Chapter Text
1480 anno domini
Wallachia, a Principality of Romania
Take care of yourself, my king. My life, because I cannot survive without you.
The Prince of Wallachia stares at the slight indentation of his bed where his wife had lain hardly a full day’s passing ago. If he concentrates, he can still smell the perfume of her intoxicating throat, her hair, and the divot of her collarbone. The scent hovers, lingers—haunts—the translucent bed-hangings.
I cannot survive without you.
In addition to the scent of love, he also smells blood—lies, false promises, the failure of God and his priest. The Prince glances away from the shape of his wife down at his hands, and he beholds deceit instead. The fingers that once touched light itself are stained red.
Without you.
“I did this,” he breathes. Still haphazardly clad in dragon-shaped armor, his body is hot, cold, and split in two. With a rough, disbelieving scoff, he ignores the way he begins to tremble. “I left her—I bid her to safety—threw through her my sword—oh, God, I have done this—”
Sweat mixes with tears running down his face, which joins the saliva he cannot make himself swallow, which in turn mingles with the blood on his hands.
But the Prince clears his throat and attempts blasphemy again, quivering. “God, I have no faith in you—my wife—you took her, the only thing—the only thing that holds meaning in this world you made.”
He stares up at the unassuming wooden ceiling, as though he expects the hand of God to snuff out his life as punishment.
Maybe he even welcomes it.
I will see my wife again, he thinks. The surge of relief nearly makes him collapse on his own weaponry.
“I will not renege on my word. The Father in the citadel, with his faith and flawless linen—he is my message to you,” mutters the Prince. He grits his teeth and flings the claw-shaped gauntlets against the wall with a clatter. “Blood for blood. If you want me, you must kill me.”
Still, there is only silence in the room except his own violent breath and the flickering of the fire.
“Otherwise,” he huffs, dragging the blade of a knife vertically down his palm from his finger to his wrist. His skin stings—splits, drools scarlet. “The priests say you are patient. They say God is all-knowing. My—my wife says you are love. Be that so, know this.”
His own blood washes away the half-dried remains of the body of the priest until the Prince can see his own reflection in the red on his palm.
The wound in Elisabeta’s stomach—the spot where the violence of her warlike husband finally took her life—
“My wife,” gasps the Prince, clutching his stomach with his uninjured hand. “Oh, God, my wife—God, you who have—have never known a love like mine—I am patient! I will outlast you, betrayer! I will wait a thousand years—‘till the coming of days—‘till my bones themselves are ash—I will wait, you who are without pity! I will have my wife again!”
It is possible that God has already reached his threshold of responsiveness down in the citadel below, wherein the statue titled INRI bled from the eyes. Here, in the sacred room of the religion of Elisabeta, there is nothing.
The fire continues to chew upon the wood in its heart. The unfair glitter of sunlight makes the Prince’s eyes burn. Even the bed-hangings are motionless, which they never are—Elisabeta’s constant movement animates the silk.
I must sleep, says the Prince to himself. Although his hand bleeds, and his body is seized by wrath so vile he wants to cut out his own heart, he struggles to peel away his sooty, red-stained armor. I must sleep, lest I throw myself from the window after my Elisabeta.
In his homeland, they call him the Dragon. Vlad the Second, the Dragon. A great conqueror of armies and leader of men.
And now, wife-murderer.
Before he can change his mind, he sheds his scales, leaves them in a ruined silver heap at the foot of Elisabeta’s bed, and curls into a crouch like a small child in the space where he once knew nothing but love.