Andrea Höst - The Towers, the Moon

"I cannot risk allegiance," she hedged. "I am already divided."

"We are, as ever, not gods. Nothing I do could bind your allegiance to me."

"I don’t…I don’t know," Rian said, choosing directness in some vain hope that it would lead her to the truth. "I have become tied into the defences of my homeland. My choices are not entirely my own."

These protestations seemed to neither surprise nor concern him, and the steady pulse of his heart did not change as he said: "The consequences of this are only knowledge. The information I gain will not impact Prytennia, nor lead to any threat to that land. If you wish for fuller disclosure, the eventual goal of this experiment will greatly impact Aquitania, if I am able to progress to it."

Aquitania, the southern province of France, was highly disputed territory. It should not surprise Rian at all that the Dukes were looking for ways to retain it permanently. But how could Rian tasting this ancient creature’s blood alter that? And what would the various powers she was tied to think of her becoming involved?

"What goal?"

"That, at the moment, is not relevant, since I cannot progress toward that until you are more who you will be."

She didn’t fully understand the sentence. "More what?"

The soft rumble of a voice seemed to echo from the whole of the shadowy, circular room. "You are a power in the process of becoming. You have weight, and the world bends itself around you. When you have taken more steps along that path, you will have the strength for a further exchange. But that is a bargain for another century."

Rian usually prided herself on her quick thinking, but she was struggling to process all this. Next century? She would almost certainly be a vampire in truth by then. Remarkable to think of even being alive. Did he seriously plan on her returning here in a century…to drink his blood?

She needed clarity. There had been too many bargains these last few months, and each time they had twisted into something larger. Contracting for ten years of service with a vampire had become an irreversible step toward vampirism. Giving allegiance to the god Cernunnos had brought her a nice house and salary – and put her square in the centre of political and godly battles. No matter what terms the Duke of Balance offered, it would be stupid not to expect a significant consequence.

She did not need to do this. She could simply walk away. And watch Martine lose the position she had fought so hard to gain, and which had finally allowed her to hold her head high, lifting her above the shame of Milo’s birth.

Rian stood still for a long time, watched by the winged giant, and listening to the steady pulse, pulse, pulse of his blood. Then she carefully restated what he had asked, to be sure, and added: "If your experiment is successful, there is another stage that you wish to move on to, next century, which will have consequences for Aquitania. Does that stage require me as well?"

"Not specifically. But Amon-Re vampires are very rare."

Amon-Re vampires could be counted on one hand, because their blood killed almost all who aspired to ascend to their powers. That gave Rian an advantage.

"There is a shortfall in your calculation," she said carefully. "Why do you think that I will return to France next century?"

"Have you not returned to it again and again?" he asked, without any hint of concern.

"I have family I love here, and France is filled with things I appreciate and enjoy. But by next century all the people I care about in Lutèce will be gone. And without them, for all its delights, France is not a place that welcomes me. If I married here, all my property would become my husband’s. If I attended the Gilded Court’s games without a mask, I would become an object of disdain. I came here tonight with a cousin in part because a woman travelling alone, dressed like this, could be seen as forfeiting a right to protest any form of mistreatment."

"Those are not the mores of the Court of the Moon."

"No. In fact, it’s probably the Roman influence on Aquitania, mixing north," Rian said. "Before the formation of Prytennia, there were similar attitudes all over Albion, but when Sulis Answered, her laws became the country’s laws. In France you, who claim not to be gods, do not care about human laws because only the Court’s rules are important to your battles – and those rules change four times a century, and only matter at night."

A sliding movement behind the Duke was his only immediate response. His wings, glimmering night, slowly expanded, stretching to almost the full diameter of the room. Rian, watching mesmerised, felt as if she were wearing the mask of a mouse, not a snake.

Then he said: "Are you asking me to dictate to the Sun Court?"

Spoken as calmly as the rest of their discussion, but the question practically clanged warnings. Rian had not missed that the Duke of Balance appeared to be attempting to live up to his name in trying to arrange his experiments. What price could she possibly pay equal to telling the Sun Court to alter the common laws of France?

But Rian was not quite so young and foolish as to ask the Duke of Balance for anything at all, let alone a thing so potentially large. And she was not a mouse.

If she truly was a power in the process of becoming, she would test her weight.

"I am telling you that the laws of the Sun Court pronounce me less than , and actively hurt people I care about. They are…" She paused. "I think they are one of the reasons I have never made France my home. And they are now an obstacle standing in the way of your plans for Aquitania."

There was no need to make the point clearer. He was not stupid. He wanted something from her – a small thing tonight and a very large thing on another night, a century from now. To even ask, to begin to negotiate for whatever it was he wanted from the vampire she would be, this pipe-cleaner giant needed her to come to him.

His outstretched wings stirred, and her tissue-dress shifted in response. But he did not even seem to be looking at her, was gazing a little to her left toward the floor, as if he was watching the images of the city. She noticed that the great river of his bloodstream was flowing at a faster rate, but she did not believe this to be anger, or a prelude to any attack. Still, she could not restrain a tiny sigh of relief when that mantle of star-studded night folded away, and he looked back at her as calmly as ever.

"You may find that your errand tonight leads to a small choice with large consequences," he said. "I will leave to you whether the result is enough to encourage your return during the new century. Do I have your agreement for this first experiment?"

"Yes."

He inclined his head the tiniest degree. Gratitude from a not-a-god to someone who was not a power yet. His gaze shifted to his left hand, shielded by the partial gauntlet, as he pierced the pad of his own thumb with one of the spikes. Then he rested his hand palm-up on his knee, so that the rapidly welling drop of blood was just within Rian’s reach.

Rian might have been bitten by a vampire, but she had no taste for blood – beyond some very uncomfortable memories of the complications of the Amon-Re ability to sense emotion. It was necessary to steel herself, to remind herself of Martine, before she could move closer to him. That gauntlet of curving metal claws only emphasised the sense that she was walking into a snare. It would be like putting her face into a bear-trap.

She would have to stand on tip-toe to do it, as well. Made even smaller by proximity, she said: "This is not what I expected to be doing tonight," and heard a rumble-puff of laughter as she licked his thumb.

An iron tang filled her mouth. She swallowed, relieved the stuff didn’t burn as Makepeace’s did.