Centuries of cruelty from Remy had done one thing and that was to unite House Vauclaire against him. Even his own wife had helped to plan his death.
The receiving chamber of House Valombre had been built for conversations no one wanted remembered.
There were no servants.
No guards.
No scribes recording the words of the ancient vampires who occasionally met within its black stone walls.
Mireille stood before the tall windows, staring into the night.
Behind her sat Lord Lucien de Morcant, master of one of the oldest surviving Great Houses.
He had known Mireille for more than seven centuries.
Long enough to know when she was hiding something.
“You keep calling them the children,” Lucien finally said.
Mireille didn’t turn.
“They were children.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Silence.
Lucien lifted the goblet of blood beside him but didn’t drink.
“You’ve spoken about what Mneme did three times tonight. Every time, you say our children. Or the children. Or those we lost.”
Mireille’s shoulders tightened.
Lucien watched her.
“But you haven’t said their names.”
“Don’t.”
His expression softened.
“Mireille—”
“I said don’t.”
Power rippled through the chamber.
The candles flickered.
Lucien could feel the warning within her voice. Mireille was older than most vampires still walking the earth, and grief had done nothing to diminish her strength.
But Lucien didn’t move.
“I remember them.”
Mireille slowly turned.
“What?”
“I remember your children.”
Something changed in her face.
Lucien continued.
“I remember them running through that ridiculous mansion in Marseille.”
Despite herself, Mireille almost smiled.
“Remy hated when they ran inside.”
“Remy hated everything he couldn’t control.”
That actually brought the faintest smile.
It disappeared quickly.
Lucien leaned forward.
“I remember your daughter stealing blood from Remy’s private stores because she thought the servants deserved better.”
Mireille looked down.
“And your son challenging me to a duel because I told him his swordsmanship was terrible.”
“It was terrible.”
“It was atrocious.”
A tiny laugh escaped her.
Mireille immediately covered her mouth.
The sound seemed almost foreign.
Then her eyes filled with blood tears.
Lucien’s smile vanished.
“Mneme didn’t just kill them, did she?”
Mireille shook her head.
“No.”
“What did she do?”
Mireille returned her gaze to the darkness beyond the window.
“She punished us.”
“For what?”
“For defying her.”
Lucien waited.
Mireille wrapped her arms around herself.
“Remy discovered what the Seven were trying to do. Memory wasn’t simply something Mneme controlled. It was how she reached people. How she entered them. How she whispered through generations.”
Lucien nodded slowly.
“So Remy began destroying knowledge of the memory gifts.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped him.”
“At first.”
Lucien noticed the qualification.
“At first?”
Mireille turned.
“I eventually realized he was wrong.”
“About Mneme?”
“About how to fight her.”
She walked toward the fireplace.
“You cannot defeat memory by destroying it. Every book Remy burned, every bloodline he silenced, every gifted mortal he ordered killed—it didn’t weaken Mneme.”
Mireille stared into the flames.
“It fed her.”
Lucien’s brow furrowed.
“How?”
“Because forgotten things don’t disappear.”
Her voice became quieter.
“They wait.”
Lucien said nothing.
Mireille continued.
“Mneme wanted Remy afraid. She wanted him desperate enough to erase everything connected to her.”
“And when he refused to serve her?”
Mireille closed her eyes.
“She took our children.”
Lucien had heard the story before.
Everyone among the eldest Houses had.
But it had always been whispered as legend.
Remy’s heirs were killed by one of the Seven.
No names.
No faces.
No lives.
Lucien stood.
“How?”
Mireille’s eyes opened.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You’ve spent six hundred years not talking about it.”
“Because they’re mine.”
Her voice cracked.
Lucien stopped.
Mireille looked at him.
“They weren’t heirs of House Vauclaire. They weren’t pieces in Remy’s empire. They weren’t sacrifices in some ancient war.”
Her breathing became unnecessary but instinctive.
“They were my children.”
Lucien nodded.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Blood tears slipped down Mireille’s cheeks.
“My daughter used to crawl into my bed when thunderstorms rolled over Marseille.”
Lucien smiled sadly.
Mireille laughed through her tears.
“She would threaten anyone who mentioned it.”
“I remember.”
“And my son…”
She stopped.
The words wouldn’t come.
Lucien waited.
“My son used to leave flowers outside my chamber.”
Mireille wiped at her cheek.
“Every week.”
“Why?”
“He never needed a reason.”
Her voice broke completely.
“He would simply leave them there.”
The chamber fell silent.
For centuries Mireille had spoken about dynasties.
Bloodlines.
Wars.
Houses.
Masters.
The Seven.
But she had almost never spoken about the two people whose deaths had changed everything.
Lucien approached her carefully.
“Mireille.”
She looked at him.
“Say their names.”
Her expression hardened immediately.
“No.”
“Mneme killed them.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t let her erase them too.”
Mireille stared at him.
Something almost angry entered her expression.
“You think I have forgotten my own children?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell me how to mourn them.”
“I am telling you something different.”
Lucien stepped closer.
“You have remembered their deaths for six centuries.”
Mireille said nothing.
“But when was the last time you remembered their lives?”
That struck her harder than any accusation could have.
Mireille looked away.
The mansion in Marseille returned to her memory.
Sunlight from a life before undeath.
Children racing through corridors.
Remy shouting after them.
A little girl laughing.
A boy placing flowers outside his mother’s door.
She could hear them.
Not screaming.
Laughing.
Mireille’s lips trembled.
“My daughter…”
She stopped.
Lucien waited.
Mireille closed her eyes.
“Elodie.”
The name seemed to change the room.
Not because of magic.
Because someone had finally spoken it.
Lucien lowered his head respectfully.
“Elodie.”
Mireille opened her eyes.
Blood tears continued down her face.
“She was stubborn.”
“I remember.”
“She got that from Remy.”
Lucien raised an eyebrow.
Mireille gave him a look.
“Fine. She got it from both of us.”
“And your son?”
Mireille couldn’t answer.
Lucien didn’t push this time.
Several moments passed.
Finally Mireille whispered:
“Julien.”
Lucien smiled faintly.
“Julien.”
Mireille nodded.
“My beautiful boy.”
She covered her mouth.
Centuries of control collapsed.
Lucien crossed the remaining distance and caught her as her knees weakened.
Mireille clung to him.
Not as the ancient mistress of a Great House.
Not as Remy’s wife.
Not as a vampire who had survived kingdoms, wars, betrayals, and six centuries without the man she once loved.
As a mother.
“They killed my babies.”
Lucien held her.
“I know.”
“Mneme killed Elodie.”
Her fingers tightened against his coat.
“She killed Julien.”
For the first time in centuries, Mireille said both names together.
“Elodie and Julien.”
Lucien closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“My children.”
She sobbed against him.
“My babies.”
And somewhere beyond the walls of the Great Houses, beyond the barriers between death, dream, and memory, something ancient stirred.
Mireille suddenly froze.
Lucien felt it too.
A whisper.
Not through the room.
Through their blood.
Elodie.
Mireille pulled away.
Her eyes widened.
Then came the second name.
Julien.
Lucien stared at her.
“What was that?”
Mireille’s grief vanished beneath sudden terror.
She knew that voice.
She had heard it centuries ago.
Before her children died.
Before Remy began his crusade against the memory gifts.
Before the Great Houses buried the truth of the Seven.
Mireille whispered one word.
“Mneme.”
The candles went out.
Darkness swallowed the chamber.
And from somewhere inside Mireille’s own memories came the sound of two children laughing.
—–
Julien and Elodie her human children who she cared for even after she had been embraced. They had been taken from her too soon. They had only been kids.
“When Mneme took our children she made us remember every part of their pain and fear. The deaths were preventable but we didn’t know that at the time. Elodie was 13 and Julien was 10. Remy and I didn’t know what to expect but Mneme was too powerful for us to protect our family from.”
“So she killed the children and then forced the memories to come through to you all the time. She forcibly made you remember what had happened, that is assault. “
She nodded “I didn’t really keep people close anymore as the depression and the rage was so much. I hid here for a long time removing myself from most of House activities. By the time I was ready to return my family decided to depose Remy and his cruel ways. I assisted as I was so angry at what he did and how he used the children’s death as a reason to murder many innocents.”
Astucia nodded “I understand I would have helped kill him as well. He didn’t sound like a good leader.”
“He wasn’t good for us. He did make the house feared and he kept the vampires in line so that they would not embrace those gifted with memories power. He ended up killing any vampires embraced that held these powers, he even killed those who continued to fight his power”
“At first, I understood him. That is the part I am most ashamed to admit. When Remy said no mortal possessing the memory gifts could ever be Embraced, I agreed. I had buried a thirteen-year-old daughter and a ten-year-old son. Fear made his rules sound reasonable.”
“Then he started killing them.”
Astucia’s expression hardened.
“The gifted?”
“Anyone who carried the gifts after an Embrace. Then the vampires who protected them. Then the vampires who questioned him. Eventually Remy wasn’t protecting us from Mneme anymore.”
Mireille looked toward the darkened windows.
“He was simply protecting Remy.”
“You helped him make the law?”
Mireille was silent for several seconds.
“Yes.”
“The law that eventually killed all those people?”
“Yes.”
Astucia studied her.
Mireille looked away.
“I was their mother, Astucia. Mneme had just murdered my thirteen-year-old daughter and my ten-year-old son. If Remy had told me burning Marseille to the ground would keep Mneme away from another child, I might have handed him the torch.”
Astucia nodded “I understand had my daughter been subjected to that I would have helped burn anyone and everything to the ground that had any hand in my daughter’s death.”
—-
That day was a day of forgetting ones problems as it had been over 100 years since they had seen one another.
The next day Astucia woke up feeling that it was time to get down to business. She needed to understand how to defeat Mneme.
“I know your thoughts Astucia, you fear Memory and what she will do to you. You also believe you are destined to beat her. If you defeat her, there is no guarantee you could become her.”
Astucia thought on that, would becoming memory be a bad thing?
“We can’t allow her to control our lives. You gave up the use of your powers. “
She nodded “Yes. I also tried to convince you to not use your gift as much. It’s a way to let Mneme in and it is almost impossible to remove her. I know she didn’t willingly leave me”
Astucia had hidden her powers but not for long only when she was coming to find Mireille. She had always used the gift and thought nothing of it.
“You told me Remy’s mistake was believing he could defeat memory by burying it. Now you’re asking me to bury mine.”
“I his and or six centuries I thought she had lost interest in me.”
Astucia asks:
“And now?”
Mireille looks at her.
“Now I think she found someone better.”
Astucia looked at her hands “You believe that is me?”
Mireille nodded “Yes but she didn’t contact you until you discovered about The Seven. Had you known earlier you wouldn’t have been strong enough to withstand her intrusion into your mind. You are more powerful than me. Together with some extra help we can end the terror but it will be with significant cost to ourselves.”
She nodded, “What must we do?”
Mireille smiled fondly. “We must find the one who was known as The Vampire Goddess. She is an ancient as well but doesn’t hold court like the others and never became one of the Seven despite being just as powerful. She disappeared many centuries ago. Her name has been stricken from all records as they fear what she told them.”
She opened up a locked chest “In here you will find the property that is all we have left from her. If she is amongst the living, your gift can find her. Come find me when you have gotten information.”
Astucia sat in silence and looked at what was in the chest. There was a tiara made out of the most beautiful of platinum with jewels that sparkled red. Rubies she murmured. This tiara would be worth a fortune.
She heard a whisper in her mind and it came from a beautiful ring that had a turquoise stone. This was the real piece that was left to them. “You. I know you. You are the one who was spoken about. You have a destiny.”
She touched the ring “Welcome to the Cult of Visions. You are most welcome in the house of Ashlana.”
She opened her mind to the ring and the vision snuck in. Unlike before this was a gentle vision where she could feel love and acceptance
A lady with very gentle eyes and a kind smile stood in front of her. “I have been waiting over 2000 years for you to come here. Astucia a lady of discerning tastes and a power that not even your sire can stop. You are what my vision showed, a lady who had humanity though was embraced who could read your memories and soul with a touch. You must come to Portugal and find me. Remember my name. Ashlana.”
The vision stopped and she remembered now the legends about the abilities of those Ancients who had disappeared. She hadn’t heard of The Seven until recently and now she wanted to destroy them all.
She walked out and said “We need to go to Portugal. We will meet The Vampire Goddess there and then we can go to the next step.”
———
They had got to Portugal and she went to her Ancestral home. It was out in the further reaches of Portugal. They were part of the Azores on Mount Pico.
Her home was a fairly large Mountain Villa. She opened the door and looked around. It was the same as she remembered it from when she was a child. “This can’t be, no one has lived here for over a century. When I first was embraced I came back here, my family was long gone.”
“Welcome home Astucia.”. said a very warm voice. She turned quickly and saw a beautiful lady that looked to be approximately mid twenties.
“Thank you Vampire Goddess”
Mireille quickly fell to her knees and began to bow to The Goddess “It’s an Honour”
“Enough. You are most welcome in the House of Astucia. Yes, I know that you own this place. I have protected this place with magic for many years. My magic has sustained this place the way it has always been for your family. No more Goddess comments either my name is Ashlana”
“Thank you. I haven’t been here since I was first embraced. Ashlana, how did you know of this place?”
She smiled “That is a simple answer with complicated repercussions. The simple thing is that you are a member of my family. Your grandfather fell in love with a Portuguese lady and moved here. Your father stayed here and because of what happened he had this place created as a hiding place. “
“What?”
She laughed “You were one of my last mortal relatives. No one was supposed to know or embrace my family. Unfortunately no one has known of you which is why you were never protected. That is why your gift is so strong.”
She laughed and Ashlana sent them all to bed as tomorrow would start another day. It was also the day that the war would be coming home to the Pico Mountains.
Crazy Canadian Writing 