The old mansion of House Vauclaire stood at the end of a long, neglected road, hidden behind ancient oaks that had grown together until their branches formed a canopy over the approach. Once the road had welcomed carriages carrying nobles, ambassadors, and vampires from the greatest Houses of Europe. Now weeds pushed through the broken stones, and rust consumed what remained of the iron gates.
Beyond them stood the mansion.
It was enormous.
Built from pale grey stone nearly five centuries earlier, the mansion had been expanded by generation after generation of Vauclaires until different centuries seemed to compete for possession of it. Gothic towers rose beside elegant Renaissance wings. Stone gargoyles watched from the roof while ivy crawled across balconies where members of the House had once gathered beneath the moon.
Most of the windows were dark.
Several were broken.
Yet the mansion did not look abandoned.
It looked as though it were waiting.
Above the main entrance remained the crest of House Vauclaire: weathered almost smooth by centuries of rain, but still recognizable. Beneath it were the words that generations of the House had lived by:
Le sang se souvient.
The blood remembers.
The great oak doors groaned when Brigitte pushed them open.
Dust covered the entrance hall. Torn curtains hung from windows three times the height of a man, and enormous chandeliers dangled overhead beneath ceilings painted with faded scenes of Vauclaire victories. Portraits lined the walls, their subjects staring down with the arrogance of people who had believed their House would exist forever.
Brigitte recognized nearly every face.
Some had betrayed her.
Some had died defending her.
Others had simply disappeared during the years she had been imprisoned.
She walked deeper into the mansion.
The dining hall still contained the immense table where the House had once gathered. Twenty-four chairs surrounded it, though several had been overturned. A silver goblet remained beside one place setting, blackened by age. Someone had left quickly the last time this room had been used.
Beyond it was the library.
Thousands of books remained upon towering shelves, along with handwritten journals containing centuries of Vauclaire history. A thick layer of dust covered everything except one section near the rear wall.
Someone had been here.
Recently.
Astucia noticed it too.
But Brigitte’s attention had already moved elsewhere.
At the end of the corridor stood two enormous wooden doors carved with twisting vines and roses.
Her chambers.
She touched the handle but didn’t open it.
For the first time since entering the mansion, Brigitte hesitated.
This was not simply an abandoned building.
This had been her home.
Her children had walked these halls. Alexandre had argued with her here. Astucia had laughed here. Alliances had been forged around that enormous table, enemies had begged beneath these chandeliers, and generations of vampires had sworn themselves to House Vauclaire beneath its roof.
Then Brigitte had disappeared.
And the House had died around the empty place she left behind.
She finally pushed open the doors.
Her chambers were almost exactly as she remembered them.
Someone had preserved them.
The bed remained made. Her books were still arranged beside the fireplace. Even the silver-backed brush she had used centuries earlier rested upon the dressing table.
Brigitte slowly approached it.
There was no dust on the brush.
She stopped.
Astucia entered behind her.
Neither woman spoke.
They were thinking the same thing.
House Vauclaire’s mansion had never truly been abandoned.
Someone had been waiting for Brigitte to come home.
—–
Alexandre stepped out of the shadows. “Welcome home Mother. It has been too long since you set foot inside the home that made this family. We have missed you”
He wasn’t known to be very emotional other than when he was manipulating others.”Thank you Alexandre. I hear you have had your own share of difficulties over these long years.”
He nodded “That is correct. I am not much of a fighter so I kept up with running since the day you were captured.”
She nodded knowing that was a good thing. “Why did you never tell me that you embraced Etienne and his second family?”
He nodded “It was to punish him knowing he would never escape me. The kids were to torture him and his wife for daring to throw me out of my own family.”
She shook her head “Well he broke free of your control.”
“What do you mean?”
Astucia stepped forward “He broke free using an illegal thing called Blood Allegience”
Alexandre looked at her “You know that isn’t a possibility. It hasn’t been successfully done in forever”
She laughed “My Sire. It is done more often than you believe. The Romanians do it frequently. The ancient houses still do it as well when they feel like it as the laws that the Cadres pushed through. “
He laughed “So you have been studying. So since we aren’t held to the same laws we can also mess with vampire loyalty. Astucia you have an ability with combat that I have never seen with anyone. But you don’t have the ability to get what you need. The guard I will question and you, my lovely mother, know what I can and will do. Gaspard will break.”
He moved away and left.
——
The Questioning of Gaspard
Gaspard hung from the iron restraints with his arms stretched above his head. His feet barely touched the stone floor.
He had been there for hours.
Alexandre had asked him only one question.
“Who convinced you to betray Brigitte?”
And Gaspard had refused to answer.
Alexandre stood before him now, sleeves rolled to his elbows. There was no rage on his face. That frightened Gaspard more than anything else.
“You were her guard,” Alexandre said quietly. “She trusted you with her home. Her family. Her life.”
Gaspard spat blood onto the floor.
“I have nothing to tell you.”
Alexandre nodded.
He picked up a narrow iron blade from the table beside him and examined its edge.
“That is unfortunate.”
Gaspard tensed.
Alexandre pressed the point against Gaspard’s chest, just enough to make him feel it.
“You misunderstand what is happening here. I am not asking whether you betrayed Brigitte. We already know you did.”
He moved the blade slowly downward.
“I want the name of the person who convinced you.”
“I acted alone.”
Alexandre smiled.
It wasn’t a pleasant smile.
“No, you didn’t.”
He stepped closer.
“You changed the guard rotations the night she was attacked. You left the eastern passage unguarded. You told her the château was secure. And somehow her enemies knew precisely when she would be alone.”
Gaspard stared at him.
That tiny reaction was enough.
Alexandre saw it.
“There.”
Alexandre placed the blade back on the table.
“That was more useful than screaming.”
Gaspard’s expression hardened.
Alexandre suddenly grabbed him by the throat.
“WHO?”
Gaspard gasped.
Alexandre released him.
Gaspard coughed violently, struggling against the restraints.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered.
“Then explain it to me.”
“They would have killed me.”
Alexandre’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Gaspard shook his head.
Alexandre picked up another instrument.
Gaspard immediately began struggling.
“No—”
“Who?”
“They came to me months before Brigitte disappeared!”
Alexandre stopped.
“Who came?”
“I never knew all of them.”
Alexandre lowered the instrument.
“All of whom?”
Gaspard closed his eyes.
“The conspiracy.”
Silence filled the chamber.
Alexandre stepped closer.
“What conspiracy?”
“The one against House Vauclaire.”
Alexandre’s expression changed.
Gaspard saw it and began speaking faster.
“They were afraid of her. Brigitte was becoming too powerful. Too respected. Too many Houses listened when she spoke.”
“Names.”
“Ibrahim was involved.”
Alexandre froze.
“The Assassin Guild?”
Gaspard nodded.
“But he wasn’t the one who recruited me.”
“Then who?”
Gaspard hesitated.
Alexandre reached for the table.
“Wait!”
Alexandre stopped.
Gaspard breathed heavily.
“It was Étienne.”
Alexandre slowly turned back toward him.
“Étienne?”
“He told me Brigitte had become dangerous. That eventually she would challenge the old Houses and bring war upon all of us.”
Alexandre stared at him.
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
That answer surprised Alexandre.
Gaspard looked down.
“Not at first.”
“Then why?”
“They knew things about me. Things Brigitte didn’t know.”
“Money?”
Gaspard shook his head.
“Blood.”
Alexandre’s eyes narrowed.
“They threatened your family?”
“Worse.”
Gaspard finally looked at him.
“They offered me a place in another blood allegiance. Protection from Brigitte if the conspiracy failed. Protection from the consequences of betraying House Vauclaire.”
Alexandre stepped closer until their faces were only inches apart.
“And you accepted.”
Gaspard whispered, “Yes.”
Alexandre stared into his eyes.
“For protection, you handed over the woman who trusted you.”
“I didn’t know what they were going to do to her.”
Alexandre struck him across the face.
The blow snapped Gaspard’s head sideways.
“Never say that again.”
Gaspard slowly raised his head.
Alexandre’s voice became almost a whisper.
“You changed the guards. You opened her home. You gave them the hour. You gave them the path to her chambers. Whatever happened afterward belongs to you as much as it belongs to them.”
Gaspard’s composure finally broke.
“There was another!”
Alexandre stopped.
“Another what?”
“Another person behind Étienne.”
“Name.”
“I don’t know the name.”
Alexandre reached for him.
“I SWEAR!”
Gaspard pulled desperately against the chains.
“Étienne called him the Architect.”
Alexandre went still.
“The Architect?”
“He said Brigitte’s capture wasn’t the objective.”
Alexandre stared at him.
“Then what was?”
Gaspard swallowed.
“To destroy House Vauclaire without anyone realizing it was being destroyed.”
For the first time since entering the chamber, Alexandre looked genuinely disturbed.
Gaspard continued.
“Brigitte was only the beginning.”
Alexandre slowly stepped away.
“Sarah.”
Gaspard said nothing.
“Étienne.”
Silence.
“The Crawford mystics.”
Gaspard lowered his eyes.
Alexandre understood.
They weren’t separate betrayals.
They had never been separate.
Someone had been dismantling Brigitte’s House piece by piece for decades.
Alexandre walked toward the door.
Gaspard stared after him.
“Alexandre?”
He stopped.
“What happens to me?”
Alexandre looked over his shoulder.
There was no anger in his expression anymore.
Only contempt.
“That isn’t my decision.”
Gaspard’s face went pale.
Alexandre opened the door.
“Brigitte decides what happens to traitors of House Vauclaire.”
Then he stepped into the corridor.
Astucia was waiting outside.
She had heard everything.
“The Architect?” she asked.
Alexandre nodded.
Astucia’s expression hardened.
“Do you know who that is?”
“No.”
Alexandre glanced back toward the chamber.
“But Gaspard has just given us something far more valuable than a name.”
“What?”
Alexandre looked at her.
“Proof that Brigitte wasn’t betrayed once.”
His eyes became cold.
“She was betrayed according to a plan.”
“If what he said was true we should kill him now. It will be over quickly”. Astucia said.
“NO. At this point we must let Brigitte decide but there is more fun soon to be had when I find Etienne and his wife and kids. They will feel the torture as well. “
——–
Brigitte was thinking when she heard from the guards that Gaspard had broken. He hadn’t given up much other than The Architect was at fault and had planned this. Etienne had been the one who had facilitated the contact.
Etienne would need to be found and questioned the same way. The person that she had been informed about was scary and they have pushed so many to betray. She wasn’t sure who it could be this person who stole the loyalties didn’t seem to be as strong as what would be needed to destroy the great house.
——-.
Severin lounged in his home with one of the whores that he had made. She was good, very good at massage but the happy ending always was his true pleasure.
He and been born over a thousand years ago to a noble man who had raped a commoner. He had been disowned but they had kept their son. Liam was very and constantly was beating his wife and son. It was a duly occurrence that something would remind him of his past and he took it out of them.
One night when Severin was 13 and about to be put to work in the fields his Liam killed Lisette. It shocked the small area but the Lord needed the strength of the man to work in the fields so the crime was never punished.
He was 14 and had grown strong by the time he made his move. He used his strength and strangled his father. It was part because of the 14 years of abuse and the killing of his mother.
He was taken to Trial and the Lord was very succinct. You took the life of one of my workers. You will be flogged and then you will be kept as a slave to the farms.
_____
The Punishment of Severin
The dungeon beneath Castle Viremont had witnessed executions, blood oaths, and the births of ancient alliances.
Tonight, it witnessed justice.
Severin knelt in the center of the circular chamber, his wrists bound to an iron ring set into the stone floor. His white shirt had already been torn from his back, leaving his pale skin exposed beneath the flickering torchlight.
Around him stood members of House Noctevane in absolute silence.
No one spoke.
At the far end of the chamber sat Lady Mireille Noctevane upon a black oak chair carved with thorns and ravens. Beside her stood Sabine Duroc, the House’s feared enforcer, dressed entirely in dark burgundy. Her expression revealed nothing.
Lucien Marrec, captain of the household guard, remained near the wall with his arms folded.
Severin lifted his head.
“You would condemn your own blood?”
Mireille’s eyes never softened.
“You murdered your father.”
“He was weak.”
A murmur passed through the chamber.
Mireille slowly rose from her chair.
“No,” she replied. “He was your father. He gave you life, a name, and a place within his House.”
She descended the three stone steps until she stood directly before him.
“And you repaid him by driving a blade through his heart while he slept.”
Severin smiled bitterly.
“He deserved death.”
Mireille looked toward Sabine.
“Carry out the sentence.”
Sabine stepped forward.
In her hand was a long black leather whip braided with silver thread. It was an ancient instrument of punishment, reserved for men who had committed the most sacred betrayal of their kind—the deliberate murder of the blood that had created them.
Severin’s confidence finally faded.
Sabine uncoiled the whip across the floor.
The sound alone echoed through the dungeon.
“By decree of House Noctevane,” Mireille declared, her voice carrying to every corner of the chamber, “Severin is stripped of honour, stripped of title, and stripped of every privilege granted by his blood.”
She paused.
“For the murder of his father, he shall receive the lashes of betrayal.”
Sabine raised the whip.
The first strike cracked like thunder.
Severin cried out as his body jerked against the restraints.
The second followed before his cry had ended.
Then another.
And another.
Each lash echoed through the stone chamber with terrifying precision. Sabine never struck in anger. Her movements were measured, disciplined, and merciless.
Severin clenched his teeth.
“I will never beg!”
Sabine stopped.
She looked toward Mireille.
The lady nodded once.
“Continue.”
The whip fell again.
Severin’s breathing became ragged as the punishment continued. Every proud boast disappeared beneath the relentless rhythm of House justice.
Finally, Sabine lowered the whip.
The dungeon became completely silent except for Severin’s laboured breathing.
Mireille approached him one final time.
He could barely raise his head to meet her eyes.
“You had one duty,” she whispered. “To honour the blood that created you.”
Severin said nothing.
Mireille leaned closer.
“You believed killing your father made you powerful.”
She straightened.
“It only proved you were too cowardly to face him as a son.”
She turned away from him and addressed the assembled serfs.
“Let every member of House Noctevane remember this night. Power may be inherited. Morality may be gifted. But loyalty is chosen.”
Sabine placed the whip upon the stone altar beside Mireille’s chair.
Lucien opened the iron doors leading deeper into the dungeon.
Two guards entered and lifted Severin from the floor.
As they dragged him into darkness, he heard Mireille’s final words behind him.
“May your father be the first face you see when judgment comes.”
____
This memory alone gave him nightmares. He never received another flogging but a night later he was embraced.
Blood covered his back, dripping slowly onto the stones beneath him. Every movement brought another wave of pain, yet Severin refused to bow his head.
Then he heard footsteps.
Not the footsteps of one of the guards.
A woman descended the stone staircase.
Severin had never seen her before.
She appeared perhaps thirty-five, though the weight behind her dark eyes suggested centuries beyond counting. Long auburn hair fell across the shoulders of an elegant black gown. A silver pendant bearing the image of a thorn-covered rose rested against her throat.
She stopped several feet away.
Severin stared at her.
“Who are you?”
“Lady Élodie de Marivaux.”
The name meant nothing to him.
That frightened him more than if he had recognized it.
Élodie slowly removed her gloves.
“I was asked to perform an Embrace.”
Severin’s expression changed.
“No.”
Élodie smiled faintly.
“So you understand what that means.”
“I am human.”
“Precisely.”
Élodie approached.
“Your blood is still mortal, Severin. But that can be changed.”
Severin pulled against his restraints.
Élodie crouched before him.
“You still carry your own blood.”
Severin stared defiantly into her eyes.
“Then I will carry it forever.”
“No.”
Élodie produced a narrow silver dagger.
“You will carry mine.”
She drew the blade across her palm.
Severin immediately struggled against the chains.
“I refuse.”
“You may refuse me with your mouth.”
Élodie placed her bleeding hand against his chest.
“But your blood has no voice.”
Pain exploded through him.
Severin screamed.
His body slammed backward against the restraints as Élodie’s ancient blood entered the wounds across his chest.
Something awakened inside him.
Not hunger.
Memory.
His life before this moment unfolded before him.
The warmth of his childhood home.
The faces of those he had loved.
The years of hardship that had brought him to this dungeon.
His hopes.
His fears.
His hatred.
Then came the final memory.
The moment he had chosen to surrender his humanity.
Severin screamed again.
The memory fractured.
Élodie’s blood tore through what remained of his mortal resistance.
Severin felt his old life disappearing.
“No!”
For the first time that night, his cry wasn’t defiant.
It was desperate.
Élodie caught his face between her hands.
“Your humanity is gone.”
Severin stared at her.
His eyes were wet with bloody tears.
“You destroyed what remained of me.”
“No, Severin.”
Élodie raised her bleeding wrist.
“You surrendered that when you accepted this.”
She pressed her wrist against his mouth.
“Now drink.”
Severin turned his head.
Élodie forced him back.
“Drink.”
Blood touched his tongue.
His resistance collapsed.
Severin drank.
Élodie’s blood flooded through him.
It was ancient.
Powerful.
Strange.
His body convulsed as the wounds from the whipping began closing. Torn flesh knitted together. Strength returned to exhausted muscles.
But something far more important was happening beneath the healing.
His blood was changing.
His mortality was being pushed away.
Replaced.
Rewritten.
Severin suddenly released Élodie’s wrist.
He gasped.
Then looked at her.
He could feel her.
Élodie stood several feet away, yet her presence existed inside him.
A new connection had formed.
Severin whispered one word.
“Maker…”
Élodie smiled.
Not warmly.
Possessively.
She placed her hand upon his forehead.
“By blood surrendered and blood received, the old life is broken.”
Severin lowered his eyes.
“By my blood, you are restored.”
Her fingers moved beneath his chin, lifting his face.
“By my blood, you are claimed.”
Severin stared into the eyes of the woman who had just remade him.
Élodie leaned closer.
“You surrendered the human life you once possessed.”
She wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
“I am the vampire who gives you eternity.”
She stepped away.
“Release him.”
The guards unlocked Severin’s chains.
He collapsed onto his hands and knees.
Élodie watched him for several seconds.
Then she gave her first command.
“Rise, Severin.”
His mind resisted.
His blood did not.
Slowly, Severin stood.
Élodie’s smile returned.
The Embrace was complete.
Severin had entered the dungeon as a wounded human.
He would leave it as the blood-bound child of Lady Élodie de Marivaux.
Crazy Canadian Writing 