Page 1 of Blood Slumberm

one

Celandine’srevengeplanwasmad. It all depended on waking a monster. But ten years of festering rage had made her willing to do anything.

She stood in the shadow of the mausoleum while the procession surged past her. The celebrants were in high spirits for the first day of the Summer Solstice festival. Through the sheer fabric of her veil, she could make out the vibrant colors of their gowns and tunics. Whiffs of fragrance from their flower crowns briefly lifted the odor of death that clung to her.

The last, brilliant light of sunset slipped away after them. Celandine’s hand tightened on her distaff. It was almost dark, and with the Summer Solstice only a fortnight away, the nights were short. She didn’t have much time.

As soon as the street cleared, she headed in the opposite direction of the parade, her distaff tapping on the cobbles. At last someone noticed her. The stragglers took one glance at the gray robes that shrouded her from head to toe, then hastened to catch up with the festival, as if she were a portent of impending death.

But she had no power of prophecy, nor could she read minds or cast illusions. Although she was a sorceress in service to Chera, the Mourning Goddess, Celandine possessed none of the typical talents of the women of her Mage Order.

Not that she needed spells to make herself invisible. No one ever saw her, except when she was allowed out of the temple to be a ritual mourner at funerary rites. Her throat ached from wailing for people she didn’t know. When she failed to return on time, punishment would await her.

An iron calm descended over her as she turned down a side street toward her goal. She no longer cared what the temple would do to her if her plan failed. She existed with nothing in her future but funerary rites until the day her own came. She had already lost everything.

She navigated from memory along lanes lined with orange trees, past the porticoes of noble manors. Before her world had shrunk to the inside of the temple, this had been her city. Corona, the magnificent capital of Cordium. Home. Right outside the temple gates yet always out of reach.

In the distance, she caught flashes of light and noise from the procession. But she didn’t cross paths with anyone except drunken lovers who had stayed behind to seize fleeting pleasure in the shadows. Hearing their moans, Celandine fought off a stab of envy. This was no time to resent the celibacy forced on all mages. She had to focus.

Among the historic residences, she came to a high, forbidding wall. How like the Mage Orders to build walls around whatever they couldn’t control and claim they had conquered it.

For one hundred years, mages and aristocrats had pretended this forsaken estate no longer existed in their midst, while tales of the creature sleeping within ran rampant in fine courts and shady alehouses alike.

The oak gates were reinforced with iron, but the real barrier to entry was the spells beyond. She had to throw her entire weight against one gate to make it shudder and groan open.

Firelight spilled out. Magic and heat prickled her senses as she crept inside. The gate slammed shut behind her, and she started.

Celandine faced a solid wall of magefire that burned so high she couldn’t see over it.

The Order of Anthros would come here on Summer Solstice to extinguish the fires and take the creature. She had to beat them to their prey, or the plot she had so carefully crafted these ten years would fail.

The war mages who served Anthros, god of order and battle, reigned supreme over all magic users. Would the magic of one unwilling Cheran sorceress be enough against them? If Celandine proved powerless against them tonight—as she had ten years ago—she could not bear it.

She clenched her teeth. She would not let them win. Not this time.

From the raw flax wrapped around the top of her distaff, she pulled out one of the spindles she kept tucked there. How she hated the tools of her trade as a Cheran mage. How satisfying it would be to use them to unravel everything the Orders had done to her.

Drawing a bit of flax from the distaff, she gave her spindle a twirl sunwise. As it spun and the flax honed to thread between her fingers, she let her arcane senses spin out and hone in on the magefire.

Old, mighty fires. She wouldn’t have stood a chance against these spells in years past. But now, after a century, their power was fading. She spun her thread, studying the patterns of the magefire until she had a firm grasp on the spells.

Then she twirled her spindle widdershins, freeing the thread on it. She felt an ephemeral tug on the flames. The fires burned lower, and their heat faded to warmth.

She gave her spindle another vicious turn. Another. Inch by inch, the wall of fire sank lower, then finally fell to embers, leaving spots of light on her vision.

She drew a breath. She had done it.

Overgrown gardens spread out before her, and beyond them stood the manor, a stately shadow in the moons’ light. A fragrance wafted over her, more exquisite than any from the summer procession. The scent must have been coming from the flowers that had taken over the grounds. Their twisting vines were armed with thorns, and yet the most stunning blooms grew from the wicked things, with layers upon layers of crimson petals curling around each other. Celandine had never seen the like before.

Were these roses, the sacred flower of Hespera, the Goddess of Night? All her creations were dangerously beautiful. Especially the Hesperines, the fanged, bloodthirsty immortals who served her.

Somewhere in this house, one of their kind lay trapped in a hundred-year sleep. After all this time, he must be very, very hungry. Celandine was counting on that.

But to reach him, she would have to survive the Hesperine magic that guarded his lair.

The remnants of a path led through the rose vines. She held her robes close so as not to catch them on the thorns. Some tales said that the flowers would kill any mage who tried to approach the Hesperine. Others claimed that when either of the moons was full, he rose from his slumber to lure virgins into his garden to devour their blood.

Celandine didn’t see the corpses of any maidens as she approached the manor. Perhaps not all the stories were true.Fortunate, for if he preferred virgins, he would have little interest in Celandine, and her attempt to give him her blood would be for nothing. Even so, she held her distaff at the ready to push aside any vines in case they tried to strangle her.

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