‘That is apparent,’ I said coolly, and Kizzy laughed again.
‘You developed a sense of humour! I like it. Oh Lil, don’t look like that. If I don’t laugh, I think I shall scream.’
She brought her hands up to her throat, to the scream held there. ‘He gave me a choice. He gives all his favourites a choice, but me – he said I was special. That I would not be a strigoi, ravenous for a shroud, able to be killed easy as a bug. He drank of me, so I became strigoi.’ But when I drank of him, I became vampyre.’
‘Vampyre?’ The word was as enticing and terrible as the Dragon. ‘What is that?’
‘A whole new order of the undead. A ruling order. And he said I must join it, because we would build a better world.’
‘Of course he did,’ I said, with a soft laugh.
‘No, Lil, listen. He said I was special, and I thought it was because of the blood moon, or the gift, or something like that. But he said no. He said that was all nonsense. Divining days, Seeing, fate, all of it. He said I was special, because I changed my fate. I fought, didn’t I? I fought for Mamă, and I fought Malovski, and Vereski, and Calazan – I fought them all. And any possible path I took, I took myself, because of things I had done.’
‘That’s not true, Kizzy,’ I said, frowning. ‘We were taken as slaves.’
‘But because I fought,’ she repeated, a sort of frenzied glaze to her eye. ‘We could have run away, when we saw our camp ablaze that day. You wanted to, I felt it. But I went back. Dracul, he says I’m rare.’
‘And him,’ I said impatiently. ‘Did you fight him?’
‘At first,’ she said. ‘But then he told me so many things, Lil. He told me I can have power here. He wants me with him, always.’
‘Are you his wife?’ I asked, horrified.
She laughed again, and it was crueller. ‘He has no need for a wife.’
‘Only blood,’ I said, disgusted.
‘Yes,’ she said, looking at me and there was a purr to her voice that made my blood shiver in my veins. ‘It is almost unbearable, that thirst. But we are not slave to it as strigoi are. Only his control kept those strigoi from killing you all in the hall. That is how I can be with you, talk to you, even as I smell the blood in your veins – I am mistress of my desires, Lil.’
‘You are monstrous,’ I whispered. ‘You are scaring me.’
‘You need not be afraid of me,’ said Kizzy casually. ‘But Lil, didn’t I tell you, that first night in the kitchens? Didn’t I tell you I wanted them to fear me? And they will. Malovski, Boyar Valcar. Dracul says we can avenge ourselves.’
‘Kizzy,’ I said, my voice almost a whisper. ‘This isn’t you.’
‘It is,’ she shouted, rising to her feet, and I reared back, almost falling from the bed. But she only began to pace, back and forth before the fire – which, I realised, was casting no warmth against her fierce chill. ‘It finally is. All our lives, Lillai, we’ve been told what we are. Travellers, ursar women, lăutari, slaves. And this,’ she gestured to herself, pressing at the place her heart used to beat and warm her. ‘This I chose. And no man can own me.’
‘He owns you,’ I shouted back. ‘I heard him say so, that if you disobeyed him your deal would be off. What deal is it, Kizzy? What black art have you promised?’
‘For the life of innocents, I will bring death on the guilty,’ she hissed, and I knew these were not her words. ‘He has sworn to stop taking Travellers, to stop taking children.’
‘That is not true,’ I said. ‘I saw children in the foundations. Kept secret. A girl, Alina. Her sister Olga had been killed by the Dragon.’
Kizzy stilled at that, and I realised she had not known.
‘And Kem,’ I said. ‘What sort of bargain is that, that you must kill your own brother?’
‘I wouldn’t have,’ she spat back. ‘I would have cut him, as I did you, and freed him.’
‘Freed him to the wolves,’ I said. ‘Freed him to an unsafe world. Perhaps it would have been better that he died.’
‘I would have seen him safely away. He is safe, by the way. I followed him and Fen to the border. Some other children too, a girl and two boys.’
‘Followed?’
‘Flew,’ she said, and there was no trace of a lie in her voice.
‘What about Mira?’ I said sharply, realising she had not mentioned her. Kizzy frowned.
‘Mira was here?’
I stilled. I had not meant to give her away. ‘Yes. She came with us. We …’ I trailed off. I could not share what we were to each other, not with this version of Kizzy, glittering and cold.
Kizzy arched an eyebrow. ‘She was not with them.’
My heart raced. I thought of her promise to me, then of her promise to Fen. Surely, she had not stayed behind? I looked away from Kizzy, wary of her seeing something in my face.
‘But even if he had not gone,’ continued Kizzy. ‘He would be safe, in this new world Dracul has promised me. He is an innocent.’
‘And who decides who is innocent?’ I felt exasperation grinding through my jaw. She sounded mad, stupid. But she was also dangerous, even to me. I saw it in the speed with which she rounded on me, how her eyes kept flicking to my throat. She was holding herself back from doing me harm, I could tell. ‘You? Him?’
‘It is better than the current order,’ she said. ‘I would not allow Travellers to be slaves.’
‘What about the Settled,’ I said, thinking of Mira. ‘Or do they deserve it?’
‘Many of them do,’ she said. ‘You cannot deny it, after all we were put through.’
‘Listen to yourself,’ I said. ‘You sound as bad as Malovski.’
‘I am nothing like her.’ She was breathing heavily, but I could not see her breath as I could my own, clouding in the cold air.
‘When does it begin?’ I said. ‘This new regime?’
‘When … when Kem …’
‘Was dead?’ I said sharply.
‘Was free,’ she said. ‘Those children in the foundations, they would have been freed too, I am sure of it.’
‘Do you truly believe you have power over such a man?’ I said, shaking my head.
‘He is not a man. And yes.’ There was the same certainty in her voice with which she’d always spoken of her life as an ursar. ‘He has searched for a companion such as me all his days. And I have promised myself to him.’
‘He still wants you? Even after he saw you with Fen?’
‘I will not love Fen much longer,’ she said, and there was something close to grief in her face. ‘Dracul says that fades, along with all the other human feelings. Weaknesses.’
‘And what remains?’
‘Purpose,’ she said. ‘I have purpose now, Lil. Though I can tell you will not join me in it.’
I looked at her then, past the glittering skin and red of her eyes, to Kizzy. Not much remained, and if what she said was true, soon there would be nothing left of the girl I once shared a body with, grew to be two halves of the same soul with. She might not believe in fate, but perhaps the blood-moon had damned her after all.