Chapter 71: Without the Princess

  Her master had told Tessa that vampires could eat normal food, but that they needed lifeforce from time to time to truly sustain themselves. Tessa had more or less come to the conclusion that this was because lifeforce prolonged her own existence, since she was undead after all, and that was probably what she needed. Still, she had no real grasp of what lifeforce actually was.

  When she had first awakened as a vampire and killed her boss, she had been in some kind of blood frenzy, barely able to think. Later, when she hunted with Vessikar in the forest, it had been different. Every kill had made her feel more like herself again. It helped her think more clearly, and in the end, it even made her feel more human.

  The blood of those creatures had tasted like candy, like divine honey, the best thing she had ever tasted. But it still stayed within a boundary. It was hard not to eat more, but it felt like just an incredibly tasty snack. You could consciously decide that you didn’t need more and be mature enough not to wipe out an entire forest just because it tasted good.

  But when Tessa consciously drank the blood of a human for the first time, she knew she was fucked.

  There was no real word to describe how it tasted, or what it changed in her. It hadn’t even been a real decision to feed on him. At first, she had just been angry. Angry at him and everything he stood for. Angry at a world that loved to laugh at the helpless and the weak. Angry at people who took whatever they wanted for their own pleasure, no matter the consequences for others.

  Her body moved almost on autopilot, and it surprised her how fast she was. One moment she stood facing him, and the next she was behind him, her claws piercing deep into his legs. His scream was satisfying to her, and when she pulled her claws free, blood sprayed in a beautiful, wide arc across the snow.

  She didn’t even notice when her intent shifted. Somewhere between the first strike and his scream, her plan had changed from simply killing him in her anger to taking everything from him.

  In the next moment, she stood in front of him again, looking directly into his eyes. Not the construct of veins and blood vessels she had seen before, but the man himself. His dark eyes were wide with fear, and she could almost taste it. Instinctively, her gaze was drawn into them, and as she focused on his stare, she felt something snap, like a fragile mental barrier breaking. As a strange connection formed between them, while the world around them began too seemingly slow down.

  At first, the snowflakes drifting around them slowed until they froze in place. Then the wind died. Even the cloud of breath that had just left his mouth hung motionless in the air. Time itself seemed to hold its breath around them.

  In a last, desperate attempt to resist, he tried to stab her. She barely registered it. She caught his wrist mid-motion and broke it with a smooth, effortless twist.

  The pain shattered the last of his resistance. The connection between them deepened, and suddenly she could hear him screaming inside his own head. She felt his emotions flood into her. Fear. Panic. Regret. Desperation. It was nauseating, overwhelming, and at the same time intoxicating. A sensation of absolute dominance washed over her.

  She knew then that he couldn’t escape. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t even disobey. She could free him if she wanted. She could command him, use him, torture him and break him, or she could make him a slave. But she had already made up her mind.

  She ignored his voice, pleading inside her head for a life that had already been forfeited, and she fed.

  His blood hit her tongue, and it was no longer sweet. The blood of sapient beings carried something else within it. It was heat, spice, and a surge of vibrant energy, like swallowing a spark that was still trying to ignite into fire. She tasted memories in it, fear and greed and the cheap thrill of power.

  As she gulped, she felt his greatest joy and his greatest loss. For a single moment, she relived the excitement of his youth, when he had first become an adventurer, and at the same time, the sick desires he had always harbored toward his female teammates. She didn’t stop until there was nothing left to extract from his now-lifeless body.

  Her body warmed, her vision cleared again, but her hunger didn’t fade. Animal blood had filled her with the lifeforce she needed. Sapient blood had begun to rewrite her soul. It was a strange and terrifying realization. She drank until he went limp, and even then, she wanted more. She could feel his former strength becoming part of her, at least temporarily, sinking into her bones and veins.

  The experience was so overwhelming that she wanted to relive it immediately, to chase that feeling again without hesitation. Only a small, stubborn fragment of her mind warned her that this was a terrible idea.

  And that fragment was enough. It made her grab onto Vessikar and force herself to move, to get away from the streets and toward the inn, toward the teleportation circle and her master. Because she wasn’t a mindless monster. Tessa refused to become something like that. No. She was still Tessa.

  So, when the circle didn’t activate, she knew this would be one of the most difficult nights of her life. She could feel something inside her trying to take over, and with every passing moment it became harder to suppress. Somewhere in the future, she might be strong enough to truly stand in control of her own desires. But everything was still new, and she knew that sooner or later she would lose ground and give in, following instincts that were now screaming at her. They demanded that she hunts. That she feeds. That she takes more sapient blood. To become more. To become whole.

  Luckily, Vessikar agreed to lock her in. Because Tessa also knew something else all too well. If she followed those desires now, she wouldn’t become their master. In the end, she would become their slave. And that was something she refused to accept. She might be more than her former human self now. She might even be at a point where she could decide over life and death. But she didn’t want to become someone who killed simply because she could. She wanted to stay Tessa. And she wanted to remain in charge of herself.

  …

  …

  The night passed for Tessa like a strange, fractured dream. At first, she still had herself barely under control, but with every second she didn’t taste human lifeforce again, she grew more restless. Eventually, she tried to run out of the room. But Vessikar was there the entire time.

  It was strange how she was fully aware that she was acting purely on instinct, yet still couldn’t stop herself. It felt as if her body was moving on its own, disconnected from her will. By the next morning, the effects of the mortal blood in her system were finally fading, and she couldn’t remember the details of the night clearly anymore, only that every attempt she had made to leave had been stopped by Vessikar.

  When she finally regained full control over her body and mind, pale morning light had already filtered into the room. She was laying on the bed in Lilithia’s suite, her chest rising and falling as she panted softly, exhausted and painfully aware of what she had barely managed not to become.

  The demon was hanging from the ceiling, watching her from above. She looked back at him, chest rising and falling as she panted softly.

  “I’m fine… I’m… me again…”

  He dropped down silently and walked toward her, his head tilted in faint curiosity. He stopped at the edge of the bed and studied her for a moment.

  “Ah… Yes. The sun rises, blessed child. Our agreement is fulfilled. We may leave now.”

  Tessa slowly rose, while she felt tired to the bone. The night before still weighed heavily on her, and she felt like she desperately needed sleep after everything that had happened. But there was no time for that now. She could finally think clearly again.

  Slowly, she began to recapitulate the night in her head as she stood up. It was another new experience. After all this perfect memory shit, she now had fuzzy memories of last night. To be precise, they were almost the only fuzzy memories she had at all. The only other time this had happened was when she had awakened as a vampire and killed her boss.

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  So, when I get into some kind of blood frenzy, I can’t remember afterward what I was doing? Gods… that’s even worse than I thought…

  She moved past Vessikar and opened the curtains of the suite, looking down onto the main road. Outside, a thick layer of snow covered the street, but the people of Tiara were already awake, shoveling the road and clearing paths through the white.

  While watching them, she remembered why she was still here in the first place. She turned around and walked back through the suite toward the teleportation circle, the same one that had failed to activate yesterday.

  Maybe I was already too compromised back then, she thought.

  “Vessikar, come here,” she said. “Let’s try the circle again.”

  The demon stepped into the circle beside her as Tessa focused and whispered, “Activate,” forming the rune her master had shown her in her mind before pushing mana into the circle. Again, nothing happened.

  She sighed. “I know I said yesterday that it was deactivated from the other side, but honestly, I don’t really know how this thing works in the first place. So maybe it’s my fault?” She looked at him. “Vessikar, do you know?”

  The demon lowered his head, inspecting the circle closely. He sniffed the air, traced parts of it with his gaze, and after a short while looked up again, an amazed grin on his face.

  “I have never seen a construct like this,” he said.

  “Ah, sure…” Tessa sighed. “And Lilithia is still out of your range?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “The Princess is still far outside the city. I can’t track her.”

  “Of course…” Tessa muttered. “So, we also have no idea how to get back to the mansion, right?”

  “The mansion?” Vessikar tilted his head.

  “Ah… right. You’ve never been there,” she said, waving it off. “Forget it. Still, the fact that we have no way to contact my master is… concerning.”

  She sighed again as an image of Lilithia surfaced in her mind, handing her the five platinum crowns and saying for emergencies while making that oddly playful grimace. That reminded her why she had parted from her in the first place.

  “Oh, shit…”

  She looked back at Vessikar. “You mapped the tunnels under the city yesterday, right?”

  He nodded proudly. “Yes indeed. There are exactly twelve main tunnels, splitting into thirty-five variants. If you follow—”

  Tessa raised a hand to stop him. “It’s fine. Since we don’t know when Master will appear again, let’s go to the town hall and see if we can find this Gideon. We should report the tunnel system to him, like she wanted us to do in the first place yesterday. And after that… maybe we’ll know more.”

  Vessikar nodded enthusiastically. “Of course! Let us walk through the mortal streets together!”

  Tessa paused at that, eyeing him.

  “Maybe it’s better if you stay a bit more… hidden,” she said carefully.

  Vessikar straightened and nodded again without complaint. “As you wish, blessed child.”

  After they left the inn, Tessa walked down the long main street, while Vessikar followed her from above, moving across the rooftops. It was still early when she reached the town hall, but she was let inside without any trouble. The guards at the entrance recognized her from the previous day and stepped aside without asking any questions.

  Inside, Tessa went directly to the mayor’s office, since it was the most logical place for her after having spent almost half of the previous day there already. When she entered, she walked to the window, opened it, and let Vessikar inside. Then, after a short moment of hesitation, she sat down in the mayor’s chair. Lilithia wasn’t here, but Tessa was her representative as her apprentice, and it would have felt strange to wait beside the empty chair instead. So, after taking her seat, she called for the servants and instructed them to inform the officials that she wished to speak with them, especially Gideon, and that she would wait there.

  While they were waiting, Vessikar explored the room with open fascination, inspecting furniture, walls, and windows as if it were all part of some strange exhibit. When he suddenly mentioned that they were about to arrive, Tessa asked how he knew.

  “I can feel Thirra approaching,” he said calmly. “She is with the mortals.”

  Before Tessa could ask anything else, there was a knock on the door.

  Gideon entered first, followed by two other nobles. When they saw Tessa sitting in the mayor’s chair, they froze for a brief moment. Then, without hesitation, all three bowed deeply in her direction, offering her proper respect.

  Tessa felt a flash of embarrassment, but there was no way to back out now. Lilithia, or rather Lysaria, had officially established her role as the apprentice of the Princess the day before, so Tessa forced herself to pull it together. Appearances mattered, after all, and being undead thankfully made it easier to mask her emotions.

  Having Vessikar standing beside her helped as well, lending the whole situation a more official air. When the nobles first noticed him, there was a brief moment of visible unease, but they recovered quickly, masking their reactions behind polite composure. Vessikar then explained the tunnel network beneath the city, outlining its structure and extent. Afterward, Gideon and the other two nobles began discussing how to handle the situation, their conversation shifting toward logistics and responsibility.

  After Tessa finished her task, she started to take her leave, but Gideon stopped her. He explained that the guilds had demanded an audience. Because they felt excluded by the recent changes, since no official representative of the new empire had spoken with them yet. More specifically, they wanted someone who could speak on the princess’s behalf. They were dissatisfied with being ignored and felt deliberately sidelined. At the same time, they didn’t want to upset the princess, since her takeover—at least for the moment—was still very much on their minds.

  And as much as Tessa wanted to leave, she had little choice. Her master still hadn’t appeared, and whether she liked it or not, she was the one most qualified to name Tiara as the princess’s official representative. So, she nodded and agreed.

  The meetings with the guild representatives lasted for the rest of the day. Not only the Adventurers’ and Mages’ Guilds were present, but also the Merchant, Mercenary, Craftsmen, and Alchemy Guilds. Every group had complaints or concerns about the takeover. Taxes, responsibilities, how their members would be treated, and how things would be handled in the future were discussed again and again.

  For each meeting with a different guild representative, different nobles were present as well, each bringing their own perspective and experience into the discussion. Tessa let Gideon and the other nobles do most of the talking. After all, only a few days ago, she had been nothing more than a counter girl, and she had absolutely no real understanding of politics. Still, her almost absolute memory helped her more than she expected. She could follow the discussions, make quick connections, and draw fast conclusions, even if she didn’t always fully understand the broader implications yet. It was learning by doing, nothing more and nothing less.

  At the very least, no one talked down to her. The guild representatives remained mostly respectful throughout the meetings. Even if she wasn’t particularly useful beyond acting as a figurehead, she listened carefully and memorized everything. Once her master finally reappeared, Tessa intended to report it all. Not just summaries, but every detail, with every word that had been spoken.

  When the last guild representative finally left, Tessa excused herself as well and made her way back toward the inn, with Vessikar following her once more. After the now familiar walk from Government Square along the main street, she reached the inn again and opened the main entrance with a pang of sadness. The door had been damaged more and more over the last few days, and now it clattered loosely, swinging open and shut with every draft. Stepping inside, she found the lobby much as she had left it. Once almost noble in appearance, it was still stained with dried blood. Several chairs and tables were broken or overturned, and the entire place felt hollow and wrong. Tessa slowed her steps. She had spent a good part of her life here. Seeing it like this, ruined and neglected, made something ache inside her chest. It wasn’t nostalgia exactly, but it still hurt.

  She climbed the stairs toward the suite Lilithia still occupied, turning the problem over in her mind. She should do something about it later—she just didn’t know what yet. Still, leaving it like this felt wrong.

  When she finally entered the suite, she let out a quiet sigh and spoke to Vessikar in a tired voice. “It’s still concerning that we haven’t heard anything from the Princess.”

  Vessikar tilted his head slightly and shrugged. “The Princess is a great warrior,” he replied calmly. “She is probably hunting a truly massive prey.”

  Tessa rubbed her eyes, stifling a yawn. “Maybe, but I don’t think that’s it…” She lowered her voice. “It seems I still need rest, even though I’m undead. So… I’m going to try to sleep for a bit.”

  She walked to the bed, hesitated, then glanced back at Vessikar. “You can rest too, if you want.”

  “I don’t require sleep, blessed child,” the demon replied immediately. “But I will watch over your rest.”

  Before she could say anything else, he tilted his head once more and leapt up, claws digging effortlessly into the ceiling as he settled there, hanging upside down.

  “Of course you don’t need sleep,” Tessa muttered, rolling her eyes as she pulled her coat off and dragged her dress over her head before finally crawling into the bed. “Totally not creepy at all, being watched by a demon hanging from the ceiling…”

  She paused, then huffed softly. “Honestly, that’s probably the least concerning thing right now.”

  And with that thought, exhaustion finally claimed her, and she fell asleep.

  …

  …

  “Blessed child!”

  Tessa kept her eyes closed. “What…?” she mumbled, pulling the blanket further over her head. She was definitely not a morning person, especially not after finally getting real sleep.

  “Blessed child, you need to wake up!”

  She groaned and forced herself upright, blinking blearily. When her vision cleared, Vessikar was standing in front of her bed. Beside him hovered a grey, half-transparent version of himself.

  “Blessed child!” Vessikar repeated urgently. “It’s an emergency!”

  Still groggy, Tessa squinted at the second figure. “Who’s… that?”

  “My Ashen Clone,” he said quickly. “It has returned from a scouting mission. The mortals who killed Ekkra are coming back. With reinforcements.”

  “What?” Tessa rubbed her face hard. “Who killed Ekkra? Reinforcements? Wait—how long did I sleep?”

  “Two days.”

  She froze.

  “…Two days?” Her eyes snapped fully open. “TWO DAYS?! And you didn’t wake me up? And Lilithia—she’s still not back?”

  Vessikar tilted his head. “Why would I wake you when nothing happened? And no, the Princess has not returned yet.”

  “Why would you—” She cut herself off with a sharp breath. “Forget it. Just tell me everything.”

  She swung her legs off the bed, yanked the curtains fully open, and began pulling on her clothes, all remaining sleep burned away by adrenaline.