Throne of Blood

ABIDE BY THY PROMISES

Seventeen times to be exact, I woke up screaming at the hands of nightmares littering my sleep, and all seventeen times Vincent was right there; sitting in the chair next to my bed ready to put his strong arms around me and whisper sweet nothings on my ears and take away my pain and fear to some extent, at least, momentarily. The pain was too much to co-exist with. If not for Vincent's presence like light at the end of tunnel the pain would have eaten me alive.

After two sunrises and sunsets I lost track of how many days went by. Vincent kept running back and forth between Caroline and I, tending to us with utmost love and care trying to ward off all the pain and darkness surrounding us; feeding us, reading to us in vain attempts at distracting us from our loss, putting us to bed and sitting with us through our post nightmare times.

Days after the dreadful moment when the news of Andre's death had hit me, the pain receded just enough to allow me to really think. The more I thought, the more the combination of loss, pain, self hatred, helplessness and me being me fueled the fire of revenge in my core, previously damped by tears and grief, to its complete glory. The pain was now burning away in the fire, so would I one day if the fire would not be extinguished by then. Only one thing could put out the fire; blood. I wanted blood, blood of those who had hurt Andre and taken him from me and his innocent sister.

With a new found determination I left my room at Andre's house and walked around in search of Vincent. I needed to know what had really transpired that night which had gotten Andre killed, and for now Vincent was the only person I knew of who could tell me more than most or even anything at all. Upon looking through eighty percent of the house I found Vincent in the library. He was writing a letter which he added a seal of some sort to and handed it to the messenger standing at his service, ready to leave immediately. I entered the library just as the messenger walked out.

Dressed in black as almost all of the other times I had seen him, Vincent sat gracefully in the chair going through one of the many documents scattered all over the table facing him. No matter how well he dressed or how much grace he added to his posture the weariness encircled him, and was too evident for me to not notice. The bags under his eyes and his not so carefully done hair said it too well that he was not as unaffected by grief and nightmares as much as he tended to show.

"We need to talk, Vincent."

He pulled his eyes off the letter he was indulged into reading of and placed the full weight of his stare on me, daring me to go on, which I did.

"I want you to tell me what happened to Andre."

He motioned for me to take a seat, I complied without any complaint. I fell into a chair facing his, and looked him in the eyes.

"What do you wish for me to tell you, Eleanor, which I already have not told you? Andre was the master of coins for the Estercrest Empire. Such posts bring you one too many enemies. It was his job to make sure the money that belonged to the government went to no pockets other than the very rightful ones. Ensuring a fair exchange of hands for money in the empire meant Andre had to go against a number of noblemen and members of king's council who were corrupt to the roots and get them convicted. Revenge from or an act of self preservation for someone such ended up in Andre being assassinated."

"Who was this enemy of his that killed him?"

"Eleanor, no one is foolish enough to come themselves for killing someone of an office as high as Andre's. Those were mercenaries paid, handsomely, to eliminate him as a threat to many. Unfortunately by the time I got to Andre, everyone at the site was dead; Andre, his guards and five anonymous men in black who had embarked on the mission of beheading my cousin. If any of the mercenaries lived, which is quite a likely option, they had found their way to their sanctuary timely, and no one has happened to see them while doing so."