of changing power was to kill the ones who currently had it."
I'd heard the story of his change long ago, but he'd made it sound like a grand adventure. It wasn't sounding so much like that now. I was beginning to suspect that the version I'd received as a child had been a highly selective account.
"They killed Father first. He'd sent me on an ill-fated crusade against the Turks, and despite the fact that the troops I led had acquitted themselves well, we lost the war. I was…less than popular…thereafter, with nobles who had not bestirred themselves to help in the fight. Making me watch his death was intended as retribution."
He paused to tackle a particularly tough stain, then continued. "They scalped him, a trick we'd learned from the Turks. It involved peeling away the skin of the face while the victims still lived, torturing them and making them unrecognizable at the same time. When they finished, they blinded me with hot pokers so his mutilated body would be the last thing I ever saw. Then they buried me alive."
"Oh, my God."
"I lay there, hearing the clods of earth falling onto my coffin, and assumed it was the end," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull his trousers back on. "I waited for my air to run out, for death, for judgment, for something…but hours passed and nothing happened. Nothing except that my eyes mended, allowing me to see despite there being no light. I finally had to face the fact that something a little…strange…was going on."
"What did you do?"
Mircea shrugged. "I dug my way out. It had rained overnight, making the ground soft. Otherwise I might not have managed it. Afterwards, I lay on the wet earth, gulping in air that I clearly no longer needed, and wondered what to do. I was a monster; I'd finally accepted that. But I was a damn weak one. I hadn't had any nourishment since the change and my body had had to repair considerable damage from the fight and the torture that followed it. I knew I was in no fit state to face them again."
"How did you survive?" I asked urgently. I really wanted to know. Our situations weren't identical, but there were enough similarities for me to hope for a nugget of wisdom. Mircea hadn't known how to be a vampire any more than I knew how to be the Pythia. Yet he'd managed.
His eyes narrowed slightly at my tone, and I cringed inwardly. I was tired and not guarding my voice as well as I should. I'd probably just told him a lot more than I'd intended.
"By luck and some timely help," he said after a pause. "My clothes, other than the filthy ones I had on, money and possessions were in Tirgoviste—where many of those who had just tried to kill me resided. I had to risk going back there, and as luck would have it, I was seen by one of my attackers. He didn't realize how weak I was and did not dare to take me on himself. But he ran to summon the others."
"But if they'd just buried you, why did they believe him?" Most people would ask anyone who came bearing tales of the walking dead if maybe he'd been drinking a little too much.
Before answering, Mircea came to join me. Since I was still sitting by the hearth, far too near the fire's random sparks for a vampire's liking, the move worried me. So did the casual smile on his face. "Spoken like a true modern woman," he said lightly. "But at that time, many people accepted the old legends about nosferatu as fact. And they knew how to deal with any of us who dared to show our face."
He sat down and relaxed, digging his bare toes into the deep, rich carpeting, and his eyes fixed on the hem of my gown. I looked down only to realize that the dirty ends of Pritkin's boots were peeking out from under the silk. I'd forgotten I was wearing them, just like he'd forgotten to search them. I felt myself blushing at the memory of exactly why we'd been so distracted.
I tried to tuck my feet back under the material, but it didn't do any good. Mircea knelt in front of me and pulled my foot into his hands, staring at the dirty, clunky boot incredulously. "Where did you get this?"
"Um." It was about a size ten, and obviously