By the Grace of Blood-Part I

Perhaps it was the way the willow died. The way it shrank, lost its color, and stiffened. Perhaps it was the way the willow was sheared from its trunk. Deep gouges tearing through bark, the loud thwack of iron meeting wood, and the crash of a lifeless body meeting the earth. Perhaps it was the way the willow was made anew. Milled into many smaller sections, sanded away into neat lines and edges, crafted into a table or chair or basket. Perhaps it was the way the willow died.

~

Lord Cheold ran for his life. He wasn’t used to running and lumbered with his arms and legs flailing about. He tried to yell but his labored breathing only let him mumble out a few words: “King…hurry…soon”. Lord Cheold stopped to catch his breath, placing one hand against the cold stone wall on his left. He stifled his wheezing and stood up. He looked behind him and saw a red glow emanating from further down the corridor. He eyes widened. He started running again. He reached a spiral staircase that led down from the spire he was in. He waddled down the stairs, one stair at a time, then two, and then he tumbled down the stairs, a rolling barrel of a man. He spilled out onto the floor of the keep, crumpled like paper. He pushed against the floor to sit up and moaned. He got to his feet and noticed the staircase beginning to glow in the same eery red light from earlier. He cursed. Lord Cheold limped further into the keep and called out:

“My Queen! Hurry! You must away! The King has been attacked! You must leave with haste! Hurry! They will be upon us soon!”

A door ahead of him opened.

“By the grace of blood! My Queen, you-” Lord Cheold halted. She whom exited the room was not the Queen. It was a slender thing, its skin a light grey and gaunt. It had donned the Queen’s blue robe and was admiring itself. The dress was splattered in blood, but the creature did not seem to mind. It stroked the long lengths of cloth and Lord Cheold remained frozen. It ambled towards him and he saw the creature’s hands, no talons, covered in blood and leaking glistening red drops of life onto the stone floor.

“Merciful Sanguinate,” Cheold whispered.

The creature twisted its head towards him, as if noticing him for the first time. Its face was that of a ghoul: no nose, black eyes, and skin pulled tight across the cheekbones. It opened its mouth to reveal rows and rows of sharp teeth and a long black tongue. Blood dribbled from the corners of its mouth. It smiled. It lurched forward and Lord Cheold turned to run again but it was fast, much faster than an oaf of a Lord. It thrust a hand through Cheold’s back, the long talons bursting out through his chest. A gasp shuddered out of him and the creature dropped him to the floor with a thud. The creature stooped next to him so he could see it out of the corner of his eye. It smiled again, but the smile was different. The teeth were normal, human. He stared at the creature, his life ebbing away, and saw the features of its face soften, the skin filled out and turn to a natural brown shade, a nose formed where there had been none, and the talons retracted into slender fingers. Lord Cheold’s eyes widened one last time. This was no longer a creature, this was the Queen.

“If my research is correct, you must be Lord Cheold, yes? I’m afraid the kingdom was in dire need of some restructuring. If you had arrived just a bit later, you might have been able to be part of that. But alas, you’ve seen too much. The power of blood is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Delicious even. Farewell, Lord Cheold. May you fare better in the Sanguinate’s Court,” she said.

Lord Cheold died. The Queen-creature sighed and made her way to the spiral staircase. The red glow had become thick and formed a haze. She took one step at a time, watching her feet ascend the spire. She reached the landing and headed down the corridor to where the haze was heaviest. She stopped at a door outside the room. It was the King’s room, from which Lord Cheold had fled just minutes ago. She knocked on the door in a pattern of one knock, two knocks, and then three knocks. Then she entered. Lying on the bed before her was the remnant of a man. His clothes were gone, and bite marks covered his flesh. His body was the pale color of death, and drained of most of its blood. Sitting in an armchair next to the bed was a man who looked like he could have been the dead man’s twin. He had on the King’s bloodstained clothes, his crown, and jewelry. He nodded to the Queen-creature.

“We have succeeded, brother,” The Queen-creature said.

“Aye, sister. This is the beginning of a new age. We shall rule in place of the once king and queen, and none shall be the wiser,” The King-creature said.

“I had to kill Lord Cheold. He saw me before the transformation was complete,” she said.

“Unfortunate, but not entirely regrettable. He saw me attack the King, and may have been suspicious of the King surviving with hardly a scratch,” he said.

“That leaves only a few more pieces to move into place before we begin our conquest,” she said.

“Indeed. For now, let us clean up the mess we have made and go about convincing the people that their King and Queen have survived an awful attack. We can go about hiding our deed and providing the assassins in the same stroke,” he said. He stood up and motioned for something to come out of the corner to the left of where the Queen-creature was standing. What looked much like an old version of the creature Lord Cheold had seen before it transformed itself stood there. It was hooded and covered in enormous black robes. Its two taloned hands held a skull, turned upside down and full of a dark black liquid. The creature shuffled forward and held the skull bowl out for the King-creature. He took the skull and drank the liquid. He grimaced as he did so, forcing all of it down. He then held his arm out and the elderly creature drew one of its talons across the flesh, cutting a gash that bled onto the dead king’s body. When the creature was satisfied that enough blood had been spilt, it took out a small vial of a dark blue liquid from its cloak and poured it over the King-creatures’s arm. Immediately, the wound began to close and within minutes had healed completely. Then, the king’s dead body began to ripple. The features of the body began to change until the body was not of the king at all, but of a short man, burly and rugged looking. An assassin’s body. This was the power of blood magicks.

“Go now and do the same with the previous queen, sister. I will dress this man in the attire I have brought to fully realize our facade. Soon, we will be positioned to change the fate of our kind forever,” he said.