WHAT THE DARK REMEMBERED
Chapter 13 — His Highness?
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The knock came before the light did.
I was already sitting up before I knew why. My heart was going too fast. I pressed one hand flat against the covers and told it to settle.
The figure.
The barn.
I had gone back to sleep with that sitting in my chest — the shape of it moving through the dark, the way it had not walked so much as moved. Like shadow that had learned the shape of a body and worn it loosely. I had told myself it was nothing.
I had almost believed it.
"Her Highness."
Aldric. Through the door.
I exhaled. "A moment."
---
He stood in the corridor with his hands folded and a maid behind him carrying fabric I couldn't see clearly in the early light.
"Forgive the hour. There is a fitting required this morning."
I stepped back to let them in. "What occasion."
"A Mark's Call celebration, my lady. Lord and Lady Fenwick. The household has been invited." He set his folio on the side table. "It is in four days."
I watched the maid lay the fabric across the chair. Dark red. Almost black in the low light. "I don't know what that is."
Aldric looked at me. "My lady?"
"The Mark's Call." I sat on the edge of the bed. "I have heard it mentioned. I don't fully understand what it is."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he pulled the chair from the writing desk and sat across from me — which he had never done before — and folded his hands on his knee.
"When a vampire chooses his mate," he said, "truly chooses, there is a bond that forms between them. Ancient. Irreversible. The Mark's Call is the moment that bond is completed, when he marks her and she receives it and from that point they are bound to one another in a way that cannot be undone." He paused. "It is not a small thing. In this world it is perhaps the most significant thing that can pass between two people."
I looked at my hands. "And the celebration."
"When a bonding is completed the household celebrates. It is a declaration — to the court, to the bloodline, to everyone watching, that a bond has been formed and is recognized." He looked at me steadily. "It is considered a great honour to be invited to witness one."
"And Lord and Lady Fenwick —"
"Their son. He has completed the Mark's Call with his chosen mate." A pause. "They wish to share it with the court."
I was quiet.
"Is it —" I stopped. Started again. "Is it painful. For the one who receives it."
"For a human," he said carefully, "it depends. The bond changes things. The body adjusts." He looked at his hands briefly. "It is not without cost. But those who have received it speak of it as — necessary. As though something that was incomplete became whole."
I looked at the fabric on the chair.
"And without it," I said. "A vampire and his wife —"
"Are bound by arrangement," he said. "Not by blood."
The room held that for a moment.
"Have you seen Lord Voss this morning," I said.
"I have not, my lady."
"Since last night."
"No." Simply. Nothing added.
He stood. Straightened his jacket. "Shall we begin the fitting?"
---
The maid had opinions.
She expressed them entirely through adjustments — a sleeve moved here, the neckline reconsidered there, a quiet sound made when something did not satisfy her that communicated volumes without a word. I stood where I was told and held my arms where I was told and let her work.
Aldric stayed.
"What does the court think," I said, "when the Mark's Call has not happened. Between a vampire and his — arranged wife."
Aldric was quiet.
"They watch," he said finally. "They draw conclusions. In this court the Mark's Call is not merely personal — it is political. It tells the court where a man's allegiance lies. Who he has chosen to bind himself to." He paused. "The absence of it is noticed."
"And talked about."
"Everything in this court is talked about, my lady."
The maid made her sound of dissatisfaction and repositioned a pin.
"But it cannot be forced," I said. "You said that."
"It cannot," he agreed. "It comes from something that cannot be manufactured or performed. Either it is there or it is not." A pause. "And sometimes it is there long before either person is willing to admit it."
I looked at the wall.
The maid stepped back with an expression of cautious satisfaction.
"Done, my lady," she said.
---
By midmorning Aldric had gone and the fabric had been taken away and the chamber was quiet. I was tired in the way of someone who had not slept enough and had been standing still too long.
I lay down.
Closed my eyes.
---
The knock came so fast after sleep found me that I thought I had imagined it.
Then the maid's voice — breathless, carrying something it hadn't carried this morning.
"Her Highness —"
I sat up.
"His Highness is being flogged outside."