And when a game piece was crushed, he felt nothing. Certainly not remorse.
I didn’t question too deeply, though, for I knew it was in his nature.
As it was in mine.
We couldn’t help ourselves. And heaven pity the poor humans caught in our endless bloody ‘game,’ for we certainly didnot. We allowed cities to be built up, knowing that a hundred or two years later, we’d be back to raze them to ash again.
It was just what we did. What we were made for.
Mehmed II was conquering the world at that time, for Father had not yet turned on him and soured things as he inevitably always did with his favorites.
But at the Battle of Vaslui in what is now Romania, we met a surprise that made even me pause.
We had far superior numbers—one hundred and twenty thousand to their forty thousand. A massacre in the making. With Romulus helming our strategy, we’d foreseen their planned ambushes. We were confident of our victory, arrogant even. My brothers and I went in amongst the armies with our usual swagger, strengthening our numbers and weakening our opponents.
Then our troops began falling at alarming speed.
Not just falling—being slaughtered. Cut down like wheat.
Romulus and I kept swapping back and forth—him trying to strategize our way out of the suddenly losing battle, me fighting with all the bloodlust in my heart. Each switch more frantic than the last.
It was Layden who first alerted us to an inhuman being fighting among their ranks. One with an unending thirst that was decimating our forces.
It was no angel, though, and soon Thing—Kharon’s old nickname, back when he was just Death—was able to give us more detailed reports of those he was carrying to the plane of the dead.
They’d all died the same way. Not by crossbow, halberd, or sword.
Instead, they’d been taken from this plane by brutal gashes at their necks. The neater ones showed two fang marks, precise and surgical. Other times, throats were simply ripped out entirely,leaving ragged wounds that still pumped blood when the bodies fell.
I had clenched my two scimitars—one in each hand, the blades still wet with blood—and raced into the fighting throng, eager to encounter this thirsty being.
The battle was already lost. I could taste it in the air, smell it in the fear of our troops.
But I didn’t care.
I wanted to find it and claim its head as a trophy. Finally, a battle worth fighting. Finally, something interesting.
When I found it, though, I was surprised to discover it looked just like a man.
At first.
It moved so quickly it was difficult to track—a blur of motion flying through the ranks and ripping out throats with its bare hands. Occasionally it would pause to gulp the bright red blood before dropping the body of its latest victim like discarded rubbish.
Then it whirled toward me.
Its face cocked sideways—inhuman, predatory—as if it had sniffed out something different on the battlefield. Something that wasn’t prey.
Blood gushed like a fountain from its mouth, running down its neck and chest in rivers. It didn’t wear the uniform of our opponents. Instead, it was dressed like a peasant—rough-spun cloth soaked through with gore.
I lowered my scimitars, suddenly more curious than aggressive. “What are you?” I called across the space between us.
It looked directly at me, obviously seeing past my rune shield of invisibility like it wasn’t even there.
I’d barely finished my words before it launched itself at me in attack.
So fast. Faster than any human could move.
I easily brought up my scimitars—my reflexes honed over thousands of years—but my blades clashed against flesh as hard as stone when I struck.
