“He ordered her executed for telling slanderous lies.” Mircea’s voice was winter, but what I saw in his eyes was a hate so pure it burned. “He left her writhing on a stake for days. They said she died still calling out my name. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t come.” The hand that rested so casually on his knee clenched into a fist. I stared at it, air suddenly in short supply. “Dying was a laughably inadequate punishment for his sins.”
I closed my eyes, seeing that frozen corpse again, the stiffened limbs tossed about by the freezing wind, the glazed, staring eyes. Starbursts of bloody violet flared behind my eyelids. I half rose from the chair, to do what, I don’t know. She was dead; the monster who killed her was dead. There was nothing left to do, not even a grave to visit. Nothing. I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back down, and I followed its direction blindly.
After a long moment, Mircea continued, voice as calm as if that moment of uncontrolled anger had never happened. “When I returned, Vlad realized that she had told the truth, after all, and that he had murdered my mistress. He was… concerned… that I would find out. In an attempt to keep his secret, he tracked down everyone who had known her, and put them to death.”
Painful clarity dug sharp fingers into my mind. “Everyone?”
“He hired some men to find the Gypsies who had adopted you and kill them after drugging their wine,” Mircea confirmed. “They were supposed to kill you, as well, but were too superstitious to touch a dhampir, even though you were as unconscious as everyone else. They left you where you lay, assuming you would die of exposure or starvation, with no one to care for you.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because you told me. Enough, at least, for me to discern the rest.”
“I don’t recall that conversation.”
Mircea ignored the implied question, and I was still in too much shock to call him on it. “Once your adopted family was dead, you determined to track down your real one. You arrived in time to pick through the burnt-out refuse of your mother’s village.”
“He killed her entire village on the chance she might have mentioned him to someone?”
“He knew what would happen if I found out the truth. He circulated a rumor that they had died of plague, and that he’d burnt the village as a precaution against it spreading. As I said, I did not believe him. Despite being a pathological liar, Vlad was remarkably poor at it.”
“Everyone else believed him.”
“Everyone else found it prudent not to question his word,” Mircea corrected. “But I began to investigate, and discovered there had been a child. But years had passed by then, and Vlad had killed most of the people who might have been able to tell me any details. I was left with the dilemma that had faced your mother. I had no idea where to look for you.”
“I’m surprised you bothered.” He must have known what I was. Must have realized that even if I wasn’t a raving lunatic consumed with bloodlust, I wouldn’t be happy to see him.
“Comoara mea—”
“Don’t call me that!” It was a growl, half-choked, but at least my eyes were dry.
Mircea drew me close. The warm leather of his blazer was buttery smooth against my face, and the thumb that stroked my cheekbone was gentle. “And why not? You are my greatest treasure, Dorina.” There was honey and gold in the soft tenor, and sincerity so real I half believed it. “You always were.”
Mircea could talk the sun out of rising, but he wasn’t going to distract me. “How did you find me?”
“I didn’t. Before I could begin my search, you found me.”
“Poenari.” The dream had been true, then.
“Yes. You somehow infiltrated a castle universally considered impregnable, intent on killing the man you believed was responsible for Elena’s death.”
Something stirred, like an itch on the skin of my memory. “Elena.”
“For Helen. Her family named her after Helen of Troy.”
“I don’t remember her.” Not an expression, not a tone of voice. Nothing. My recall was usually razor sharp, but not about this. Fractured pieces were the best I could manage, and that hadn’t happened without help. “Did you take that memory, too?”
“Dorina—”
“Don’t lie to me! Not about this. You altered my memory.” It was the only answer that made sense.
“Because I didn’t want to lose both of you. You were determined to kill the murderer of your mother. You had found a knife with the family crest near the remains of her home. Vlad told me later that he must have dropped it when a desperate villager attacked him. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but it was enough.”
Poking at the half-glimpsed images was like raking cold fingers through my brain, but I pushed it. I didn’t want to be told; I wanted to remember. “I didn’t get all the facts straight…. Everyone just said it belonged to the voivode.” It was a title, that of the local strongman, not a name. I had assumed Drac was my sire—I’d learned from the Gypsies that my father was a son of the old voivode—and gone looking for some revenge. But I found Mircea instead.