Chapter 5
Severin
A SLIGHT PRESSURE PULSES IN my temples, where it’s been since my first class of the day. Since Miss Vandermere attempted to derail my lesson with her arguments about movement and control.
I’ve not been able to get it out of my head all day.
In my many years teaching, I’ve had a number of difficult students, whether they be the sort who fall asleep in class or those who feel it necessary to question and contradict everything I say.
I know how to handle these students, and it’s rare that I allow them to bother me for more than a fleeting second.
Despite my efforts, however, I’ve been unable to call to mind a student who piqued my attention in quite the same way as Miss Vandermere.
Maeve.
Even thinking her name makes me clench my teeth, though I’m not quite sure why.
And it’s been many, many years since I was last unsure about my feelings.
I’ve spent hundreds of years understanding and controlling them, forcing them into submission, keeping them carefully contained.
There’s no reason for that to change now.
I must be fatigued from my first day. The castle is loud—much louder than I’m accustomed to—and that’s likely playing a part in my headache as well.
I need something strong to drink. And perhaps I can work on the old botany grimoire I’ve been restoring.
Rebinding and repairing texts has become somewhat of a hobby of mine over the last fifty years—and Coven Crest’s library has plenty of them, certainly enough to keep me busy this year.
With a plan for my evening, I leave my office—which is still sparsely decorated save for a desk, chair, and empty hearth—and step into the corridor. I slip the heavy brass key into the lock housing and twist it, ensuring the door is locked before I start down the hall.
And almost immediately pause.
Because a student is exiting an office farther down the hall, closing the door behind her without looking back over her shoulder.
And without seeing her face, I know it’s Miss Vandermere.
I don’t need to see her face; her smell gives her away.
It’s like the scent before a storm, a mix of ozone and the sweetness of fresh air.
Immediately, my fangs ache.
And the desire to drink blood has me reaching inside my vest pocket, where I keep my flask. I pull it out and take a deep swig, my thirst somewhat satisfied as the blood coats my tongue and runs down my throat.
Always somewhat. Never fully. Not since the last time I drank from a live vein, which was years ago now, the last time I took a lover into my bed.
Both are desires that do little but cloud the mind and dull the senses. They don’t serve me.
Miss Vandermere doesn’t seem to notice me.
She walks away from me down the hall, her head slightly bowed, a subtle tension in her shoulders.
When she passes through a beam of late-afternoon sunlight streaming through a high window, her hair turns a shade of rich purple, reminding me of the clouds at dusk.
A storm witch, I think, remaining where I am as I slide the flask back into my vest pocket. A rare creature indeed.
She makes it to the end of the hallway and steps into the connecting corridor. Still, she doesn’t look back. And I find, foolishly and frighteningly, that I want her to.
I banish that feeling quickly and with severity.
When she’s gone, I take a slow breath, then resume walking down the hall. But her scent lingers here, and it makes me want to reach for my flask again in an oddly uncomfortable way. This castle is full of the smell of blood, so why does her blood entice me so?
I grit my teeth, fangs still aching. Despite how tired I am, I know I need to move my energy, or I’m going to have a sleepless night.
And I know just where to go.
THE SUN HAS SET, LEAVING only a few streaks of dark violet and pink bleeding across the horizon.
I stand atop the spire I discovered in my first few days here, before students arrived and I was able to explore the quiet of the campus while getting settled in.
Now, I believe this place may be somewhat of a sanctuary for me.
On my way here, I had to hold my breath in the halls to avoid the somewhat nauseating scent of dinner in the dining hall.
I don’t need food to survive, only blood, but I do enjoy a meal on occasion.
Tonight, though, the dining hall was serving something with garlic and onion, and even now, I can still detect a slight tinge lingering in my nose as I breathe in the fresh air.
I hold my blade in one hand. It’s long and thin, a relic from centuries past, with a handle studded in glistening emeralds and rubies.
It was a gift from a close friend decades ago—a pirate I once sailed with on the Charmed Sea.
Thinking of him makes me frown. Many of my close friends are no longer for this world.
One of the hazards of having a long life.
Some think it a gift, but those who experience it often see it as a curse.
I pull my gaze away from the horizon and step to the center of the spire.
The stone is sturdy and warm beneath my feet—which are bare, the only way I feel blade work should be practiced.
One must feel everything, from the tips of the fingers to the bottoms of the toes.
Practicing in footwear is a perversion of the art.
Closing my eyes, I focus on my breathing, and then slowly, I begin to move.
The blade is no longer an object, but is instead an extension of me.
I can feel the air as it whooshes across the blade’s fine edge, can hear the breathing of the steel as it slices through the ether.
It’s alive, just as I am, just as the sky is.
My movements are deliberate, practiced, balanced.
Each thrust or swipe of the blade carries intention.
Blade work and swordsmanship are all about intention—both yours and your opponent’s.
Understanding the intention in a ripple of muscle or shift of stance could be the difference between breathing and dying.
In my more reckless years, I used to engage in sword fights for money—the type of underground duels only one participant would walk away from. Now, I recall those men who fell at the tip of my blade, and I sit comfortably with the knowledge that I knowingly took their lives.
Though this acceptance didn’t come easily.
It required many years of intense control to finally come to terms with my past, with the things I’ve done.
It’s not so easy living for as long as I have.
If one doesn’t learn how to put their burdens down, they’ll be crushed beneath their weight.
Those with short lives—like humans—can struggle to understand this, and I often come across as cold to those who meet me.
I thrust forward, the steel singing through the air, perspiration making my skin damp. The violet and pink in the sky have darkened to a rich blue black, and stars slowly twinkle to life above me.
My body is warm now, and I pause to peel off my tunic, letting the late-summer air kiss the moisture from my skin. I take a sip from my flask—I’ve needed to drink from it more often today than I normally do—and then regain my starting stance, lift my blade, and begin again.
Because Maeve Vandermere’s eyes keep staring at me from my memory, and I need to chase the image of her away, even if it takes all night.
She will not be the undoing of my many years of control.
Nothing will.
I will not allow it.