Disappointment

The iron smell of blood loomed in the air, heavy enough to taste in the mouth, and droplets of water— plink, plink—echoed through the old chamber. A slim figure in a black cloak pushed open the heavy iron doors with a groan of metal and stepped inside. The rats ran off outside, squeaking their way through. Its wall, made up of stones, was leaking water, making the ground wet and slimy. 

She walked further in despite the heavy stench of rotting meat and spoiled eggs getting stronger. 

Bones and a rotting corpse slumped against the wall. The far wall was what remained of a man, bones jutting through leathery skin, the faded stripes of a prisoner's uniform still clinging to the withered corpse. Flies buzzed greedily around the body, their wings slicing the silence in bursts of sound. 

Anyone else would have flinched, turned away, or, at the very least, gagged. But she only paused for a second. A slight twitch of the brow, quickly gone. She looked unfazed, almost bored.

Florence kept walking further into the room, getting closer to the rotting corpse. 

She revealed her hand from the black cloak, which gave off an entirely different vibe than her attire. Her pinkish glove was made with high-quality silk and a cute ribbon at its cuff. The glove's cuff was adjustable, cinched with a ribbon that could be tied to tighten the opening around the wrist. The glove was expensive, made to fit, and utterly out of place here.

She crouched beside the corpse. Her fingers hovered for a heartbeat.

Then she plunged her hand into the corpse's gaping mouth.

The flies scattered in a frantic cloud, wings slapping her cheeks as she dug deep into the skull. Her eyes twitched, jaw tightening.

Pulling out a golden key, its surface crusted in dried blood and bits of something worse. Her pinkish glove came out looking brown with maggots hanging onto it. 

Her eyes twitched and her mouth quivered as she hurriedly stood up. Her pink glove was now brown, soaked, squirming with maggots clinging to the silk. She stood up abruptly, holding the hand away like it was no longer part of her body.

In the other corner of the room was a worn-out, old, threadbare, and mold-bitten rug. She kicked it aside, revealing a hidden keyhole carved into the stone beneath. She jammed the key in and rotated it twice before pulling the stone tile out.

Maggots dropped from her glove and splattered on the floor. She didn't flinch this time.

"Please," she prayed before putting her hands on, pulling out a small wooden container, and huddling. It was light. Too light.

Her breath caught. Hands trembling, she opened the lid.

Nothing. Yet another disappointment followed. Her chest rose once in a silent, sharp exhale, not a sigh, but something edged in frustration. For a long second, she just stared at the box. Then, wordless, she tossed it back into the hole, replaced the tile, and locked it shut.

She threw the box in, put the stone tile back, and locked it. And placed the key back inside the corpse's mouth, wedged between yellowed teeth in a mouth frozen open in death.

This was her thirteenth attempt.

She'd searched beneath the dungeons and dead wings of Halviana Castle, through crumbling basements and bloodstained alleyways. She'd wandered half-blind through the twisted hedge maze, peeled bark from cursed trees in the forest, and even swum the frozen lake that stretched like black glass around the castle's edge.

All led here. All led to nothing.

Halviana was a fortress of secrets, ruled by kings who drank blood and hid truths behind stone and spells. Forgotten screams echoed through its halls, and history lay buried so deep that even the shadows remained silent about it.

And still, she searched. What she wanted... what she needed... was still out there.

Sighing, Florence left the room just as she had found it. She glanced down at her pink glove, now stained brown, maggots still crawling across the silk, and scrunched her nose in disgust. With her clean hand, she untied the ribbon wound around her elbow, loosening the cuff before peeling off the filthy glove and tossing it into the darkness of the passageway.

Thanks to the night potion she had taken earlier, her vision cut through the blackness with ease. It was almost laughable, who would have guessed that the ancient cloaca, the castle's abandoned sewage system, still hid prison cells with secret compartments meant for treasure? Yet no matter how deep she searched, the thing she desperately sought remained out of reach.

Stepping out of the claustrophobic tunnels, Florence finally exhaled a breath of relief. Even though the cloaca had been dry and unused for years, the foul stench clung stubbornly to the stones. She had entered through an old tunnel that once led river water out from Halvana Castle's foundations. With the ball ending past midnight, it had been easy to slip away unnoticed.

Florence had memorised the castle's hidden pathways like a second map in her mind, an escape plan for emergencies, or worse, if someone stumbled across her wandering where no maid should be. Tonight, she took the less obvious route through the castle's edge, aiming for the dense forest that hugged Halvana's side, where no sane soul dared to wander at night.

This was a vampire's kingdom.

When the sun fell, the predators ruled.

No one with sense would step beyond the safety of stone walls when their peak hours began.

Florence walked for nearly an hour before she reached her small, isolated dormitory tucked away near the forest's edge. Meant for servants in the side castle. 

She had no fear.

Fear was a luxury she couldn't afford.

She knew the blood-sucking monster's habits better than anyone, where he slept, what he drank, what he craved. She knew the rhythm of his strength and the quiet windows of his weakness.

Not out of obsession.

Out of necessity.

Lurking in castles of witch-hating vampires was no better than putting one's head into a lion's mouth.

He thirsted for vengeance against her kind; she thirsted for something else entirely. She had come for something older, something that had been taken from her bloodline long before she could claim it. Without it, the war would swallow her whole.

Florence shrugged off her cloak the moment she entered, revealing bright red curly hair falling over fair skin dusted with freckles like scattered stars. Her emerald eyes, sharp and alive, caught the faint glint of candlelight.

Beneath the pitch-black herigaut, she wore a delicate pink dress trimmed with elegant bows, the shimmer of rubies winking from her ears and neck.

Her one remaining glove, she peeled off first, placing it on the desk, then the heavy jewellery, then the corset that dug into her ribs. One by one, she shed the outer shell she wore at court, replacing it with a plain white maxi dress and re-wrapping herself in the same dark cloak.

Being a maid inside Halvana Castle—a nest of vampires—was reckless. Being a witch pretending to be a maid was suicidal. But Florence had not come here to spy.

She had come to retrieve something that had once been hers.

Tossing the discarded jewellery into the drawer, she muttered a word under her breath.

"ꝾƎꝚƧƧƧ" Green flames licked into existence, silent and clean, devouring the fine pink dress without leaving a wisp of smoke behind.

Florence watched it burn with an unreadable expression.

She was powerful.

She had been powerful long before she ever set foot in the castle.

The war between witches and vampires had raged for a hundred bloody years. It still raged now, staining the lands beyond Halvana's cold stone walls. Florence, born illegitimate and unwanted, had left her bloodline behind the moment she came of age. For better or worse, that had saved her life.

Her entire family was wiped out, leaving Florence Amarantha Vaeloria as the only one carrying her family name.