Chapter 142 - Ilio part 9

The sky was clear when we arose, the moon a bright sickle skimming the rugged peaks of the Carpathian Mountains. We had found a relatively dry location in which to sleep the remainder of the daylight hours. It was a sandy crevice tucked beneath a shelf of stone, one that looked as if it might host a waterfall during the spring season, when snowmelt sent torrents of icy water coursing down the mountains. The falls were all but dried up now, just a serene pool standing below the rocky recession we'd slept in, the water green and full of wriggling tadpoles.

I slipped from beneath the overhanging rocks, dropping lightly to the ground below. We were in a lush wood not far from the Neirie camp, a beautiful location with ferns drooping from the stony ledges and flowering plants crowding around the evaporating pool. I noticed soapwart among the crocuses and lilies and decided to scrub my filthy clothes. But first I needed to build a fire.

There are many different methods of making a fire, most of them terribly laborious for mortal men. For a vampire, however, it is a simple thing to do. Our great speed allows us to generate enormous friction, which in turn creates heat. I can rub two sticks together fast enough to make them burst into flames in just a couple seconds. It might take a mortal hours to do the same.

I gathered some stones, then dug a shallow pit in the earth. Ilio rose as I was placing the stones in a circle and I sent him off to collect some firewood.

We did not need a fire. We had no fear of animals, nor did we need it to cook our evening meal. We did not need its light to see by, nor its heat to warm our flesh, but a campfire has always comforted me. I enjoy watching the flames curl and lap at the wood, the smell of the smoke, the pop and crackle of the glowing embers. It connects me to my mortal life in a way few other things do, reminding me of a home that no longer exists, a family long returned to the earth. The memories ache like the bones of the elderly, but I hold them close to me nonetheless.

Ilio returned, dragging an enormous log behind him.

"Will this do?" he grinned.

"Ilio…!" I sighed, and then I had to laugh.

I rose and helped the boy break the log into useful sized pieces. It wasn't difficult. The log was half-rotted. We positioned the remainder near the firepit as a place to rest our backs.

"So tell me, Son," I said, arranging tinder in the middle of the pit, "what did you speak of with the slave woman down in the Neirie camp?" I hadn't had time to ask him earlier. The sun had come out and we were preoccupied with finding a comfortable place to rest. I plucked the fluff from the seedhead of a cattail, placing it into a small mound of birch bark and dried grass.

Ilio looked embarrassed. "She didn't really say much."

"So tell me," I badgered him. "Or have you suddenly grown bashful?"

I got my kindling ready, then took up a long, sturdy stick and placed its tip upon the flat surface of a split log. Holding the stick between my palms, I moved my hands back and forth, pressing down. My hands moved in a blur, the wood squealing. Within moments, a curl of smoke was rising from the log. I tipped my ember into the tinder and blew softly. A tiny flame blossomed from the spark, hungry to devour the meal of cattail fluff and birch bark I'd prepared for it. I fed it kindling, watching it grow, then roofed it with larger pieces. Our campfire sputtered and hissed as the moisture from the morning's rains boiled out of the wood.

"Well?" I prompted the boy, sitting back.

The firelight glimmered in the vampire boy's eyes, red embers winking in their depths. "She said that I was acceptable," Ilio confessed.

"Acceptable?" I chuckled. It sounded like something one of the women from my tribe might have said.

He nodded. "She said she would take me for a mate, but I would have to prove myself worthy first."

"Do you want her for a mate?" I asked.

He smiled and nodded his head. "Yes. I find her appealing."

"Do you realize how difficult such a marriage will be? Every moment you are around her, you will have to fight the urge to kill her. You will be like a wolf mated to a doe."

"I can resist the hunger," he insisted. "Look how well I did today."

"Yes, but… a wife, Ilio! Think about it rationally. You would be with her at all times. She would expect sexual intercourse. Ilio, she is a mortal. As fragile as a flower. One slip and you would crush her, and then how would you feel, especially if you've grown to love her?"

"I will be careful of my strength," he said. "It is not so hard to do. And you coupled with a mortal woman without harming her. I saw it myself. It is not impossible."

I could see that no argument would sway him from the idea. Though the complications of taking a mortal woman as a mate should have been intimidating to him, I let it go. He would do what he would do. I was not his master. Not even, really, his father. Besides, who could know the future? Perhaps he would succeed.

And if he could do it, did that not also mean the same could be said of me?