The evening of the execution Keel rose and dressed early. I hid under the blankets, half-asleep and half-pretending to be because I was tired of all the arguing, the useless pleading. I just wanted things to go back to the way they were before Ephraim's return. Maybe after this horrible day, we could start moving in the right direction again.
Before Keel left for the throne room and whatever preparations he had to do in advance of tonight's main event, he came and shook my shoulder, forcing me to acknowledge him.
"What?" I said sleepily, hoping he would take the hint.
"Regardless of what you see today, remember I am not your enemy. If I was, your father would not be standing in for you. But I also cannot stop this. Not with our world already under as much threat as it is."
"I know," I said in flat resignation. I'd been feeling it for more than a day, but had continued to fight on principle.
"One more thing. I know you find this distasteful, you've told me every way possible, but when we're down in the arena, you cannot close your eyes or look away. My people will see that as a sign of weakness, and that is something we can't allow. Your father may think this is about marks and displays, but it's much more about reactions. I need you to act like you belong in the box of a Nosferatu king. If you behave like a human, you'll really make yourself a pet in their eyes. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And remember, if I give you a command today, either in public or private, you obey. For your own safety."
"I won't forget. You've told me enough times."
Keel rose from the bed. "Perhaps, but it's important, and you have a habit of letting your emotions get in the way."
I wanted to say, "So do you." But Keel's emotions were as much responsible for the parts of him I liked as the parts I disliked, and he wouldn't appreciate being reminded of how they set him apart from the rest of his people. Not today of all days.
"I'll watch myself," I said instead.
"Thank you. Boras and Arthos will come by to escort you downstairs when it's time.
I stayed in bed for twenty more minutes after he left, attempting to steel myself for the massacre to come. Ritual and appearances were all important in Nosferatu society, and today I could choose to be an ally or a bleeder. It all depended on how unflinchingly I could watch a series of murders. Calculus finals seemed positively quaint and blissful compared to tests like these.
By the time I got dressed, I was almost convinced I'd be able to pull it off without weeping or puking or looking too green. As a screw-you to my father, I wore the dress Keel gave me beneath my robes. I would not reveal it; I didn't dare foul up this day for Keel, but the simple act of rebellion made me feel a little better about all the crap my father's return had brought into my life.
I swept my hair up into a loose bun, fixed myself a snack - nothing big enough to cause a scene if my gorge rose, but some sustenance to stave off any unwanted dizziness - and waited for my escorts to arrive. The whole time I felt envious of my old friends, the kind of escorts they waited for brought them to places like prom. I'd never get any of that now. I was the type of girl who went to executions.
Arthos and Boras picked me up right on time. Instead of heading directly to the arena, they swung by Keel's former room to collect Bruce and my father. Both were dressed in standard Nosferatu tactical suits. Bruce had adjusted to the new clothes with ease, while Ephraim walked like they clung to him in a hundred ways he couldn't bear. Well, we might as well both be uncomfortable, I thought.
Boras led the way and Arthos followed behind us. Ceremonial formation. I was the victim and my father the executioner, for the duration of this event we outranked both the Nosferatu who walked with us. Bruce kept pace between Ephraim and I, probably because that's the position my father ordered him to take. I wondered if Bruce realized that he was about to become the only human to witness a Nosferatu execution and live to tell about it.
Once we arrived at the arena, Boras split off from the group and Arthos led us around the large circular hallway to a set of stairs that led up to the royal box. The hall was empty, the populace long seated inside. No formal arrivals could begin until the crowd was secured. Arthos spoke to a guard at the top of the wooden stairs. Then he waved us up and we proceeded through the door and down a narrow tunnel. It opened onto a platform with a series of chairs arranged in a rough triangular layout. The one at the front tip, the king's, was the most ornate, but the ones Arthos and I would sit in were embellished too, with leather upholstery and vines and thorns carved into their backs, legs and arm rests. The remainder of the seats were plainer but no less elegant.
Arthos showed my father and Bruce to their seats behind me and then took his place beside me. The only one in front of us would be Keel, but he'd arrive last, after he addressed his people and invited the executioner to the stage.
As I gazed out at the stands, I was suddenly glad I was wearing robes and seated slightly behind the throne chair; so many pairs of eyes were staring. Not just at me, but also at my father and Bruce. My father had cast a spell blocking their scents upon entering the arena, but that wasn't the only thing that made them stand out as other.
I'd become responsible for Bruce's shield once it came time for my father to descend into the arena. That order had come from Ephraim, not Keel, but I'd never been more thankful for an assignment. It would give me something to do other than take in the horror, perhaps it'd even distract me enough to pull off the stoic expression Keel sought from me.
There was nothing to announce Keel's entrance to the arena, just a sudden commotion in the stands as Nosferatu caught sight of him emerging from the hallway onto the black carpet that led to the custom-built executioner's platform and began to spring to their feet. Five seconds later every vampire in the place was standing up and stomping. The royal box vibrated around us and we rose as well.
All of this noise was for Keel. The cacophonous reality of that made my knees shaky. When I worked in his security detail, I had day-to-day reminders who he was, but lately he stripped off his crown and robes soon after returning home each morning and we'd settled into a more informal mode of being. The longer we lived together and the more he let me mouth off at him when we were alone, the more I forgot how much his royal stature had risen since I'd last attended any sort of Nosferatu ritual.
But this was something of a whole other magnitude, and from the straightness of his back and shoulders, to the confident way he held his head, he was drinking it up. In his march to the platform there was not one part of him that wasn't born to be a king. It was both mesmerizing and terrifying, knowing that either he could slide on his royal role so effortlessly or that this side of him truly existed. A part that thrived on the stomping exaltation.
Keel climbed the stairs and walked to the centre of the platform and the noise around us swelled to a painful din. I wanted to throw my hands up over my aching ears, but that too would be seen as a weakness, so I watched Keel as he stood on the stage, arms outstretched at his sides like an old-timey preacher. In time, the insanity tapered off and the crowd sat back down in their seats. Keel made no move to quiet them, simply waited until the enormous space was dead silent before he spoke. If this had been a human arena that would have never happened, but the Nosferatu fell back into proper order quickly. No one wanted to be the last one rustling around in the stands.
The condemned were led out of the small tunnel that Keel and I often travelled through on our way to practice magic. They wore a chain that connected them together like human prisoners on a chain gang, only it was much thicker, having to hold supes. The eight vampires trudged one after another toward the metal structure that had been constructed in the middle of the arena space. A Nosferatu I didn't recognize secured each prisoner to the bars.
Once the condemned were in place, Keel began to address the crowd from the front of the platform. First greeting them and then thanking them for their support in these turbulent and changing times. "My father always believed that someday magic would make us great," he continued. "But magic is a gift and greatness comes from wisdom as much as it comes from might. Through magic and wisdom, I have survived death, and by the same forces, our royal sorceress Mildred Sarker has also survived death. And today, we are here to see justice done."
He went on to speak of the extremity of the offense and how it had reverberated not only through this enclave but the greater Nosferatu world, similar stuff to what he'd been saying to me for days and I tuned out his words. Gazing out at the stands again, I saw that almost everyone else was still held rapt, worshipful eyes glued on their leader.
It was almost enough to make me forget that the king standing up there addressing his people was the same one who bore my mark. A rush of pride and protectiveness overtook me. And as he stood before his people, he ruled me more surely than any of them. When he looked up at where I was seated and we made eye contact, I was sure the bond had shared that little revelation, and felt myself blush. So much for staying angry. But then Keel's speech was over and it was time for the main event, and the lightheaded, seasick feeling returned in a tsunami-like rush.
"It is time for the guilty to face their penalties," Keel boomed. "I would like to invite Sorcerer Sarker to the executioner's platform."
They're not guilty, I corrected in my head as looked down at my feet.
"You'd better watch this," my father hissed from behind me, and I forced my head back up. "If I wasn't here to do it for you..." His voice trailed off and he started again, more simply. "He won't always spare you unpleasantness, Mildred. This is your future. Best to understand what you've chosen"
There was truth in that. In time, Keel would expect me to come around - on everything.
"I can no longer save you from it," he continued. "I can only hope to teach you how to survive it."
My father's chair scraped against the wood platform and, a moment later, he descended the stairs to the arena floor. Ephraim was a tall man in his own right and as he crossed the sand and joined Keel on the platform, he didn't look entirely out of place.
"Today's executions will be carried out by sorcerer Ephraim Sarker on behalf of the victim of the crime, the king's consort sorceress Mildred Sarker. In case anyone in today's audience doubts the severity of bringing modern human weaponry into Nosferatu territory, let this fiery demonstration stand as a testament to how such traitors and the dishonour they bring upon their bloodlines is handled by our rule of law."
The crowd exploded. At first I thought they too were angry about the injustice of the sentences, but a closer look revealed they were just restless now that the gruesome part evening was about to begin.
Before each execution, the condemned was allowed to speak. I obeyed my king, who now sat just a foot in front of me, and kept my eyes on the stage as every innocent member of the assassins' families denounced their relation and his crime and reaffirmed their loyalty to Keel and the enclave before Ephraim set them ablaze in a magical inferno. I loathed what Keel and my father were doing, and that the law made them complicit in this, but I did not look away, even when I had to blink back hot tears, sure I'd have nightmares of restrained bodies twisting, straining and melting in the flames for years to come. Both Keel and my father checked several times to make sure I was watching. The two of them were not so different monsters when it came down to it, and that was the biggest part of their problem. And that I - even with healthy dose of vampire blood coursing through my veins - was not like them at all.
I was grateful when at the event's conclusion those seated in royal box were ushered from the arena first. One more second staring at the ashy piles of the recently departed Nosferatu, riddled with sundry bony protrusions that had survived the fire and I'd start dry heaving or railing at the gross injustice of it all. But it was too late for that, everyone was burned up now. The best I could do was get the hell out of there as fast as my feet could carry me.