Matthias Harlow
Orianna's Residence, Noble Quarter, Maribor, Temeria
1253
I knew it was going to come back and bite me in the ass.
The thought struck me with the cold clarity of an iron spike as I stared into Orianna's eyes. Around us, the chants for an encore still swelled, bouncing off the warm ceilings of the hall. 'Please, Sir, another song!' 'More! Just one more!' The voices overlapped, an unruly tide of high-society enthusiasm.
A few guests who had been lingering out in the courtyard during the performance had poured back inside at the sound of the applause, adding their own drunk, flushed energy to the packed room.
But the room didn't exist to me, my entire universe had shrunk to the Bruxa standing right in front of me.
My mind raced, filtering through fractured memories of a video game played in another lifetime, Bruxae I didn't have a witcher's encyclopedic knowledge of the bestiary, but I knew the basics, they were agile, deadly high-tier vampires that took the shape of a beautiful women, blending into human societies until they decided to rip out throats with supersonic screams.
Her being here made sense, Maribor before the tourney season, with its influx of wealthy visitors, its appetite for culture. A recently arrived arts patron who nobody had known long enough to ask uncomfortable questions about, was exactly the kind of opportunity she would have identified and arranged herself into.
Toussaint wasn't the only duchy with a naive aristocracy ripe for the picking, why wouldn't a creature who lived for centuries have played the wealthy noblewoman in other cities, under other flags? But the sheer, impossible weight of the coincidence made my stomach turn.
Of all the cities in Temeria, all the parties, all the gilded cages we could have walked into, we had walked straight into the parlor of the woman who had, in another world's version of events, acquired the Heart of Toussaint from a desperate young woman, looking to prove her worth to the group of cut throats that had shown her mercy.
A chilling pattern was forming, shifting beneath my feet like quicksand, it was too precise to be random. For a fleeting, panicked moment, I felt the phantom weight of an invisible guiding hand some cruel, unseen author pushing Syanna toward a predestined tragedy, twisting our choices until we fell right into the grooves of 'canon', some force moving pieces toward positions they had always been meant to occupy, and whether Syanna's story had a shape to it that was already written, whether my arrival had genuinely altered anything or whether I was simply a new piece being moved along the same board toward the same conclusion I wanted to stop from ever happening.
Then, a voice cut through the fog of my existential dread, pulling me back to the room.
"And your voice," Orianna continued, her cadence smooth, almost musical. "It is truly remarkable how... soothing it is." She paused, "Though it seems I must play the villain tonight and disappoint my guests."
She didn't look away from me, but she made a small, effortlessly elegant gesture with her hand toward Uldrin, who was already eagerly weaving his way through the cheering crowd.
He arrived at the edge of the platform slightly breathless, his eyes darting with a quick curiosity between Orianna and myself. The moment he reached her, the hostess leaned in. She whispered into his ear, her voice dropping to a register so low, so perfectly controlled, that no human ear could have picked it up over the din of the applause.
But I wasn't human, my ears caught every single syllable.
"Do excuse Sir Harlow for a moment, Uldrin. I would appreciate a brief, private word with him alone."
Uldrin nodded, his heartrate spiking into a frantic, fluttering rhythm as the icy warmth of her breath brushed against his neck. "Of course, my Lady," he murmured.
His eyes found mine as he stepped up onto the wooden platform beside me, carrying a look I couldn't entirely decode a mix of envy, awe, and something akin to warning. He placed a hand briefly on my shoulder, his touch grounding me against the panic I was feeling at the prospect of already having to navigate a conversation with a vampire.
"You made quite the impression, ser," Uldrin said quietly, his voice meant for my ears alone. "Your lady was not lying when she promised you would be remarkable." He offered a small, knowing smile. "I'm afraid your audience shall have to survive without an encore. Lady Orla requests a word, I will look after you're instrument and ward both in the interim."
Lady Orla? The name echoed in my mind, prompting another brief, frantic tangent. Orla? No, no, I haven't misidentified her. The hair, the eyes, that face this is Orianna. It was just an alias. A fresh coat of paint for a new decade, a different kingdom. A simple mask to wear while she bled Maribor's nobility dry.
Uldrin turned back toward the crowd, raising both hands to command the room.
"My friends!" he called out warmly, his voice easily commanding the space. "If your applause grows any louder, poor Sir Harlow shall mistake himself for Essyllt of Tretogor reborn!"
A wave of well-mannered laughter rippled through the guests.
"And while I know every one of you wishes to hear another song," Uldrin continued with an elegant gesture toward our hostess, "I fear Lady Orla has exercised the only privilege greater than popular demand. Our gracious hostess requests a private audience with the gentleman."
A chorus of theatrical, exaggerated groans rose from the floor.
"Oh, I know, I know," Uldrin replied, putting a hand to his chest in faux-sympathy. "I share your profound disappointment. But I should like to remain welcome in this house, and I suspect arguing with our host would prove... uniquely hazardous to my continued invitations."
More laughter followed the joke, entirely ignorant of just how hazardous arguing with this host actually was.
"So let us instead reward Sir Harlow one final time for an unforgettable performance!"
The applause returned like a sudden clap of thunder, filling the hall with a deafening roar. I forced my stiff legs to move, stepping off the platform and directly into the lion's den.The applause returned like a sudden clap of thunder, filling the hall with a deafening roar. I forced my stiff legs to move, stepping off the platform and directly into the lion's den.
As I made my way down toward her, she extended a hand. Her fingers were long, pale, and weighted with heavy, antique rings. A calm, deeply soothing look rested on her face. "Lady Orla," she offered, introducing herself with a soft inclination of her head.
My body reacted before my brain could stop it, I leaned forward, tucking my bow under my arm, and took her hand. Manners demanded it, mechanically, instinctively, I raised it to my lips.
The moment my mouth brushed her skin, her breath caught. A tiny, almost imperceptible gasp slipped past her teeth, my lips were ice. Hard, unyielding, and entirely devoid of human circulation.
Fuck you, de La Croix, and your flawless knightly etiquette, I cursed internally, if she already didn't know I was a monster of some sort before, the dead muscle memory of a Toussaint Count had just given away the game in the first five seconds.
But I soldiered through the blunder, straightening up and locking my posture into the familiar, confident facade of a wandering warrior. "Matthias Harlow of Toussaint," I said, my voice steady. "Knight errant and, given the opportunity, occasional bard. Thank you for opening your doors to me, my Lady."
"The invitation was at Uldrin's behest," she replied, her eyes tracing my face. "He informed me of a foreign noblewoman who possessed an exquisite piece to show me. Though, had I known the musician accompanying her was quite so... remarkable, I would not have hidden away until your melody reached me."
"Is that why you want to talk to me?" I asked. "My music?"
She didn't answer immediately instead she turned, her silk skirts whispering against the polished floor as she began leading me through the lingering cluster of guests. "Some conversations," she murmured over her shoulder, "are better had in private, please do follow me."
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a flash of dark hair. Syanna was already moving, carving a path through the crowd toward us, her eyes sharp with protective suspicion. I caught her gaze and gave her a sharp, subtle shake of my head, a clear signal to wait.
For a fraction of a second, she hesitated, her brow furrowing with a mix of reluctance and heavy confusion. But she stopped, her hand dropping back to her side, trusting me. Orianna didn't turn around, but the faint, amused tilt of her head told me she hadn't missed a single detail of the exchange.
She led me out of the noisy, suffocating clamour of the hall and into the quieter, cooler corridors of the estate. The walls here were lined with oil paintings, intricate tapestries, and marble busts.
"You have an extraordinary collection, Lady Orla," I said, filling the silence. "The portrait near the foyer, the brushwork is remarkably precise."
"Ah, the Oxenfurt realist," she said, her voice echoing softly off the wooden walls. She paused briefly before a massive canvas depicting a storm over the Pontar, her eyes reflecting the candlelight with a strange, hollow brilliance. "Humans are such fascinating creatures, don't you think? They possess such a clumsy, frantic urge to capture the world around them. Their architecture, their poetry, their art... it has a desperate, vibrant sort of energy."
"They? Desperate?" I repeated.
"Oh, profoundly so," she murmured completely ignoring my attempt at playing dumb, resuming her slow, graceful pace until we reached a heavy oak door at the end of the hall. She pushed it open, revealing a dimly lit, lushly furnished study smelling of old parchment, wax, and expensive perfume. "I think it is their fleeting lifetimes that inspire them to create such wonders. They are so terribly fragile, they know time will claim them, that they will rot, and so they scramble to leave a piece of themselves behind before the dirt claims them. It is beautiful, really, what death can inspire, what loss can make a man create."
She stepped into the room, the heavy door clicking shut behind us, instantly sealing out the distant murmur of the party. The silence in the study was absolute.
Orianna turned to face me. Her genteel smile returned, though her eyes remained as cold and unblinking as a winter sky, with a slow, deliberate movement, she reached up and slipped off her masquerade mask, setting it aside. Then she crossed the distance between us, her pale fingers lifting to remove my mask.
Staring up into my eyes, she continued. "Like your song, for example."
"My song?" I asked, instinctively stepping back before she could reach my face.
I didn't want those fingers testing the temperature of my cheek, checking to see if my entire countenance was as cold and ungiving as my lips had been.
"What was her name?" Orianna asked knowingly, tilting her head as she took another slow, fluid step toward me, entirely unfazed by my retreat. "The human you were in love with?"
A sudden, sharp jolt of realization hit me. She thinks the song is real, about me.
She thought I was the actual beast in the ballad, mourning some dead mortal girl from a bygone century, having already experienced what catastrophic misunderstandings led to in this world, panic flared. I scrambled for a cover story, a plausible denial to laugh it off and break the intimacy she was trying to place.
"My Lady, I fear you've misunderstood," I began. "It's merely an old ballad from the borders of—"
Before I could even finish digging into the lie, the air in the room grew instantly, drastically colder.
The genteel noblewoman vanished, her posture didn't change, but her presence expanded, filling the study with a heavy, suffocating dread. When she spoke, it wasn't the calm, velvety voice I was expecting.
It was a deep, guttural tongue harsh, ancient, and layered with a subtle, echoing resonance that vibrated in my chest. I couldn't make sense of a single word.
"Nac thi sval ama cleva sani? Mi acn-an veres thi-as. Thi cer-ac cesu hinthial ac-al fase c lupu, etnam veres sani acn-an mlaχ, etu ac-am thaur."
At the stark, absolute incomprehension on my face, the kind warmth vanished from Orianna's features. Her posture remained impossibly still, but her expression shifted, hardening into something cold, clinical, and dangerously sharp.
"Do you truly not understand me?" she asked, her voice returning to that polished, soothing register, although nothing gentle remained behind it. "What are you, then, if you are not kin? Why else would you carry the smell of the blood of so many beasts, monsters and slaughtered men?"
"I was attempting to explain that--" She moved before I could finish.
There was no warning beyond the minute tightening of her shoulders, no dramatic snarl or visible preparation, only the sudden displacement of air as she crossed the room faster than anything I had encountered since arriving in this world. Her fingers lengthened as she came, manicured nails becoming narrow black claws aimed directly at my face committed to stripping away the mask and whatever flesh happened to remain attached beneath it.
I caught her wrist without stepping back.
The collision sent a dense, ugly crack through the study, rattling the glass decanters arranged along the cabinet behind me, but her claws stopped less than an inch from my cheek. Orianna's expression changed before the rest of her did, surprise cutting cleanly through centuries of cultivated composure as she pulled against my grip and discovered that my arm would not move.
She twisted her shoulder, altered her footing and tried again with considerably more force.
Nothing. The revelation arrived slowly across her face, not fear yet, but the first cold recognition that she had judged the distance between predator and prey incorrectly.
"I am a guest in your house," I said, keeping my voice low enough that the words would not carry through the heavy door. "You invited me into this room and your first response to confusion was to tear open my face."
Her human appearance began to fracture, smooth skin draining toward a translucent pallor while her jaw widened around rows of narrow teeth, but I knew for a fact there was nothing she could do to harm me.
I pulled her toward me by the captured wrist, caught her throat with my free hand and drove her backward across the study. The movement happened too quickly for the furniture between us to become an obstacle. One instant she stood within reach of my mask, the next the mahogany panelling struck her back hard enough to flex beneath the impact, sending a framed pastoral scene jumping crooked against the wall.
Her mouth opened as her chest expanded, the muscles of her throat gathering around the beginning of a scream powerful enough to shatter the windows and possibly send me hurtling across the room.
My fingers tightened first, the sound collapsed inside her.
I held her against the wall by the neck, not merely pinning her but lifting until the tips of her shoes scraped uselessly across the Ofieri rug. Her unrestrained hand closed around my wrist, claws scoring across skin that refused to yield while her legs struck once against the panelling behind her.
Orianna's grip hardened around my arm, every line of her body straining as she attempted to prise my hand away from her throat. She was extraordinarily strong by any reasonable measure, strong enough to tear apart an armoured man before he understood the fight had started, but against me her effort amounted to little more than pressure.
I squeezed harder.
The cartilage beneath my fingers began to deform, and for the first time since she had entered the ballroom, the absolute control in her expression broke. Her body did not require air in the same way a human body did, but her throat still contained structures that could be crushed, and whatever sound she attempted to force through them emerged as a thin vibration beneath my palm.
Looking down at her, a dark, intrusive thought flashed across my mind. I could snap her neck right here. Or worse. Or better? I could drink her blood.
Despite her stomach-turning tastes, Orianna possessed incredible self-control. She never killed the children she feasted on, maybe killing her and drinking from her would grant me that exact same emotional restraint. Not to mention her abilities that Bruxa invisibility alone seemed like a cheat code I could desperately make use of in this world.
But I hesitated.
A feeling close to doubt filled me as the what-ifs began to pile up. What the hell would actually happen if I fed on a vampire? She was presumably centuries old, would her ancient psyche completely overpower my mind? Would it infect me with her sick preference for feeding on children? And then there was the real kicker: her friendships.
Higher vampires were a tight-knit, terrifyingly loyal bunch. If Orianna vanished, would Dettlaff or Regis come looking for their old friend? I wasn't sure, but the fact that they might was already enough to stay my hand. There were too many variables, too many ways this could blow up in my face.
I needed to negotiate.
"I am going to take my hand away," I whispered, keeping my eyes locked on her gaze, letting the threat hang heavy in the air. "We are going to compose ourselves, and you are going to listen to me, understood?"
The monstrous pallor receded next, her jaw drawing inward while the dark veins beneath her skin disappeared, until Lady Orla's elegant face occupied my hand once more. Even restored, she looked less composed than she had before the attack, her pupils wide and her carefully arranged hair disturbed where the back of her head had struck the wall.
She gave a single, constrained nod, only then did I release her. Orianna remained against the panelling for a moment, one hand rising to the bruised shape of my fingers around her throat, while I stepped back and adjusted the cuffs of my coat. Several strands of hair had fallen across her face, and the painting above her now hung at an angle, depicting a peaceful summer field tilted sharply toward disaster.
Her eyes moved from the marks on my untouched wrist to the indentation in the wall behind her.
"You could have killed me," she said, her voice slightly roughened by the damage to her throat.
"Sit," I said, gesturing toward the chair opposite mine while keeping my attention fixed upon the bruising already lightening beneath the pale skin of her throat. "You wanted an explanation badly enough to attack me, I will give it to you."
For several seconds Orianna remained where I had left her beside the damaged panelling, one hand resting lightly over the marks my fingers had pressed into her neck, her expression caught somewhere between wounded pride and the far more powerful curiosity that had prevented our disagreement from ending with her head separated from her shoulders.
She eventually crossed the study without answering, smoothing the front of her gown before lowering herself into the indicated chair with the deliberate elegance of someone attempting to restore order to a scene that had already escaped her control. I waited until she had settled before taking the seat opposite her, turning it slightly so that the oak door remained within my line of sight while the fire warmed only one side of my face.
The balance between us had changed too completely for either of us to pretend otherwise.
Orianna folded her hands across one knee, concealing the minute tremor in her fingers beneath the silk of her skirt, then lifted her eyes to mine with a composure that would likely have convinced anyone who had not watched her struggle against my grip.
"I am listening, creature" she said, her voice smooth again despite the roughness left behind by my hand. "Although I suspect the truth will prove considerably stranger than any answer I had imagined."
I leaned back into the chair, allowing the silence to settle while I assembled a lie sturdy enough to survive whatever questions followed. The safest lies were not inventions but rearrangements, pieces of truth shifted into the wrong order until they formed a picture convincing enough to satisfy anyone who did not know what the original had looked like.
"I was once a knight of Toussaint...a human." I began, keeping my tone level rather than offering her the trembling confession she might have expected. "Not an especially admirable one, and certainly not the figure I allow people downstairs to imagine. I had no house of my own, no distinguished lineage worth invoking and very little honour left by the time my former life came to an end."
Her gaze moved briefly across my coat, lingering upon the careful cut of the fabric and the old courtly habits that remained impossible to conceal completely.
"You carry yourself like a man raised within a noble household," she observed, each word chosen more carefully now that she understood provocation had limits.
"I served one long enough to learn its customs, though learning how honourable men behaved did not make me one of them." I rested one hand against the arm of the chair, keeping the other visible upon my knee. "I neglected my duties, drank whenever sobriety threatened to make me examine my life too closely and spent years avoiding every responsibility that might have required me to become someone better."
That portion required very little invention. The shame belonged to Louis de la Croix rather than Matthias Harlow, but his memories sat close enough to the surface that borrowing their weight demanded almost no performance.
"Then, during one particularly unpleasant night, I met something wearing the shape of a man."
Orianna's attention sharpened, her body becoming still.
"He found me drunk in the gutter and offered exactly what a vain, wasted knight would have been foolish enough to desire: strength beyond other men, beauty that age could never diminish and a life grand enough to excuse everything I had failed to accomplish before it."
I allowed a faint, humourless smile to touch my mouth. "All he requested in return was a favour to be collected at some later date, which seemed a very distant concern to a man incapable of planning beyond his next drink."
"And you agreed," Orianna said.
"I did. The transformation lasted three days," I continued, letting the memory of the cave colour the words. "My body tore itself apart and rebuilt itself repeatedly, my flesh turned to indestructible crystal, organs ceasing functions I had relied upon since birth and every sense sharpening until the world became something almost impossible to endure. When the pain finally stopped, I awoke as you see me now."
Orianna's eyes moved over the visible portions of my face, no longer merely admiring the symmetry but searching for evidence of construction, glamour or some flaw that might explain me.
"At first, I believed the creature had kept its word," I said. "I was stronger than any man had a right to be, faster than anything I had previously understood as living and preserved in a body that would never again weaken through disease or age. The power was intoxicating, particularly to someone who had spent his life proving how little could be expected of him."
"But the bargain contained another price I'm sure." Her voice had softened, although the was no sympathy in it, only the interest of a collector finally learning the origin of an object that she couldn't place.
I shifted forward slightly, bringing my forearms to rest upon my knees while keeping my eyes fixed upon hers.
"I no longer sleep, food does not sustain me, wine provides no warmth and nothing prepared by human hands offers nourishment, regardless of its quality or quantity."
The fire settled behind the iron grate, sending a thin spiral of sparks upward through the chimney while Orianna waited without interrupting.
"There is only one thing my body recognises as food," I continued. "The blood of something still living."
Her eyes dropped briefly toward my lips, I paused, letting the phantom weight of the memory settle in the room. "After the transformation, I fled Toussaint," I continued. "I ran until the country was behind me and then kept moving, partly because I feared what I had become and partly because I knew remaining near anyone familiar would eventually end with blood."
The memory of Caed Dhu required little invention, only the careful removal of everything I could not afford to reveal.
"I eventually found myself in the forests of Angren, where I survived upon animals and whatever monsters were unfortunate enough to cross my path. Their blood sustained me well enough, but the hunger never truly disappeared. It remained beneath every thought, waiting for exhaustion or carelessness to give it room."
Orianna tilted her head slightly, her expression sharpening with interest.
"And yet you travel among humans now."
"Yes...eventually, on one of my hunts, I came upon Rhenawedd, she was being accosted by a group of men. Under normal circumstances, I would have turned away. I was a monster hiding from the world; human affairs were no longer my concern but then I heard their voices, they spoke with the accents of my home. They spoke of Toussaint, and Gods help me, I ached for it. The longing, paired with the starvation, made me forget myself. When I finally came to... I had slaughtered the men. I had gorged myself on their blood."
I looked down at my hands, letting them tremble slightly. "Luckily, by some miracle, I had left the girl alive, she was terrified but she talked and upon hearing her story, fueled by a crushing weight of guilt and a desperate longing for a homeland I could never return to, I swore an oath to her. I promised I would see her to safety, and over time... I came to care for her. So I continue to take care of her."
Orianna leaned forward, crossing her legs with a slow, hypnotic grace. She rested her chin in her hand, her emerald eyes reflecting the firelight. "So you mean to tell me you were turned into a Mula? A demon of some sort cursed you to be a vampire?"
"No, not a Mula," I replied firmly, meeting her gaze. "This isn't a disguise, Lady Orla, this is what I look like. The creature did not turn me into a vampire, he simply cursed me into a blood-drinking monster other than the hunger, I share no traits with your kin. I cannot turn into mist. I can not don a disguise."
The tension in the room began to shift, evolving from a standoff into a strange, morbid fascination. We sat there in the dim study, speaking in quiet, measured tones. She asked about the nature of my hunger, about the limitations of my body, treating me less like an enemy and more like a bizarre, exotic specimen that had wandered into her collection.
I offered enough truth to make the falsehoods surrounding it difficult to separate, while keeping the stranger portions of my nature entirely to myself.
As far as she was concerned, I was an unfamiliar blood-drinking creature created through some obscure curse, stronger than her by an embarrassing margin and disciplined enough to live among humans without slaughtering them.
That was already more information than I would have preferred her to possess, eventually, her attention settled upon the black mask still covering the upper half of my face.
Earlier, she had reached for it without permission, behaving as though curiosity entitled her to whatever lay beneath it. Now she remained seated, her hands resting visibly upon her lap.
"May I see your face?" she asked, the request was soft, though not timid.
I held her gaze for several seconds...
Then I reached behind my head, loosened the ribbons and removed the mask, the cool air touched the skin around my eyes as I placed it upon the small table between us.
Orianna did not speak immediately.
Her attention travelled slowly across my face, tracing its unnatural symmetry, the hard red of my eyes and the complete absence of the small flaws that gave ordinary human features their individuality.
Whatever she had expected to find beneath the mask, it had not likely not been this, she leaned forward slightly, though she made no attempt to rise or touch me.
She lifted one hand from her lap, but stopped before extending it across the space between us. "May I?"
The request surprised me more than it should have.
I considered refusing, partly because she deserved the frustration and partly because allowing her hands near my face felt contrary to every instinct I possessed.
I didn't say anything, I just nodded partly curious as to what she would do.
Orianna rose from her chair and crossed the short distance with deliberate care, every movement visible and controlled. She stopped within reach, raised her hands and pressed them lightly against my cheeks.
Her skin was warmer than mine.
She increased the pressure gradually, testing for the movement of flesh over bone and finding none. My face remained firm beneath her touch, the surface yielding nothing.
"So cold," she whispered. "Remarkable like a bust carved by Geppetto of Beauclair himself such perfect, tragic symmetry."
I reached up and held onto her hands and asked "What is it you actually want from me, Orla?"
"Orianna," she said after a moment, offering the name with a slight inclination of her head. "That is what my own kind call me. Lady Orla is merely the name most useful in Maribor."
"And what did you actually want from me, Orianna?"
"Initially, I believed you were kin," she admitted, smoothing one displaced fold of silk over her wrist while the last traces of bruising faded beneath the skin of her throat. "A brother of the night who had entered my home without introduction, perhaps one newly arrived from some distant corner of the world."
Her eyes moved over me again, lingering upon the exposed half of my face with the same quiet fascination she had shown throughout our conversation, though there was considerably more caution beneath it now.
"But you are not Cleva," she continued. "You are something else entirely, and I confess that I no longer know whether that makes you more troubling or more interesting."
"Those are not mutually exclusive conditions."
"No," she agreed, the faintest trace of amusement touching her mouth. "They rarely are."
She stepped back, the intensity breaking as she adopted her flawless noblewoman persona once more. "You have provided me with a thoroughly unusual evening, Matthias Harlow," she said. "A beautiful performance, an extraordinary story and a lesson in hospitality I suspect the wall shall preserve for some time."
Her fingers brushed briefly across her throat, acknowledging the point without surrendering the faint smile upon her lips.
"For your... restraint, you have my gratitude. Your nature will remain concealed within these walls, provided you extend the same courtesy concerning mine."
"I have no intention of exposing you," I replied, fastening the mask over my face once more.
She turned toward the heavy oak door, but I remained beside the chair rather than following until the last part of the matter had been made clear. "And Rhenawedd?"
Orianna glanced back over her shoulder, one hand resting lightly upon the brass latch.
"The young lady came here seeking a private negotiation, although I presume that particular arrangement is no longer under consideration."
"It is not." The answer came more firmly than I intended, sharpened by the image of the Heart of Toussaint resting in Orianna's collection years from now, and the woman killed by a thief sent to retrieve it.
Orianna studied me for a moment, her gaze lingering upon whatever my expression had revealed beneath the mask.
"Then I shall not embarrass her by raising the matter," she said. "Though the fact that she intended to sell something of considerable personal value suggests the two of you are not enjoying the financial comfort you're accustomed to."
I said nothing.
There was little value in denying the obvious, particularly to someone who had spent centuries studying human weakness beneath silk, perfume and borrowed titles.
Orianna's mouth curved slightly when my silence confirmed enough. "As it happens, I have a difficulty requiring someone with your particular combination of strength and discretion," she continued. "Nothing that would threaten the girl, and nothing that would require you to reveal what you are. Complete the task, and I would compensate you generously enough that she need not part with her jewellery merely to keep the two of you housed."
Every instinct I possessed advised against accepting work from a vampire who had attempted to tear my face open moments before.
Unfortunately, the need for coin for our long journey to Barefield trumped my caution.
I also had no intention of allowing Syanna to sell the last piece of her family's inheritance because she believed herself a burden upon my purse, and refusing to hear the proposal out of wounded pride would accomplish little beyond forcing the problem back onto her shoulders.
"What kind of difficulty?" I asked.
"I would like for you to retrieve something, it's better explained when there are fewer guests in my home and considerably less damage to my furniture."
My eyes moved briefly toward the indentation in the wall. "You attacked me."
"And yet the wall appears to have suffered most." A restrained smile touched her lips, though her attention remained watchful.
"I will send the particulars once I have arranged them," she said. "You may refuse after hearing the terms, and I shall take no offence, provided you extend me the courtesy of considering them."
Working for Orianna was a bad idea...but there were worse things out there. "I will remain in Maribor until after the tourney," I said after a moment. "Send word through Uldrin, and I will hear what you have to offer."
"I suspected practicality would triumph over suspicion." She opened the door, allowing music, laughter and the warmth of the crowded estate to spill back into the study.
"Go back to your lady," she said, stepping aside. "Tell her that Lady Orla regrets the interruption and that our discussion must be postponed."
I paused as I passed her. "She will not be selling you the pendant."
"No," Orianna replied, her expression unreadable once more. "It appears I may have found something considerably more useful to purchase."
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Rhenawedd Lyssene
The moment Matthias through the oak doors with Lady Orla, the crowd surged forward like a dam breaking, before I could even try and work out why our enigmatic hostess had just led him, a dozen high-born Temerians completely blocked my path. Their faces were flushed with wine and the lingering excitement of his performance, they bombarded me from all sides, a chaotic, suffocating barrage of high-society gossip and sharp, prying questions.
"Tell us, Lady Rhenawedd, where on earth did you find him?" a plump baroness in a peacock-blue gown gushed, waving a feathered fan with frantic energy. "A knight errant with a voice like a choir of angels! Is he truly as adept with his sword as he is with a violin?"
"Emuvickde Haars, a pleasure to make your aquaintence, forgive my bluntness but what exactly is the... nature of your arrangement, my lady?" a young nobleman with a thin, manicured mustache chimed in. He leaned a little too close, his eyes gleaming with standard, predictable aristocratic opportunism. "Surely a gentleman of such remarkable talents doesn't wander the wilderness without a very specific anchor holding his attention. Is he available for private bookings? My father host a quarterly dinner for the traders' consortium, we have had the same lutenist for three years and I think it is time for a change."
I felt a phantom smirk tugging at the corners of my mouth from an outsider's perspective, I must have looked like a lamb trapped in a shark tank. But as I took a slow breath, letting the familiar, suffocating rhythm of courtly intrigue wash over me, I realized these northern nobles were the ones trapped in the tank with me.
The rigid, defensive posture I had held during our dusty travels on the road vanished. In its place, the fluid, devastatingly charming cadence of a true-born princess of Toussaint rushed through my veins like a shot of strong spirits. I didn't flinch or retreat, I stepped right into the quagmire of Maribor nobility with an effortless, calculated earnestness.
"Come now, Lord Haars," I said, letting my laughter ring out in a light, musical ripple that perfectly mirrored the polite appreciation of the room. I tilted my head, offering the young nobleman a look that was just teasing enough to flatter his ego, yet entirely unyielding. "A knight errant's sword is sworn to the virtues, not to the highest bidder at a garden party. Sir Harlow fights to defend the innocent, though I shall certainly tell him of your father's exquisite taste in music."
Before the young lord could reorient his prying strategy, I smoothly turned my radiant focus toward the peacock-blue baroness, effectively cutting him off.
"And as for our relationship," I continued, pitching my voice to carry over the ambient chatter, "Matthias is a gentleman of the old code. He honors me with his company and his protection on these treacherous northern roads. A lady traveling alone in these troubled times requires a formidable shield as I am sure a woman of your station and intellect thoroughly understands."
The woman beamed, preening under the compliment like a well-fed bird. "Oh, absolutely! The roads near Ellander are practically crawling with bandits these days. My husband, Viscount Sebastian Diersano, had to hire an entire mercenary retinue just to escort our silver and copper Billets."
"An expensive endeavor, no doubt," I murmured. I allowed my voice to drop into a conspiratorial, confidential register, leaning in just enough to instantly draw the surrounding women closer. "And mercenaries are notoriously fickle, aren't they? They lack... honor. A dangerous, volatile trait when one's livelihood is on the line."
"Precisely!" a wealthier, older merchant-noble in a heavy, fur-lined doublet interjected, his interest suddenly sharp. "The trade routes to the north are an absolute nightmare. I've lost two full caravans this season alone to woodland filth and deserting soldiers. If your Sir Harlow is even half as formidable as Uldrin claims, a man of his discipline would be worth his weight in Temerian gold."
I took a slow, elegant sip from my wine glass, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make my next words feel like an exclusive asset.
"Matthias does not fight for gold, Master Boraut," I said softly. "But he does fight for the plighted man and he possesses a particular, unwavering hatred for those who disrupt the honest livelihood of good men." I offered the merchant a slow, knowing smile, weaving a brilliant, subtle hook to reel him right in. "Perhaps, when the excitement of the evening settles, we might discuss the matter properly? I believe we are meant to pass through your districts early next week. A formal consultation regarding a potential contract could be arranged... provided the terms respect a knight's station."
The merchant's eyes lit up with immediate commercial greed. "A promise, then! Come to my estate on Tuesday morning, Lady Rhenawedd you and Sir Harlow shall have the finest vintage in my cellar and my full, undivided attention."
"We shall hold you to that, Master Boraut," I replied, inclining my head with absolute, radiant grace.
In less than five minutes, I had completely defused a gossiping mob, secured a vital connection with one of the most powerful merchants in the quarter, and laid the groundwork for a lucrative contract that would keep us funded for months all while maintaining the pristine illusion of our high-born identities, I still had the touch, the road hadn't completely broken me.
As the crowd began to drift apart, thoroughly satisfied and charmed, I finally caught movement near the end of the hall.
The heavy oak door had opened. Matthias stepped out, reattaching his mask, but even from across the grand hall, I could see the stiffness in his stride as he smoothed down his coat, his shoulders were rigid.
The moment Matthias stepped out of the heavy oak door at the far end of the hall, the atmosphere in the room shifted again. The lingering guests, still buzzing from his performance, turned as one entity. I could see the collective intent forming in their eyes, they were preparing to swarm him like a pack of hounds cornering a rare stag.
But Matthias didn't give them the chance. With a smooth, defensive grace that seemed entirely at odds with the stiffness in his stride, he managed politely diffuse the advancing crowd. His voice carried just enough authority to halt them in their tracks, murmuring something about needing an immediate word with his ward. He kept his eyes locked on me, carving a direct path through the velvet and silk toward my alcove.
He didn't make it halfway before a frantic figure cut him off.
It was Edort, the bard who had been performing earlier. The young man looked utterly disheveled, his eyes wide and desperate as he practically threw himself into Matthias's path. "Sir Harlow! Sir Harlow, please, I beg a moment of your time!" Edort stammered, his hands trembling as he gestured wildly. "Forgive me, I know I am being a terrible bother, an absolute nuisance, but I—I could not let you leave without asking!"
Matthias paused, his shoulders rigid under his doublet. "What can I help you with...Edort was it?."
"Yes Sir, Edort of Brugge," Edort breathed, his voice cracking with a mix of reverence and sheer professional envy. "Your song, that melody... it was haunting, I have never heard its like in all of Temeria. Please, ser, what is the name of it? And—and would you, by some miracle of mercy, allow me to perform it? I swear to you upon my honor, I will give you full credit! Every court from here to Vizima will know the genius of Matthias Harlow!"
Matthias stared down at the young bard for a quiet, heavy beat. Under his masquerade mask, I could see his jaw tighten, a profound exhaustion rolling off him.
"The Night We Met, is it's name." Matthias said quietly.
Edort's eyes practically went round as saucers. "The Night We Met," he whispered, repeating it like a holy incantation.
"You have my permission to sing it," Matthias added, his tone flat.
"Thank you! Oh, by the gods, thank you, gentle knight!" Edort cried, his face lighting up with pure, unadulterated ecstasy. He didn't even wait for a formal dismissal. He turned on his heel and bolted across the ballroom, nearly tripping over a servant's tray, frantically muttering to himself, "The Night We Met... the chords... I must write the words down before they slip from my mind! I must write them now!"
I watched the young bard vanish into the crowd, a phantom smirk tugging at the corners of my mouth, but my amusement evaporated the moment Matthias finally reached the safety of my alcove.
Up close, the pristine illusion of the confident knight errant shattered. He was tracking the room with a hyper-vigilant intensity, and he looked like he had just seen a ghost. My courtly smile stayed fixed on my lips for the benefit of the watching eyes in the room, but beneath the silk of my mask, my teeth clenched.
I stepped away from the lingering nobles and glided toward him, navigating the space with liquid grace until I was within arm's reach. The moment we were close enough I whispered to him.
"You were gone rather a long time, Matthias," I murmured when he finally reached me, keeping the pleasant courtly smile fixed upon my face for the benefit of anyone still watching. My fingers rested loosely around the stem of my wine glass as I leaned closer, lowering my voice beneath the music and surrounding conversation. "What did our hostess find so fascinating that it required a private audience?"
Matthias did not answer immediately.
From a distance, nothing about him would have appeared unusual. His coat remained properly fastened, his mask sat straight across his face and his steps had retained the effortless precision that made everything he did look intentional. Standing this close, however, I noticed several small disturbances beneath that polished appearance: one cuff had been adjusted more carefully than necessary, a strand of pale hair had escaped near his temple and the set of his shoulders suggested restraint rather than unease.
His eyes travelled once across the ballroom, marking the servants stationed near the doors, the guests clustered beside the musicians and the high arched windows overlooking the courtyard.
"Something that I would rather talk about somewhere less crowded," he replied. His tone remained calm, though it carried the firmness he used whenever a decision had already been made. "We should conclude our business here and return to the inn."
I followed his brief inspection of the room, searching for whatever danger he had identified and finding only expensive gowns, flushed faces and several merchants still attempting to attract my attention.
"Return now?" I asked, keeping my expression composed despite the irritation beginning to gather beneath it. "I have just spent the better part of your absence turning an interrogation into profitable employment."
His attention returned fully to me. "I noticed the crowd you we gathering."
"I might have arranged something with a nobleman who wants to discuss an escort contract for a silver shipment leaving the Maribor foundries."
"That is well done." The praise arrived without surprise, as though he had expected nothing less, which softened my irritation only enough to make it more difficult to enjoy.
"Then you understand why disappearing before the evening ends would be unhelpful."
"I do." Matthias lowered his voice further, though nothing in his manner became hurried. "We will not disappear, we can thank our host, confirm the appointment you arranged and leave without insulting anyone whose business might prove useful. After that, I would prefer to speak without half the Noble Quarter listening."
...
"What did Lady Orla want?" I asked again.
"Later." Was his only response.
"Matthias--"
"Syanna." He spoke my name quietly enough that it disappeared beneath the nearby laughter, his expression softening without surrendering the point. "Nothing has happened that requires you to abandon what you accomplished tonight, and I am not dragging you out through the kitchens. We will leave properly, I am just asking that we do so soon."
The request was reasonable, measured and therefore considerably harder to oppose without appearing unreasonable myself.
I gave him a narrow look through my mask. "You are becoming inconveniently skilled at making arguements."
"I have had a demanding teacher."
Before I could decide whether that deserved a response, Matthias turned toward Uldrin, who remained near the musicians speaking animatedly.
We approached together rather than with Matthias steering me before him like a rescued invalid. He waited while I secured Master Boraut's agreement to receive us on Tuesday morning, confirmed the location of his estate and extracted a promise that the proposed terms would be discussed before any commitment was expected.
Only then did Matthias enter the conversation.
His apology to Uldrin was brief and perfectly judged, citing an early appointment and the strain of travel. Uldrin accepted the explanation with good grace, still too delighted by the evening's performance to take offence, and returned Matthias's violin with repeated assurances that another invitation would follow.
By the time we crossed the ballroom, no one could reasonably have interpreted our departure as anything more suspicious than two travellers recognizing the lateness of the hour.
The doors opened onto the cool courtyard, where torchlight trembled across the gravel and the evening air carried the smell of this Quarter beneath the lingering perfume drifting from the estate.
I waited until the doors had closed behind us before stopping. Matthias took another step, noticed I was no longer beside him and turned back.
"We did not need to leave quite so soon," I said, keeping my voice low rather than allowing the annoyance to carry toward the servants near the stables. "I had the room under control, and Master Boraut was prepared to discuss work that could keep us supplied for weeks."
"He will still discuss it on Tuesday."
"He might reconsider by morning. Wealthy men often regard promises made over wine as entertainment rather than obligation."
"He will not reconsider." Matthias said with a surety I could not tell the source of.
"You cannot know that."
"No," Matthias conceded. "But you made him believe hiring me was his own idea, which makes him considerably less likely to abandon it, I know how man like that think, you do to or you would not have left."
The observation was accurate enough to slow the argument.
I folded my arms, trying to think of an argument that would let us stay without exposing the real reason why I wanted to, and at failing that I studied him through the lantern light. He appeared composed, almost irritatingly so, but his attention remained divided between me and the windows above the courtyard.
"What happened in that room?"
"I will explain at the inn."
"You said you would explain once we were outside."
"I said somewhere less crowded."
I looked around the mostly empty courtyard.
"The horses appear trustworthy."
"The woman inside may hear better than they do."
That quiet statement stripped some of the irritation from the moment. My hand rose unconsciously toward my bodice, pressing against the hidden weight resting beneath the silk of my gown.
The Heart of Toussaint felt suddenly heavier there, warmed by my skin and every decision I had made without telling him.
Matthias's eyes followed the movement.
"We are leaving without selling it," he said. The words were neither accusation nor command, but they stopped me more effectively than either would have.
I lowered my hand slowly. "Selling what?"
His expression did not change. "The pendant."
For a moment, the courtyard seemed to become very quiet around us, although the faint music behind the doors continued and somewhere near the stable a horse shifted against its tether.
"What pendant?" I asked, buying myself a few useless seconds.
"Your pendant," he continued, his voice barely louder than the rustle of the wind through the courtyard trees. "The Heart of Toussaint. I know you brought it here to sell to her, and I know you didn't tell me because you knew I would say no."
Panic, cold and sharp, flared in my chest, my mind raced, mapping out how he knew. Did she tell him? Did that woman look at my guardian and instantly lay bare the secret negotiation I had tried so carefully to orchestrate?
"Did she... did Lady Orla tell you?" I began, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and fear as I prepared to demand exactly what had passed between them in that study.
But then, the words died on my tongue. I looked at the grim certainty in his eyes. A sudden, chilling realization struck me, arriving with the embarrassing force of something blindingly obvious. Lady Orla hadn't said a word. She couldn't have, I hadn't even shown her the piece yet.
This wasn't a secret betrayed by a noblewoman, this was something else.
"Is it about what you know?" I whispered, stepping closer to him, my eyes wide as the pieces violently slammed into place. "She is a part of it, isn't she?"
I reached out to grab the lapel of his coat, desperate for answers, my mind reeling at the sheer, impossible gravity of the house we had walked into. "Matthias, tell me. Who is she? What happens to—"
"Not here," Matthias cut me off sharply, his hand instantly wrapping over mine, lifting it gently but firmly off his chest. He cast a swift, hyper-vigilant glance back toward the high, arched windows of the manor, his jaw clenching tightly. "We don't speak another word until we are well away from this quarter," he whispered his voice dropping into a tense, terrifyingly quiet register that left no room for argument. "I am not entirely sure just how good her hearing is."
And with those words, the stable aide walked up to us, cutting off the suffocating silence, leading Matthias's sleek silver mare toward us. The horse stamped its hooves against the gravel, its breath pluming in the crisp night air. Matthias stepped forward, his movements entirely fluid despite the invisible weight crushing his shoulders, he helped me onto the saddle, his grip firm and steady, before handing me his violin case. I took it, cradling the polished case against my chest like a shield.
He climbed on behind me, and put his coat over my shoulders, gathering the reins with an effortless, practiced motion. With a short, polite word of thanks and a silver coin tossed to the aide, he clicked his tongue.
The mare moved, shifting from a brisk walk into a fast, rhythmic trot that carried us away from the lantern-lit facade of the manor.
I didn't turn around to look back at the arched windows, but the skin on the back of my neck prickled with the distinct, maddening sensation of being watched. We rode in absolute, deafening silence through the winding, well lit avenues of Maribor's Noble Quarter. The rhythmic clatter of hooves against the cobblestones echoed off the high stone walls of the estates, a lonely, exposing sound that made me grip the instrument case tighter.
Matthias kept the mare at a steady, relentless pace, navigating the streets with a knight's hyper-vigilance. His chest was a rigid wall against my back, completely devoid of the normal, rhythmic rising and falling of a humans lungs.
Only when the grand stone archways of the upper district faded behind us, replaced by the storefronts and thinner lanes of the lower quarters, did the suffocating tension begin to fracture. The air smelled less of expensive perfume and more of woodsmoke, cheap ale, and river silt.
By the time the familiar, flickering candle light of our inn cropped up at the end of the lane, my hands were stiff with cold, and my mind was a furious, tangled knot of questions. Matthias brought the mare to a halt in the courtyard, sliding off the saddle before reaching up to guide me down.
"Now," I said, the moment my feet hit the dirt, my eyes locking onto his hidden face through the gloom. "We are away from her, tell me what is going on."
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Authors Note: That's it for chapter 25! I'm a bit unhappy with how I portrayed Orianna here, I know in the games she was a bit more stoic and reserved, but I also took some inspiration from the trailer vid where Geralt lops her head off, and I also wanted to show her appreciation for art, how she was sort of entranced by Matt, his music, his looks and all that, she sees him as some sort of living artwork, but more on that later.
As for what she says in the Gharasham tongue, (the vampire language based off of real-world Etruscan): 'Why do you continue to play at being human, I can smell the blood on you, you tried to hide beneath the scent of beasts and monsters, but human blood ever so sweet, always shines through.'
'Cleva': Kin
Other than that, let me know what you thought about this chapter.