She waited very quietly beside the castle window, her slender jaw set and her dark brow dipped in a dark frown. This was it, the end, and she knew it, but if there was one thing that her years of slavery and discomfort had taught her, it was that a fight to the bitter end was better than giving up early on in the battle, and then dying from your own cowardice. She held the dagger against her breasts, held her breath, and waited.

Perhaps that was the most tedious part of the entire ordeal. Perhaps it was the most chilling. In essence, she was waiting for the one person she loved most in the entire world to come to her, just so she could destroy him. That knowledge stung her, gnawed at her like tiger’s fangs imbedding themselves firmly into her neck and back. She tightened her grip around the hilt of the dagger and stared imperviously out across the rolling moors and moonlit landscape. She knew that soon, very soon in fact, he would come. Silent as death, and with movements so careful and calculated that they could have come from even death himself, he would come, and she would have to kill him.

Did he know what it was that she planned? Or was he almost hoping for death, hoping for that interlude with the one who had brought him into the world? In her heart, Arisu prayed that her beautiful son, tainted by evil, would sway from his traipse and steer clear of her. Despite his corrupted state, despite her fear of his conniving eyes and bitter words, elongated fangs and spindly fingers, she could not kill her own son.

She loved Rocielle far too greatly to simply kill him off.

Her form-fitting dress was suddenly too confining for her. Arisu gave a weak sound of pain and put it from her mind. She had to be alert; for all she knew, Rocielle could already be within the castle walls, ascending the cold stone stairs to her room even as she thought of how she would spot him crossing the moors. In fact, he could be in that very same room with her, breathing as she breathed, gazing out across the grass even as she did. Plotting her death, even as she plotted his own.

She whirled swiftly, for she could almost swear that the shadow of her own elaborate hairstyle across on the far wall was a young man, hunched over and staring at her with beady blue eyes. But it was not; it was only her shadow. Arisu gave a soft sigh and chastised herself sharply, then turned to gaze, once again, across the pale grass and foggy moors.

She froze.

Moving like Death himself, Arisu had not even seen his approach. He was garbed in his black cloaks protecting him from the chill of the night outside the castle walls. Listing from side to side, she wondered if perhaps he was injured, but that did not concern her the way it had when he had been human. What did concern her was the fact that, though he listed, he walked with quiet purpose, heading in her direction.

Some trick of the light reflected his eyes back at hers. The same pale blue she saw each morning as she arranged her hair before she went to her master’s chambers glowed with abnormal intensity in his sockets.

Arisu supposed that she was beautiful, even for a woman nearing her late thirties. Her long black hair was luscious and well cared for, her skin smooth and pale and flawless. Her smile dimpled her slightly rose cheeks, her long lashes flattering her complexion wonderfully. It wasn’t really a question as to why Prince Kyrin Houna prized her as his favorite concubine. And she would not be the first to admit that she even returned a little of the affection he felt for her. It simply came by them both naturally. Both of them were powerful, overbearing people with their minds set in the future, but their hearts striving out desperately to find another as head strong as themselves. When they had found each other, it had been almost as if miracles had been worked.

Arisu only prayed that her lovely prince never discovered the horrible secret of her vampire son. Rocielle’s eyes flickered as they locked with hers, and despite her tremulous hold on the dagger and the way she forced herself from the window, she could not shake his stare from her. She felt as if, for the rest of her life, Rocielle would be there, watching her in distaste and shame.

Arisu should not have felt shame, and she knew that. Prince Kyrin Houna was not her pimp, and she was not his whore. She was his indentured servant, and when he requested her presence in his sleeping chambers, she was to oblige. She often wondered if that had been what had driven her son away from her in the long run? Had he been embarrassed that his mother was hardly anything better than a whore?

That thought stung Arisu so blatantly that she left the window in a flurry of emerald green skirts and tears. She flung herself onto her bed and cried until she feared she had no tears left in her entire being to shed. Her room was suddenly her only sanctuary against her insane son and his vampiric ways. Gathering her reserves of courage, she sat up and waited, determined this time to meet his gaze as he came to her. She would not cow before him and quaver like a child waiting for a caning. She would meet Rocielle’s eyes, Stell damn her, and either return him to the insecure boy he had been… or destroy him like the murderer he had become.

She steeled herself against the onslaught of emotions that assailed her the instant the thought broached her mind. She was inexorably stubborn on that point; Rocielle would learn to love again, or he would die. There would be no other options.

Cautiously, she rose from her bed and crossed the room to the window again. Her light footsteps sounded like the thunder of a war gong, her shallow breathing the rasp of a dragon before it expels flames. Arisu closed her eyes and swallowed, then bade herself look out the window.

Rocielle was not there. It seemed as if he had vanished into the night like the beast of darkness he had become.

Fear clutched at her slowly, clawing its way up her legs, over her spine, and then finally sank its fangs into her neck. She whirled again, her skirts brushing her ankles. No, the room was empty as it had been moments before. Only now, she could not see her son, could not prepare for his assault on her.

The moonlight was suddenly blocked out, no longer casting its eerie white glow over her rumpled bed sheets. Arisu felt her blood run cold as she turned, slowly, tendrils of her black hair loose from the plait down her back. It obscured her vision for only a moment.

With his cloaks around him and his hood veiling his features, Rocielle lounged in her window, his pale blue eyes glimmering out at her through the hood. Arisu managed her fear and held the dagger behind her back where her son would not see it, keeping her gaze hard.

Rocielle pushed the hood away from his face and smiled, a soft expression, a loving gaze from a son to his mother. "Hello, Mother," he greeted her quietly, but he made no move to leave the window.

Arisu considered, just then, rushing to the window and shoving Rocielle from the ledge, letting him plummet to his doom in the serpent-infested moat below. But she couldn’t bring herself to; he had not provoked her, and he appeared to have retained some of his former self this visit.

"Don’t fool yourself, Mother," Rocielle purred, his voice as rich and silky smooth as wine. Arisu shivered at the tone. This was not the little boy she had held so close to her breast years ago, rocked into slumber while her husband gazed over her shoulder. This was a vampire, a monster, something that had to be eradicated at all costs.

Arisu steeled herself once again, her voice quiet. "I’m not fooling myself, Rocielle," she told him firmly, but she found those words unbelievable. Of course she was fooling herself. Her son was…

In one fluid movement, Rocielle had left her window, crossed the room, and had her by her arms. Arisu cried out in terror and recoiled from the touch; his hands were as frigid as ice, his eyes wild and empty of compassion, love, anything that he once had felt for her. Tears welled up in her eyes as he smiled upon her, his elongated fangs exposed to her. She felt as if she was about to be beheaded, and she had just been shown the ax that was to take her life. In despair, she looked away.

Rocielle’s clawed hand slid down her arm, around behind her, and closed around the dagger she had concealed from his view. Arisu shivered as fear rippled through her. That was it, her one way of escape, and her son had just discovered it. Rocielle’s fingers tightened around the weapon’s hilt, his eyes narrowing into dangerous blue slits. His voice held a note of wonder as he whispered breathlessly, "Were you going to kill me, Mother? Me, your own son?"

Arisu struggled against his grasp in terror, her eyes widening considerably as Rocielle’s eyes flashed blood red. He bared his fangs at her in fury, opened his mouth and let forth an ungodly hiss like nothing Arisu had ever heard before. She screamed in protest and struggled violently, cursing like a trapped slave and kicking wildly to save her life.

As if amused, Rocielle released her and watched her flee to the other side of the room. Arisu fled to her vanity, her hands flying erratically across the cherry wood surface. Anything, anything sharp would do! She found a hairpin and turned swiftly, a glare already set upon her features.

Rocielle had not moved, and his amusement had doubled considerably. Here stood this woman who was his mother, wielding a hairpin as her weapon, and she expected to defeat him with it? Amusing. Arisu could read his features like an open book, and that made her falter. Rocielle had always been such an open, loving boy. To think that he had become this vicious, murderous creature…

"Rocielle, you know I do not wish to hurt you, my love, but if you force me to, then I will most definitely do so," she cautioned him, and hoped that he did not hear the slip of her voice, the stutter of her words. He did, and he smiled scornfully when her speech had ended.

"Oh how naïve you are, Mother!" he teased her with a mocking smile. He strode closer, his lucid eyes glittering. "If you think that a mere hairpin is going to be my end, then you’re most certainly wrong."

"All it takes is a stab through that corrupted heart of yours," she replied with bitter hatred lacing her words. Hatred at this new person who had stolen her son away, hatred at those eyes that teased her. "And then your part in this world is over."

"Really now?" he inquired with a raise of his eyebrows. At Arisu’s stubborn insistence not to move, he threw his head back and laughed in disbelief.

Cold indignation burned in Arisu’s eyes. She thrust the pin at her son and pressed it against his chest threateningly. He continued to chuckle, but met her gaze. Her eyes smoldered with betrayal, not the hatred she seemed to hope would overtake her.

"Come now," he whispered gently. He let his hand rest upon hers and gazed at her. "You don’t want to kill me, do you Mother? Do you wish such ill will upon your son?"

Arisu trembled at the vampire’s words and faltered. Rocielle spoke in her son’s tongue, in a tone that she recognized from years ago. A little boy had scraped his knee and clamored into her lap. A little boy had fallen from his horse and hurt his arm. A little boy, rejected from his playmates because he didn’t like little girls, had come running to his mother’s side in tears.

A young man had brought home another young gentlemen to present him to his mother. Arisu felt her eyes welling with tears. Such love had burned in Rocielle’s eyes as he had held Akisame’s hand and said, without fear, "We don’t come seeking your permission to be together. We want only your blessing of good fortune."

How she wished she had given him that…

She jerked her hand away from Rocielle’s touch and watched his serene blue eyes become ice in their sockets once again. "How could you kill him so easily, Rocielle?" she demanded and took a step back. The hand wielding the hairpin trembled violently, as did the rest of her body. "You took his life without even a bat of your eyelashes. I thought you…"

"Loved him?" Rocielle finished for her with a raise of his dark eyebrows. He snorted, smirked, and then laughed again, a sound that grated with disharmony and chilled Arisu down to her bones. It was the laugh of a mad man, beyond all hope and help. He chuckled again and drawled, "Yes, I suppose that the person I used to be loved him. Loved him greatly at that. But what’s done is done. I have other duties to attend to…" He watched her dangerously and curled his blue-black lips back from his teeth.

"Rocielle," she pleaded as he came nearer, "Rocielle, turn around and leave or I’ll…"

"Or you’ll what?" he sneered, his voice low and hostile. He smirked. "Go on then. Kill me. If you truly believe you can."

Arisu felt a twinge of agony begin to build upon her conscience as Rocielle came a little closer. Where his pale cheeks had once held a hint of color there was nothing but the slight blue-black blush of the dead. His eyes were circled by huge, violet circles of decay, his eyes bright and gleaming in contrast. Rocielle had always taken such amazing care of his cropped black hair. In life, it had gleamed with the sheen of a stallion’s coat. In death, it was coarse and forgotten, just like the rest of his memories.

The marks left upon his flesh remained. Even the brush of fingertips left imprints now, and Arisu could see Akisame’s soft palm touches at Rocielle’s collar bone. She winced. So Rocielle had violated him before death. Arisu met his eyes and watched them icily follow her as she came closer, closer to him until they stood before one another.

No. There was nothing left in his entire being of her son, of the boy she had raised to be a kind and loving man. The pain in her heart doubled; Rocielle was her only child. She could never have another, not after her years of slavery. She lifted one slender hand up to cup his cheek and made not a sound as a tear left a glittering streak of silver down her cheek. He frowned at her touch but did not force her away. He watched her expectantly.

"Rocielle," she whispered, her voice catching from emotion. She pushed herself up onto her toes and kissed his cheek, her breathing uneven as she said brokenly, "Rocielle, my beautiful little boy… I’ll always love you." And with that, Arisu rammed the hair pin as hard and as far in as she could into Rocielle’s chest. The blunt tip of the pin penetrated his dead flesh, his ribcage, and went straight through his heart.

Rocielle gasped in shock and staggered away from her. Arisu covered her mouth with her hands as he collided with the flagstone wall of her chambers. The vampire’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he convulsed, his death throes swooping down upon him swiftly. With each spastic twitch of his muscles, his head collided with the smooth stones, until an ominous blue-black smudge was left in its wake. His feet gave out beneath him, and he crumpled to the ground, where he lay, motionless.

Arisu could not look at him. She collapsed to her knees and held her face in her hands, muffling her sobs with her palms. She should have been relieved that he was dead, she reasoned, and yet she could not find one reason to be overjoyed. There lay her son, motionless and without life. Dead by her hands, the hands of the one who had brought him into the world one stormy winter night seventeen years ago.

And yet he truly died a summer ago, brought back to life by the unorthodox magic of an insane witch. Brought back to life, supported by the blood and despair of other living beings. He had heartlessly murdered the man he loved, then turned on his friends and family, destroying them with the incisive precision of an assassin.

The Rocielle that both Arisu and Akisame had loved was gone, lost to the world during the great war. Arisu stared at his broken body, winced as at once he exploded into dust. The particles floated heavy in the air before a breeze sent them rolling away into the distance. Papers and such were strewn about her room by the sudden wind, and Arisu had to cover her face to keep objects from pummeling her.

When she uncovered her face, all was quiet and still. She went to her window and gazed out across the moors. The moon was high in the sky now, casting its light across her. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Keep on going, she told herself. Keep on living.