Chapter Text
Sakuya jolted awake as the stagecoach bumped into a rock. A man, boorish and inelegant, sat across her, chuckling, his ugly smile revealing missing yellow teeth and a dishevelled beard. He was rather large, taking nearly the entire seat even without his armaments as his head touched the ceiling. But it hardly scared her as she stared in open contempt.
The man leaned towards the cramped priest, Father Abelheim, beside him. If the priest had any discomfort sharing a seat with a barbarian, he scarcely showed it, his eyes scanning the book instead. He was a wiry man in his middle age who was known to immerse himself in his books, and it showed as Abelheim showered the barbarian with a modicum of attention.
"Abelheim," the boorish man asked, his voice as obnoxious as his looks. Was that supposed to be a whisper? Sakuya thought. "What's with the kid?" Sakuya narrowed her eyes, insulted. She was no child at all, having already seen twenty winters, and it was no fault of hers that her body had been frozen in time. But she chooses not to respond, for it is childish to chide him for something so petty.
"It was not my decision to make, Davaajav," Abelheim replied, his eyes still on his book, "and I dare not refuse an order from the Holy See."
"The Pope?!" the barbarian asked incredulously.
"Or someone representing his interests; ask her yourself if you're so curious." Davaajav nodded to himself and faced Sakuya.
"Why are you here, kid? A sacrificial lamb, perhaps? What good can your tiny arms do against the Fanged Ones?" He asked. Sakuya chose to stare out the window instead, noting the column of horses and carriages ahead of her. She watched the moon's reflection twinkle and dance on the surface of the river Arges. Sakuya narrowed her eyes in concern; she recalled her old mentor's wise words: Prey is most dangerous when awake.
"This one doesn't like me."
"Couldn't imagine why." Davaajav continues to stare at Sakuya.
Her eyes travel back to the carriages ahead, recognising their Papal finery alongside their regional colours—they dorn the colours of Italy's many states, except Venice, curiously enough. Sakuya had heard of trouble brewing between Venice and the Pope; regardless, their presence is sorely missed.
What else is there...The moon looked quite pretty today. Sakuya's eyes twitched slightly; the barbarian's stare felt like a growing itch. So she relents and stares back, willing him to cease, but cease he did not.
And so, both assassin and barbarian locked eyes with one another in a battle of wills, to Abelheim's bemusement. This was shaping up to be a long trip.
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Poenari Castle was a macabre vision of carnage and mayhem. Bloodstained on every nook and cranny of Dracula's former domain, as human innards decorated the rooms. Vampiric children roam about, massacring each other in their violent, childish games. Their joyful laughter ring throughout the courtyard while limbs are torn apart. The only non-vampiric inhabitants were the ghouls, former servants turned mindless automatons, shambling around without direction. It didn't help that there was a besieging army outside its walls, one commanded by a Basarab usurper, the Little Impaler.
This was the situation in which the vampire known as Rem found herself. Insanity gripped the castle while an army tried barging in. There was little she could do but hide, lest she is torn apart by her half-siblings. Rem hid in her father's study, situated at a secluded corner of the castle, facing a cliff. It was as safe as she could be despite the circumstances. Both the door and the window were boarded up with the desk taken apart and turned into stakes.
Rem intended to wait out the madness, hopefully before she becomes blood-starved herself. It was a good thing her small body required little blood, so she rummaged through her father's study for a book to read. She would pass the time fully immersed with the wondrous scribbles on brown parchments, speaking of grand stories and of the world outside. And most importantly, Dracula's research.