Embrace Ch. 06

Angelique corners one not far from the crocodile pool. She looks right at Amelia as Angelique impales her.

"Blood traitor!" she screams in terror.

Amelia keeps her composure and moves calmly on to the next target, but unstoppable tears stain her ruined clothes after that.

Once the Labyrinth is clear of spies the Librarian guides her back to his sanctuary and dismisses the other nosferatu.

"Sir?" Amelia asks shakily. "What of our viennese malkavians? Is there any news I should carry back to the palace?"

The Librarian shakes his head.

"Rest assured that the malkavians of Vienna have already been taken into protective custody at the prince's command."

He rests his clawed hand on Amelia's.

"I will never forget the service you have done tonight Amelia. Should things sour at the palace, as they are often wont to do, I will grant you sanctuary."

Amelia kisses that clawed hand, but it still feels as though there can be no good end to this.

The Librarian pens a formal report for the Ventrue Archon of Justicar Tythos that Eleanor truly is. He seals it with his own ring, and entrusts it to Amelia. The way out of the labyrinth is far less onerous. Indeed the Librarian bids her take care to remember the shortcut herself, in case she has trouble finding Maggot.

Eleanor is visibly angry when Amelia returns.

"How long did he make you wait?" she snaps. She doesn't wait for an answer but snatches the Librarian's reply. There are a dozen other missives scattered across the table and on the floor. Amelia busies herself tidying the letters away before helping herself to a needle and thread, putting a dozen haphazard stitches in the front of her dress to make it half decent at last.

"How is this possible!" Eleanor seems defeated. Distraught. "Every city, every prince." Somehow the footstool offends her, and Eleanor kicks it so hard it hits the skirting board four feet away and shatters. "How can such a thing be possible!"

Amelia moves to clear away the splinters and shredded fabric.

"Leave that, childe." Eleanor falls heavily into her seat by the fire. Amelia stands nervously at arm's length. "Etrius is adamant it is not the tremere. But without sorcery, how... Rustivich sends nothing but useless, posturing nonsense, he knows nothing, that tzimize peacock would be gloating by now, it wasn't them. God knows the lasombra don't have it in them to work together like this, what is left?"

"Shall I fetch Madame Elizabeth?" Amelia asks, wringing her hands.

"No childe. She is off in Pressburg. Sit."

Amelia stands stupidly for a second longer staring at the shattered footstool. Then kneels on the floor at Eleanor's feet. The elder rests an affectionate hand on the crown of Amelia's head, and it makes her feel even more wretched.

"Madame, are you aware of the cobwebs?" Amelia's mouth is so dry. Well. You can only die once.

"Sorry, did you say something?" Eleanor says absently.

Amelia grows more determined. Only a coward would keep this secret a day longer. She kneels up and meets Eleanor's puzzled scrutiny.

"I want you to know that I respect you in every way, and that I am grateful for everything you've done for me. Whatever happens next, whatever you choose to do with me, I hope you can believe I never set out to deceive you. I tried to tell you so many times but he wouldn't let me, I didn't have a choice."

"Whatever are you babbling about?" Eleanor frowns down at her, but she's not angry. "Who's upset you now, child?"

"All malkavians are connected by the cobwebs. Well, nearly all. I think that's how they moved as one in France. They connect sire to childe, they push and pull like presence, like dominate, but more subtle than that, more like urges than commands. An elder, a methuselah perhaps, could make a big push so the clan would frenzy all at once, but it doesn't seem to work if they're too far away. I guess it's not magic really, more the power in the blood, in the water, in the red ground, even the Gods are running before it."

Charity could be next to her right now, Amelia can suddenly feel her so strongly. Charity is pushing back, and so is Felix. Felix is so very far away, but always connected.

"Feronia." Amelia says, almost as though she and Charity speak with one mouth.

"Feronia?" Eleanor's voice cracks. "Where? Where is she?"

The fire sways in the grate. It's a tall ship, a tall ship with three masts, all aflame. Bodies in the water drift away towards the sea. The thread draws Amelia's eye miles away up the river, snaking between the leaning buildings rushing through silver fields, where the black water pours lazily between the enormous piers of an ancient bridge. And in the water stands a woman, a knot in the web, beyond which Amelia can see no further. The thread draws tight and the woman laughs to herself in the darkness, drops another corpse into the water.

Amelia can't let go of the image yet, but she speaks, she describes everything she can see to Eleanor.

Eleanor's expression is fixed. The elder stands and leaves without a word.

Amelia is somewhat grateful that Eleanor seems to have gone directly to the prince with that information rather than tearing Amelia in half on the spot. The threads of cobwebs fade away to nothing as Feronia steps out of the water at last. Felix really is beyond reach tonight. There is no unsaying anything this time. Relief washes over her.

Tirelessly Amelia waits on her knees. It feels like at least an hour until Eleanor's return. The elder stands behind her, and Amelia darent look.

"Who else knows?"

"No-one but the Librarian, and he only found out tonight. I swear, I tried to tell you, and when that didn't work I tried to make contact with other Malkavians, Felix just takes the memories away like it never happened."

"What about Wolf-Dietrich? Paracida?" Bitterness colours her words.

Amelia feels a heaviness in her chest. She swallows the lump in her throat and shakes her head. She turns to face Eleanor and sees the telltale stain of vitae on the elder's alabaster skin. Eleanor has been crying.

"Take my head and be done with it, I can't stand the deceit, the charade, any longer." Amelia angrily brushes her own tears away. "I am nothing but a liability to you all."

"Will you ever stop?" Eleanor says wearily. "Where is your sire now?"

"I can't say for sure, he's too far away. Or we wouldn't be able to have this conversation." Amelia smiles sadly.

"Alright." Eleanor sits back down at the hearth. "You lied to me every damn night for years. Every day."

"No, madame. Not every day." Amelia corrects her. "But I couldn't keep telling the truth, could I? It's horrible to have your memory altered like that by Felix. It hurts."

"You were so close to completing your agoge." Eleanor says miserably. "Conclave is coming. They will have your head for this, girl."

"Once I would have thanked them for it." Amelia laughs.

"It sickens me that you still hold yourself so worthless." Anger flashes in Eleanor's eyes. "Where does your loyalty lie?"

"The last time I spoke to my sire he made it clear that my place is to sow chaos. That my duty is to remain Wolf-Dietrich's childe. I had this mad idea that you'd somehow save me from both of them, but that's hardly loyalty is it?"

"You don't know the meaning of the word." Eleanor says.

"I have served your interests tirelessly for five years. You gave me the courage to speak up tonight. You gave me the courage to submit to your judgement, because I know you will be fair to those I leave behind."

"You are in no position to bargain, Amelia-Marie, but you are correct. Should the Justicar choose to end your existence, I will see to it that your legacy is preserved."

Amelia says nothing. Eleanor's beautiful eyes narrow and Amelia swallows nervously.

"Prince Paracida knows nothing of your treachery. As far as he is concerned, the Librarian is well connected enough to provide information concerning the anarch threat. I will make sure the Ephorate are made aware of your exceptional abilities. I suspect that Lord Tythos will agree that you truly are an asset to the city; he may allow you to keep body and soul together. His judgement upon your sire and his patsy at conclave is beyond my influence. But what price for this deception? What price for my honour?"

Amelia remembers Leopoldine's fate and feels a shiver of anticipation.

"Whatever it takes." Amelia says. "And, as I said, my lady. I willingly endure anything but your indifference."

*

Eleanor sends a few swiftly composed messages with her younger childe, Esther, before escorting Amelia from the palace. There's no opportunity to go home first and see Sylvie, the poor woman will be beside herself when Amelia fails to return. As they arrive at a narrow old house Amelia recognises the place from her dream and struggles to keep her own anxiety contained.

It must be the very same room, the floorboards gouged out by rivers and scorched in several places. Eleanor opens the heavy curtain fully and uses some sort of metal contraption to reflect the moonlight. She makes a firm white mark in chalk across the grain of the boards a little further away from the window than Leopoldine's scorch marks.

"Roll up your sleeve." She says.

Amelia hesitates before turning up her right sleeve as far as the elbow.

Eleanor smirks and shakes her head.

"No. The left. And that is not far enough, here. Best not set these rags alight."

Amelia turns her face aside as her sleeve is roughly pulled up her arm almost as high as the shoulder. The hurriedly placed stitches in her torn bodice protest and begin to separate.

"Will this make everything right with you?" Amelia asks. "Because..."

"You may remain my pupil, yes." Eleanor says coldly as her fingers close around Amelia's doomed wrist. "It seems fair. I will take your hand as penance. You will never lie to me again. More than fair."

"I am sorry." Amelia says lifting her eyes back to Eleanor's. "Not that the word means..."

"To me, an act of contrition has more meaning than mere words. I am sure you can appreciate that." Eleanor says. Her anger has almost subsided now. "Lie here."

Eleanor positions Amelia with her arm over the line, carefully drapes the curtains, checks her measurements once more, and goes to sit on the bed.

"Well, aren't you going to tie me up or something?" Amelia asks, confused.

Eleanor shakes her head.

"I think not."

Almost as an afterthought, she moves a stout shaft of blackthorn from behind the coal scuttle to within easy reach with an incongruous little chuckle.

"This way is better. A true test of both your loyalty and your flawless self control. I wonder how much of it was you, and how much was the methuselah all along, eh 'childe'?"

"I don't know if I can do this." Amelia says with a little wobble. "What if I frenzy and set the room alight, can't you just use a sword?"

"Are you bargaining with me again?" Eleanor lies back on the tatty bedsheets, curling up on her side with a dainty yawn. "Either accept my terms or start running, because when Prince Paracida finds out you lied to him, your arm and your dignity will be the least of your worries."

"There's no shame in fear of the sun. You taught me that."

The dawn begins to weigh Amelia's body down. She's never fought it before, and it feels unnatural, but she has no chance of avoiding frenzy unless she's awake. She tries not to dwell on the dream-like memory of Leopoldine losing the same battle. The light is diffuse at first, a barely noticeable prickling that unsettles the beast.

Time passes slowly. Sounds of the city coming to life drift up from the street. Hooves on cobblestone, the distant chorus of tradesmen, and the beautiful trill of songbirds. Breathing in deeply feels like fire, the dead tissue cracks like broken glass. This was how Amelia subdued the beast down in the ice cellar on the first night. This is how she controls the murderous urges the beast throws at her during the hunt. She has never tested it to this extent, but the tortured lungs demand the beast's attention and distract from the danger at hand.

Amelia whimpers as sunlight suddenly brightens the floorboards a mere two feet from her hand. Eleanor's sigh is the first sign of life Amelia has heard from her in hours. It's impossible to see her aura from here and the bed hides her face. Amelia fixes her attention firmly on a knot in the skirting board in the opposite direction to the window and the deadly shaft of sunlight. She flattens her left hand, fingers outstretched, and covers her mouth with the right. She breathes steadily in and out, bites the fabric of her cuff in anticipation.

When the first lick of fire touches the very tip of her finger she can't help closing her fist after all, but the pain is no worse than she expected. No worse than she suffered at her sire's command.

The difference is, this will be a continuous agony until the sun inexorably passes overhead, and there will be nothing left of her hand but ashes.

No. The difference is that her sire's judgement was unjust, his treatment of her contemptible. Whereas Eleanor... Eleanor is different. Meryem was right about everything.

Amelia tenses every muscle and joint and flattens her hand again. She draws a sharp breath as the tip of her finger crumbles away with a hiss, and lets out a high pitched whine as the searing torture continues. The beast's animal stupidity would have her betraying her word, inviting worse torment. There is no running and hiding from any of these ventrue.

Still, as the light catches the knuckles, frenzy almost takes her, and her heart soars as she overcomes it. Above her face, motes of dust and ash drift in the shaft of light. In the distance, children laugh, a dog barks joyfully, life continues. A song, a lullaby perhaps, with words Amelia cannot understand lifts her up in the euphoria of agony, carries her out on the wind above the city as her fear crumbles away to nothing, her spirit melting into sunlight.

When the pain stops at last, Amelia still fights the death sleep with all that's left of her will. The lullaby has faded to a quiet hum of the melody

"Eleanor?"

Sudden silence.

"Was that you singing?"

"I expect so." Eleanor sighs. "Rest now. Stay as you are. It would be sacrilege to destroy your face."

Amelia baulks at that. Thank goodness she was too foolish to realise how dangerous that beautiful display above her was while her hand was burning, or it might have pushed her over the edge. Just as Eleanor's sweet song pulled her back from it.

"I swear, I never set out to deceive you."

"Hush, childe. It is enough."

It's not enough. Nothing close. If Felix is caught up with what's happening in France he could be gone for months or even years.

"Eleanor?"

Nothing but the barest sigh.

"Felix deceived Wolf-Dietrich, he deceived you all, but in spite of the scheming in spite of all I've lost, I still chose to serve you, not the prince, not the Hapsburgs, you, and I would do anything at all to..."

"Do not play games with me, childe."

"It's not a game." Amelia says solemnly. "It's just because..."

"The prince knows nothing of this, and if you keep your word then he never will."

"All I'm asking is..."

"You have no idea what you are asking." Eleanor says quietly.

That's fair. Amelia keeps silent for a long moment before saying the unspeakable.

"I miss her so much. But I have a traitorous heart, my lady."

"Have you no wit at all, to say such a thing?" Eleanor scoffs. "Are you so blind that you cannot see past your own base desires?"

"I wish I could somehow give you half the comfort she gave me," Amelia pleads.

"You know absolutely nothing about me."

"Just one day, that's all I ask for. I know that if you gave me a day I could..."

"I should have known." Eleanor says sharply. "You lost all respect for me long ago, or you would never..."

"Is it so terrible that I just want to make you happy?"

The silence has an electric quality and Amelia holds her breath. Her heart sinks as the minutes tick past.

As the sun sinks below the horizon Amelia picks herself up awkwardly from the floor. She forces herself to look at the awful black stump before hurriedly pulling her sleeve down over it. Eleanor is glaring at her with unblinking malevolence.

"I can't help it." Amelia says sadly. "I swore I wouldn't lie anymore..."

"What did you expect from me? You make no secret that you are entirely aware of my situation, and then with your next breath you throw yourself at me you little fool."

"Should I take it all back? Carry on lying?"

"You have all the answers, Amelia." Eleanor replies coldly. "There is nothing left for me to teach you, is there?"

Amelia stands in awkward silence as Eleanor smiles at her. The smile doesn't reach her eyes.

"Your beauty has made you lazy. It has been enough to roll anything that peaks your desire into your arms, from housemaids to duchesses. The true art of seduction will always elude you."

"Correct." Amelia says indignantly. "Seduction is no different to manipulation, why should it have to be that way?"

"Perfect." Eleanor smiles more genuinely now. "I am so glad we see eye to eye. The conclave of Vienna is in six weeks. You have until that time to convince me to make you queen for a day. Succeed, and I shall release you as eiren. Fail, and you will be driven out of town with the rest of the lunatic scum."

"That's not... How am I supposed to..."

Eleanor laughs. "Away with you now girl. This is a clan house after all. May I remind you not to exploit clan resources during your trials."

*

Amelia stands by the river watching the last few dockers put their wares to bed. From the shadows she watches the sheriff pass not four feet away without noticing her. When he is out of sight, she lets the cloak drop, and allows one lone man to catch her eye. He freezes as she catches his weak mind, and she walks to meet him holding his gaze the whole time.

He's older than she first assumed, thin and wiry. His eyes are tired, he has an honest face. If she wasn't in dire need of blood she'd let him go. For some reason she does exactly that. He smiles at her as he walks past and tips his hat. What's the point? What was the point of any of this, all these years, when everything she's built will never be hers? She walks down to the muddy river bank where all the little boats are pulled up for the night and sinks down between them. She imagines Sylvie settling down for another restless night alone.

There are footsteps behind her.

"Miss?"

The docker calls gently.

"You can't stay here, miss, it's not safe. Let me walk you home."

Amelia ignores him.

"None of my business," he says quietly, "what's bothering you, I mean. But there's worse trouble down here than whatever's waiting at home."

"It's very kind of you sir." Amelia stands wearily. "I don't wish to appear rude, but I could say the same to you."

He smiles wryly at her and nods. He opens his arms in a very non threatening manner.

"Agreed. But even if I make it home, I won't sleep for worry now. So let me see you right first. I've a granddaughter about your age, miss."

Amelia looks him in the eye.

"Thanks for the offer, but my lover is meeting me here. Go home," she commands.

And simple as that, he leaves her be. Injured and alone, without any firm idea of where she will sleep today. Out of nowhere, anger replaces her ennui. She may be alone, but she is not friendless. She may be injured, but she is not powerless.

Shifting back into the shadows, she slips away from the waterfront and makes her way to the pestäule where she makes a point of displaying her gruesome injury. Twenty minutes or so pass before she feels herself drawn into the shadows of the Librarian's cloak. He appears beside her out of nowhere, and his expression is grim.