GISELLE
Anton's study was deep underground, beneath the great hall of Bran Castle. Giselle had to climb down what seemed to be a thousand steps until eventually she found herself amidst a circular room. Candles flickered around her as she watched the walls covered with books that spread infinitely above her head. Right across the room, another door led somewhere and Giselle followed the murmurs she heard.
"Of course Vlad would keep books in an underground fortress." She said out loud, mostly to herself and was surprised when she got an answer.
"Well, my dear, nothing is more powerful than a man armed with knowledge." Codrin walked past her to the other room on the other side. He carried books.
"A man armed with a sword might disagree." Giselle answered and followed him.
The other room had a round table in the middle and a bed in the corner, but the walls were covered in books as well. Giselle was surprised to find Jorge sitting at the table with Anton next to him. Jorge was writing something when he lifted his gaze towards Giselle and smiled widely.
"Rose found other roses." He said.
"Yes, yes, Rose, we write Rose now." Anton grabbed Jorge's hand and led it to the paper.
"He's illiterate." Giselle commented, confused. But Jorge scribbled something on the paper and Giselle couldn't resist the urge to go read it.
"He does not know our letters, but he's far from illiterate." Anton murmured while he watched closely what Jorge wrote and then copied it in his own little book.
"What is he doing? And where did you find Jorge?" Giselle asked Codrin who sat next to Anton and gestured towards the chair opposite of him. Giselle sat.
"Anton and I fetched him while he was running around the castle. We wanted to learn how he managed to bring your dead body to this place, but we learnt something far more interesting." Codrin took out five pieces of paper and placed them in front of Giselle.
She recognised the writings, it was those poems her mother left for them to figure out. Giselle looked at them closely, remembering how she thought that one of those might have been for Devan. Codrin's translation was written right next to the original writings.
"Have you translated something else?" Giselle asked.
"Only the Daemon Tongue. The other one was written in Old Witches' Tongue and that one we had no luck with. But the last one... do you remember the last one? Anton said he had never seen a language like that, but apparently, Jorge did." Codrin leaned towards Giselle, a fiery gleam in his eye.
"What?" Giselle's eyes widened in surprise.
"Jorge can write this last language. We do not know whether he can speak it. Anton is creating an alphabet." Codrin smiled proudly and Giselle looked at Jorge. He seemed happy.
"Alright, Jorge, what else can you tell me?" Anton asked and Jorge smiled broadly and caught Giselle's gaze.
"The right trade will buy you time." He said slowly and Giselle stopped breathing for a moment. Anton looked at her confused and then back at Jorge. Finally, she realised, not even Jorge was a coincidence. She always knew he wasn't just a broken minded boy as Leona referred to him.
"You're doing wonders. I can barely get a few words out of him." Anton murmured. "Can we write that down, Jorge? Can we write down 'time?'"
"This is beginning to creep me out." Giselle said to Codrin.
"You can imagine what it's been like for us. Anton knows every language that ever existed, he's in utter shock." Codrin smiled and then pointed to the poems. "We need to discuss this, we need to figure out what Leona wanted, you, me and Anton."
"Alright." Giselle made herself comfortable. "Why is Anton's study down here?"
"There's knowledge here that is far too dangerous to be on the surface." Anton murmured while he wrote Jorge's words down.
"Let's start at the beginning, shall we? With the first poem." Codrin put the poem in front of Giselle, the only one she could originally understand.
"The scale is tipped, power on one side,
The sign is picked, troubles there hide.
Light, as well as darkness, is blinding,
The answer always lies in binding.
Keep this key close to your heart,
For everyone else would be torn apart.
To a place where it was, it must return
Take this where hope goes to burn."
Giselle read out loud again and added: "I still have that key."
"Good, keep it on you. I have no idea what it is. Maybe Anton could look at it. But tell me about the last line, it led you to the witch, right?" Codrin asked.
"Yes, 'take this where hope goes to burn.' That's what Jorge called the Inquisition Tower back in Carcassonne, so I listened to the strange poem." Giselle pointed to the last line.
"Ladies live there, where hope goes to burn." Jorge repeated and Anton immediately put the pen in his hand.
"I wonder about this witch, what did she tell you exactly?" Codrin asked.
"That my mother put a curse on me and that she would take it off. And she told me the story about the four figures." Giselle didn't know why she insisted on mentioning the four figures story when everyone seemed to tell her there are only three.
"What did she tell you exactly? Did you feel her magic?" Codrin leaned towards Giselle, his old, blue eyes shining in the light of the candles.
"Sanguis sanguini. Yes, she grabbed me by the neck and I felt something, a painful rush went through my body." Giselle remembered. Codrin crossed his hands in front of him.
"That sounds like dark magic. A white witch couldn't have done that, for sure." Codrin closed his eyes for a few moments. "Sanguis sanguini. Blood to blood. It's one of the ancient unlocking spells." He added and got up.
Codrin began walking around the table while Anton and Jorge quietly wrote words on a piece of paper. It was an interesting thing to see, those two old men so invested in something. Giselle wished she had a passion like that.
"Well, that's exactly what she said. That she will unlock what's been tamed." Giselle murmured and watched Codrin look at her in shock. His wide eyes stared at Giselle as he wordlessly nodded.
"Exactly." Anton whispered as if he had been listening to them all along. "If it was dark magic, there is only one possibility." He told Codrin and Codrin nodded again.
"It was the Tamer." Codrin's voice was barely audible as he stared at Giselle in utter disbelief.
"The what?" Giselle asked.
"The Tamer is one of the Five." Anton jumped in.
"You mean Four?" Giselle corrected him, remembering that the Five were the literal five dark tricksters left in the world and her mother was one of them.
"I mean Five, my dear, you're the fifth." Anton smiled.
Giselle never really took a moment to think about what it meant. Her mother was one of the five dark tricksters in the entire world, how powerful was she? How powerful was Giselle?
"Who is the Tamer?" She asked and Codrin sat down again.
"She is the oldest witch alive. Some say she was around during the Black and White War. Some even say she was here since the beginning of time, when the sky opened. Then again, they have never met her. So it's all just rumours, but she is most certainly extremely powerful." Codrin whispered.
"Have you met her?" Giselle felt dumb asking so much, perhaps she should've spent more time reading all the books Vlad gave her.
"No, but my grandfather did. I'm guessing this poem is for her, the one written in Old Witches' Tongue." Codrin lifted the poem. The letters were unfamiliar to Giselle.
"So, what you're saying is that I should've brought all of these poems to her?" Giselle asked.
"Most likely," Codrin answered, "I would dare say this was a plan b. You coming here. Leona planned everything, every single detail. If only we knew what she wanted."
"I still think I'm supposed to be a sacrifice for some dark god." Giselle murmured. The day was taking its toll on her. For the first time in three weeks, she felt like she could use a good night's rest. Not needing to sleep was weird.
"Why would Leona want you to become a vampire? First, I thought she wanted to make you strong, but all the witches that became vampires lost their magic and you are much stronger as a trickster than as a vampire. Then, I thought she wanted you to lose your magic, to not live with the same curse." Codrin talked more to himself than to Giselle.
She couldn't help but think this was a riddle to him. That these men simply found something they didn't understand and saw it as a challenge.
"Go on." Giselle said.
"So I tracked down your sister, Gertrude." Codrin looked at Giselle and for a moment nothing else existed in the room. She hadn't heard from her sister in years. Gertrude was ten years older than Giselle and she was married off when Giselle was six.
"How...?" Giselle tried.
"She's in Habsburg Monarchy, married to a lesser lord. Has four children, three boys and a girl. And not an ounce of magic." Codrin kept looking at Giselle, like he was telling her a forbidden secret.
"Did you see her?" Giselle tried to keep her voice still, but she could feel it trembling.
"Yes. She seems happy enough. The man is good to her, adores the children. The little girl had the flu, so I compelled the town healer to present me as his good friend. I had to take something Gertrude's, a strand of her hair, or a piece of skin." Codrin stopped there, perhaps out of respect for Giselle, to give her time to process all of it.
The memory of Gertrude wasn't just the memory of her alone, it was the memory of a simpler time. When Giselle wasn't so dark, when her soul wasn't so cold. Back then, she was just a little girl with dreams too big for her own good. She wondered what would Gertrude think if she saw Giselle now.
"All it took after that was another witch to touch the strand of Gertrude's hair. Fortunately, you brought the witch with you so Anton and I kindly asked her to tell us whether Gertrude has any magic in her blood. There is none." Codrin continued.
"Could it be possible that my mother passed her magic only onto me?" Giselle asked.
"No," Anton jumped in, "a witch always leaves a trace in her bloodline. It doesn't need to manifest, but the magic always stays there. Unless, the witch herself blocks it."
"Gertrude is ten years older than you, and if I recall correctly, your brother, Alaric, was even older." Codrin said. "My guess is that Leona blocked her magic, she stopped it from passing onto her children. Except for you. Which makes me think that..."
"Something happened between Gertrude's birth and mine. You think my mother had me on purpose. That she willingly passed down her magic." Giselle concluded.
"You are too clever for your own good." Anton murmured.
Giselle leaned back into the seat, she inhaled deeply. Such deep loneliness nestled into her already tired heart. She had never felt so unloved as she did in that moment. Both men stared at her compassionately, but it didn't soothe her.
"Why would she...?" Giselle tried, but her voice broke down.
"We think...," Codrin began quietly, "that Leona wanted you to be both, a trickster and a vampire. There are some scriptures she left behind, stories about a prophesy. That the end is the same as the beginning, that the sky will open again and everything that went through it in the first place will eventually have to go back."
Giselle stared at Codrin as if her life depended on it, her heart beating steadily in her chest. Her improved hearing allowed her not only to hear her own heart, but also the heart of this old man in front of her.
"It would mean the end of all vampires, witches and werewolves." Giselle whispered, her bones telling her she was right.
"Yes. The only reason, due to the legend, that vampires, witches and werewolves were allowed to stay here when they went through the sky, was because they lessened their power on purpose." Codrin said.
Giselle dared to throw a glance Jorge, a serene smile on his face. He knew, a voice in Giselle's head said, he knew everything and he couldn't tell them.
"The story of the three figures. To keep the balance intact, the figures had to dim down everything they were. The first figure bound by blood to the life itself; vampires." Giselle began and Anton interrupted her.
"The second cursed to roam the woods, angry and strong, half a man and half a beast; werewolves."
"And the third banished from the town, condemned and tortured, unable to use the power from within; witches." Giselle finished.
"The prophesy Leona believed in says that something tipped the balance, something emerged that made all the three figures too powerful for this world." Codrin emphasized his words, his hand clutching the poem. "If they are too powerful, the sky opens again and we, are, all, gone."
"Leona warned us in the first poem: the scale is tipped, power on one side; the sign is picked, troubles there hide." Anton recited.
"The question is," Codrin said, "what tipped the balance?"
"The fourth figure." Giselle whispered.
For a few frightening moments, they all simply stared at each other. Deep beneath the Bran Castle, two old men exchanged glances with Giselle, as they all felt the foreboding doom wrap itself around them.
"How do we stop the sky from opening again?" Giselle broke the silence.
"The sky seeks balance. In order to restore it, some of the power has to leave this world. My guess is Leona thought she might be able to fool the skies and buy us some times if she dies." Codrin said.
"She was the most powerful witch alive, more powerful than the Tamer." Anton nodded.
"But it wasn't enough." Giselle murmured.
"We believe Leona knew it by the time she was pregnant with you. We think... she created you to be a dark trickster and a vampire at the same time. That is a tremendous amount of power, more than anyone's ever had." Codrin seemed entirely on edge as he spoke.
"She wanted me to be as powerful as it gets, so that I could do what? The same as she did? So that I could sacrifice myself and stop the sky from opening again? Are you telling me she had me in order for me to die? God, am I really just a sacrifice?" Giselle could feel her eyes filling with tears.
"We thought so, but now we know she wanted you to meet the Tamer. They call her the Tamer because she used to say for herself that she tames beasts of all kind." Codrin offered his most sympathetic gaze, but Giselle couldn't calm herself. This was beginning to be too much, again.
"Everyone thinks the Tamer is mad, talking about others, those different than vampires, witches or wolves. But perhaps..." Anton scratched his head.
"We believe that Leona did not want you to be as powerful as it gets in order to simply sacrifice you." Codrin spoke through his teeth. "We believe she wanted you to be as powerful as it gets so that you could carry something else, something unimaginably more powerful."
It was Jorge that smiled and finished for them.
"Rose is a vessel."