what makes it worse."

There was something in the older woman's gaze fear not for herself, but for Elira.

The strange gifts continued.

A silk ribbon, black with threads of silver, appeared on her pillow. She remembered wearing one like it as a child before her village had been named in the blood tithe.

Another time, in the rose garden, she found a single white feather impaled on a thorn. No birds flew so close to the estate.

And always, when she least expected it, she felt eyes on her yes watching, measuring or wanting her.

It was during a thunderstorm, three nights later, that she saw him fully for the first time but wrapped in the shadows.

Lightning slashed the sky as she darted from the scullery toward the servant stairs. She had forgotten the covered cloth for the evening platters, and Marta had sent her back alone.

The corridor was dim, lit only by guttering candlelight, and the storm outside cast strange shapes across the old tapestries.

She turned a corner and froze.

He stood in the hall ahead of her with his face half visible and half under the blanket of darkness.

Not moving. Not speaking.

Cloaked in black, his silver hair loose around his shoulders, eyes the color of winter frost and old wounds.

The air seemed to still. Her heartbeat thundered.

"You dropped this," he said, his voice low and resonant.

He extended his hand.

In his palm lay the violet flower.

Still fresh.

Still damp with morning dew.

Elira didn't move.

She wanted to run but her feet were rooted to the stone floor. The walls felt too narrow, too hungry for sound. She stared at him, this man carved like an immortal ruin, and something inside her stirred recognition, or perhaps memory.

"I didn't... drop anything," she whispered.

A hint of amusement flickered across Duke Alaric's pale face. "Then it must have sought you out."

With that, he placed the flower on a ledge beside a candle and stepped past her.

__________

That night, sleep did not come gently.

Elira lay curled beneath her thin blanket, the weight of the garden encounter pressing heavily on her chest. The faint glow of the mark beneath her skin pulsed like a secret heartbeat, and the chill in her bones would not fade, no matter how tightly she wrapped herself.

When sleep finally took her, it was not restful.

It dragged her deep into a realm where moonlight and memory blurred, where time flowed like water.

She stood at the edge of a river.

Not the one from her childhood. This one was vast and wild, its dark waters swirling with mist, its banks shrouded in thorns. The current churned with unnatural force, pulling at her ankles even as she tried to step back.

Behind her, the sky cracked open with lightning but there was no thunder. Only silence. The kind of silence that follows a scream no one hears.

And then she was in the water.

The cold struck her like glass, and she gasped, but no air came. The current yanked her under, twisting her limbs as she struggled. Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred.

Help me, she tried to scream.

But the river took her voice.

Darkness crowded in.

Just as she began to sink body limp, vision dim a hand broke through the water.

Long fingers. Pale skin. A single silver ring etched with a forgotten crest.

She reached for it, her strength all but gone.

The hand closed around hers strong, unyielding. The moment their skin touched, a surge of warmth spread through her, lighting her veins like fire through ice.

The darkness retreated.

And above the surface, just before she slipped from the dream a face.

Sharp cheekbones. Eyes like black glass. Hair soaked and clinging to his skin. Watching her. Holding her.

Him.

Duke Alaric.

Not as she had seen him last time but younger. Wilder. His expression fierce, afraid… protective.

The world tilted.The water turned to stars.

And then she awoke, heart pounding, skin damp with cold sweat.

The mark on her collarbone glowed brighter than ever, pulsing with a quiet rhythm.

She clutched the edge of her cot, trembling. The river's chill still clung to her bones. And though the dream had faded like mist, the memory of his hand in hers… remained.

At dawn, she was summoned to the Lord's chambers. 

Lord Calvorn's chamber was dimly lit, the curtains drawn, the scent of blood and wax thick in the air. He stood near the hearth, back turned, his hands clasped behind him.

"Elira," he said without turning. "Did you know the northern flower you found grows only on corpses?"

She flinched.

He turned slowly. "And the coin? The last time it circulated, five noble houses fell."

She found her voice. "I didn't ask for these things."

"But you accepted them," he said, stepping closer.

"There was no one to return them to."

Calvorn's hand moved faster than her eyes could follow. In a blink, he held her wrist tight in his icy grip.

"I have let you walk these halls unchained," he murmured, "because I believed you harmless. I see now I was... indulgent."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "Alaric does not give gifts. He marks things. And what he marks... he claims."

Elira's breath caught. "I am not an object."

His eyes darkened, lips curling in something not quite a smile. "Tell that to him." And the next second the doors burst open with a gust that extinguished every flame in the chamber.

Candles hissed into darkness. Drapes trembled. A chill swept in, curling through the shadows like smoke. At the threshold stood Lord Alaric, his tall frame framed by the howling wind behind him.

He didn't speak at first. He didn't need to.

Clad in sable black, his cloak billowed around him like the wings of a crow. His silver eyes gleamed in the dim, catching every flicker of torchlight that hadn't been snuffed. He was not beautiful like Calvorn he was striking, cruel in his composure, ancient in the way stone remembers storms.

"My dear cousin," Alaric said, voice smooth as glacier water. "Your house is colder than I remember."

Calvorn didn't rise from his seat. But his fingers clenched the armrests of his throne. "You weren't expected."

Alaric's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I rarely come where I am expected."

His gaze shifted and found Elira standing at the edge of the room. Their eyes locked for a heartbeat. She felt it again that strange pull, that cold recognition that had haunted her sleep.

"Leave us," Calvorn said to her, not looking her way.

She hesitated, but the tension between the two lords was crackling and sharp. She bowed and exited, pulling the doors closed behind her.

The chamber was silent for a long moment.

"Elira is not your concern," Calvorn said, his voice low and dangerous.

Alaric's gaze lingered on the now-shut doors, before slowly turning to face him.

"Isn't she?"

The question was not one of curiosity it was a challenge. A blade drawn in silence.

Calvorn rose to his feet, slow and deliberate. "She is a blood tithe. Bound to my house. My rule."

"She is a girl," Alaric said softly, stepping forward. "A girl who bears the mark of something forgotten or have you chosen to ignore that?"

"She belongs to no one," Calvorn growled. "Not even to herself."

Alaric's eyes narrowed. "That sounds an awful lot like fear, cousin."

"This is my house," Calvorn snapped, fangs bared, voice trembling with fury. "And I will not be questioned within it."

Alaric tilted his head, studying him with something colder than amusement. "And yet, it reeks of fear."

"You come into my home, make accusations—"

"I come," Alaric interrupted, voice now like ice cracking over stone, "to collect what should not have been taken."

"She was given," Calvorn hissed. "A blood debt owed. She came willingly."

"She was pushed," Alaric replied. "And you—you don't even see what you've taken. Do you?"

Calvorn stiffened, the flicker of something vulnerable flashing in his eyes. "You think this is about her? Some long-lost prophecy you cling to?"

Alaric stepped close now, close enough to cast shadow across Calvorn's face. "This is about balance, cousin. And you've tipped the scales too far."

A silence stretched, long and shivering.

"I won't give her to you," Calvorn said.

Alaric's voice dropped to a whisper. "You may not have a choice.Dnt forget you are just a lord and i am the Duke. Iget what i want."

The air in the room grew heavy. Magic, old and dangerous, hummed beneath the surface like wolves circling unseen.

"I protect what is mine," Calvorn said through gritted teeth.

Alaric leaned closer, his breath cool as the grave. "Then tell me, Calvorn what is she to you?"

A heartbeat passed.

Calvorn did not answer.

Alaric turned, eyes gleaming silver in the dark. "That's what I thought."

And then like a storm pulling back from the cliffs he was gone, the door swinging open behind him on a wind that did not touch the earth.

Lord Calvorn said nothing as the doors slammed shut. But when he turned, something had changed in his face. There was no more civility. Only possession.

It was recognition.

He knew something.

Something about her.