Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Tristan and Aurora

Waking up, I felt the pleasant feeling of Rebekah's head against my chest, her golden blonde hair spilling out across us both. Carefully, I slipped out from beneath her, before putting some clothes on and grabbing Mother's grimoire from my bag. Pulling up a chair, I sat at the desk and opened the grimore. I had been spending a lot of time going through it, unfortunately, most of my efforts were for nought, but I persisted. Flicking through the many pages, I found two sections that interested me, the first was alchemy. At the same time, not the most glamorous form of magic, the ability to make potions, poisons, and transform one object into another all fell under it. The second was far more useful to me for now, magical runes, while more difficult due to having to draw the runes to exact specifications I would not need the complex ingredients that alchemy requires. The first rune I decided to practice was a self-repair rune, useful on clothes, furniture and especially weapons. I smiled, thinking about the possibility of enhancing my sword. Runes, as it turned out, were quite annoying to get right. The first thing you needed to understand was that the effectiveness of a rune relied on three things: the first being the quality of what you were putting the rune on, for example, leather would hold a better rune than cloth. The second thing that mattered was the accuracy of the rune, a few small mistakes or a smudged line could make a rune far less effective, whereas a broken line or major mistakes could cause disastrous effects, like the rune straight up exploding. The final thing that mattered was what you made the rune out of, technically you could use just about anything, charcoal, ink, ash, but the best by far was blood, this was mainly because you needed to infuse small amounts of magic into the rune, and blood bonded extremely well with magic. I was starting simple with the repair rune, using both my blood and a piece of paper, the first few attempts just fizzling out, but slowly over time, they got better, repairing the small tears I caused in the paper to slowly close.

I sighed and looked upon two hours' worth of work, dozens of sheets of paper littered the desk, each with the same rune on it, although with an increasing level of quality as they went along. I leant back, happy with the progress I had made. Looking back at my bed, I saw the form of Rebekah inside it. I smiled. She was truly stunning. It amazed me every time I saw her, even now, in a deep slumber, her beauty was unmatched. Standing, I stretched my back, although unable to get a stiff back anymore, it was still a habit one I doubted I would shake anytime soon. Closing my eyes to let my other senses take over, my hearing picked up a small group of people heading towards my room and those of my siblings, I clipped my sword to my belt and made my way to the door. Looking back at Rebekah, I smiled again, although we did not need to sleep, we all did out of habit. I never slept more than an hour or two at a time. Rebekah, though, loved her sleep and after last night's activities, I doubted she would get up for hours. I left the room quietly as the group arrived at the beginning of the hallway to the guest rooms, walking forward, I quickly scanned over the group, twelve armed and armoured guards following Tristan de Martel. "Do not be alarmed at our sudden arrival", his voice came out. I was not sure if they tried anything, all thirteen of them would be dead in moments. "I saw that you were the only one to carry a blade, you said it was for bandits," he questioned, a smile adorning his face. Nodding slowly, I allowed him to continue, "Well, we're just about to head outside to train, even a noble must keep their skills sharp, and was wondering if you wanted to join us"? He finished the smile still plastered on his face, I stepped forward and responded "I had hoped there would be someone here that I could spar with, as you said we nobles should keep our skills sharp". But why would he bring all these guards, I thought, to ask me to train? No, this was a show of ****; it had to be.

We walked through the halls of the castle for minutes before arriving at a training yard, the sun had just begun to rise on the horizon casting a golden glow across most of the castle. The guards dispersed to begin their training while Tristan and I walked towards the middle of the yard, "swords first, then, daggers", Tristan stated. I nodded in agreement before pulling out my sword, before starting the fight. Tristan was no real threat to me; my skill far outweighs his. The real challenge for me was keeping my strength and speed at a human level. I had to control it, otherwise he would realise something was wrong. The first round was still going five minutes later. I saw multiple openings throughout the fight, but I knew that ending it too quickly may cause him to be insulted, so I stayed my hand until he began to show signs of fatigue. When he started to slow, I capitalised, knocking him to the ground. I bent down and offered him a hand up, part of me believing that he would not take it, but he did, surprising me. "Let's go again, daggers this time" Again, I nodded, glad that my hand had almost completely healed, apart from a perpetual ache, but I could use it again. I pulled out two of my daggers. We circle one another for a minute before he began, he was far better with daggers than with a sword, his skill such that I struggled, as I was holding back my strength and speed his skill made up any natural gaps between us. His style was chaotic but effective; he would throw a strike towards me, and when I went to block it, his dagger would no longer be there; instead, it would be coming at me from a different angle altogether. While I had seen this tactic before, it had always been with a single blade, usually a sword, two daggers, on the other hand, were quicker and more manoeuvrable, keeping me on my toes the entire fight.

The first spar with daggers ended after about fifteen minutes in a draw, Tristan had one dagger pressed into my stomach and another pressed at my shoulder, whereas my daggers had been aimed at his throat and one at the eye. Over the next hour and a half, I had become increasingly skilled with daggers and had beaten Tristan a few times. At this moment, we were both sitting, drinking a local wine and discussing life. He was in the middle of talking about the tax on the locals and a potential war brewing up north. I listened to every word he said, hoping for any useful information that I could use, but alas, not much was given. Eventually, we parted ways, one of the other guards having called him away.

Walking through the castle walls I thought back to our conversation and remembered him mentioning something about the wine we were drinking. Specifically, the fact that it was made locally by a small family-owned vineyard, the Count had visited it on a tour of his lands and found the hidden gem, leading to him buying all the castle's wine from there. Part of my plan for the future involved investments, for me to have a steady supply of money to build with, a small family-owned business may be the perfect place to start. Walking through the halls, I paused my thoughts as another familiar face approached me, that of Aroura de Martel, flanked by a contingent of guards. I closed the distance and took her hands, laying a kiss on her knuckles "Lady Aroura it is good to finally meet you". A smile spread across her face, "And you, lord Asmund, I saw you training with my brother. I have never seen anyone beat him using daggers, and your skill with a sword is unlike anything I have ever seen". Reading her face, the compliment seemed genuine, I returned her smile before she began to speak again. "Would you care to join me on a walk through the gardens, Lord Asmund"?

That was how I came to be walking through a field of lavender, Aroura by my side, followed by a dozen guards, I could feel their eyes drilling into me. I knew how our stay here was supposed to end, and what trouble it would spell nine hundred years later, I hoped that I could get both the Martel siblings on my side or at least under my control. That would solve two-thirds of the problem caused by the first three non-original vampires, the third being Lucien. My solution to that was simple: when the time came for us to leave, he would die by my hand. I believed I was making headway with Aroura, unlike her future counterpart, she was not insane, and I found myself quite enjoying our conversation. We talked for a while before I decided to head back. It was still early, but I wanted to keep practising magic, so I left Aroura and her guards to enjoy the morning.