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As I try to wrap my head around this revelation, Weylen intervenes with a chuckle.
“Don’t strain yourself too much, darling. We’ve all tried to make sense of it, but it only leads to headaches.”
Do vampires even get headaches?
I redirect my thoughts to the topic at hand. “So if Weylen and Asher aren’t Ancients, how are they able to walk in daylight?”
They both lift their shirts to reveal symbols etched into their collarbones.
“When I first arrived in this land, it was long before the first men sailed their maiden voyages,” Drystan explains as he shifts on the bed to face me better. “The Powhatan were a curious people who held a sense of adventure in their souls. They were peaceful by nature. They had never seen a man such as me before. Cold to the touch, eyes of amber, and skin as white as the snowcapped mountains. I was weak when I washed ashore. They could have killed me when they realized what I was. The Powhatans had never seen a vampire before, and they didn’t have a name for me. At first, I think they believed me to be Oke, the god of evil and mischief in their culture, but in time, they saw me for what I really was.
“They called me the cold man, and for the most part, they left me alone. I helped them in their village, protected their lands, and helped them survive through the harsh winters of the East Coast.” Drystan takes a long breath and closes his eyes. There’s a sorrow that lines his face. His lips turn down in a frown, and his hands clench at his sides. The memories that he’s drawing up aren’t pleasant ones, that’s easy to tell.
“Hey.” I reach out my hand and touch his leg. He stiffens under my touch but doesn’t make a move to shove it away. “You don’t have to tell me.” As much as I would love a glimpse into the early years of surly King Drystan, I don’t want it to come at the expense of bringing back memories he isn’t ready to face.
But in true surly fashion, the man just shakes his head and continues with the story.
“It’s fine,” he assures me, opening his eyes and giving me a small, reassuring smile. There go my panties. “I don’t remember how long I stayed, but it had to be several generations. The Powhatan people never seemed perturbed by my lack of aging. They just accepted it and so did those who came after them. I had become a part of their tribe.” He lets out another long breath.
“Then the ships came.”
Weylen clears his throat. I turn to look at him. Guilt paints his face clear as day, the lines of his mistake clearly evident. “I was the first Viking king to lead my people across the great sea to even richer lands.” He runs a hand through his singed hair. “My kingdom had grown bountiful, but we’d developed a taste for raiding and pillaging. The English had gotten smart, and it had become wise to retreat from pillaging their borders, at least for a while.”
“So you sailed to the new lands,” I whisper, putting all the pieces together. “When?”
“Long before Leif Erikson and Columbus,” he states. This is what we had been discussing in the antique room before I blew it up.
“You said you were taken upon by strigoi.” I hesitate to bring the conversation back to where we were before, but I need to know.
“We’ll be talking about that later.” Weylen’s voice dips dangerously. “And yes, we were, but not at first. We banked on the shores and made our way inland. This country was nothing like the rich lands of England. All we cared for was silver and gold, and this land held none of it. But unless we gained enough supplies, we would never make it back to the shores of our homeland.
“We traveled inward in small raiding parties. Took what we wanted. Killed everyone in our path.”
“It was a bloodbath,” Drystan whispers. “The Powhatans were falling like flies. The chief did not want to make war, but there were many among them who did. They wanted justice for their fallen brothers. I was prohibited from interfering. The elders of the tribe were afraid that if their enemies knew what I could do, they would turn it on them. They believed that my blood would give them power. But that was never proven,” he continues somberly. “There was no evidence that vampire blood ingested in any quantity by a human could change their physiology.”
“But it did,” I murmur, remembering the nightmare I had. I’m not sure how the knowledge I gleaned from that scene has stayed with me, but I’m grateful it has.
With a solemn nod, Drystan’s gaze drops to the ground. “I was young and reckless,” he admits with a heavy sigh. “The eager young warriors were chomping at the bit to fight, but they were no match for what Weylen and his people brought. The Powhatan had faced their fair share of skirmishes, but nothing prepared them for the brutal battles of the white man’s land.” His voice trails off as he recalls the horrors of that time. “I made a grave mistake,” he confesses, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “In my desperation to defend our people, I allowed them to take my blood in an experiment.” He pauses, his hand trembling slightly as memories flood him. “It’s my deepest regret.” The weight of his words hangs heavy in the air, a haunting reminder of the consequences of youthful innocence and impulsive decisions.
“You created the strigoi,” I breathe, horrified.
Drystan dips his chin. Our conversation has gone full circle, and we’re back where it all started, but this time, when I look down at my hands, they’re not tingling. There is no light building within me. Nothing. It’s like I’m back to being a dead cell.
“So what does that have to do with the symbols?” I ask, realizing that while I have gained more information than I ever wanted about the Kings’ history, I still don’t know how the symbols help them move around in daylight. Do all vampires have these symbols, or just them?
“The blood had its intended effect, but everything comes with a price.” Drystan keeps going. “The Powhatan warriors were as strong as foundlings, and they, too, could not walk under the sun. Many were lost in the first few days, but there were more who survived, and when the sun dipped behind the mountains, they attacked.”
“They came in the dead of night.” Weylen picked up where Drystan left off. “The moon had turned their sun-drenched skin to snow and their eyes to the color of blood. There was no reasoning with them, no stopping them, save for cutting off their heads. They didn’t just kill. They tortured and maimed. Raped and tormented. We’d been there for many years, and a few of us had brought our offspring. They didn’t care if there were innocent babes. No one escaped them.”
“And when they were done…” Drystan’s throat bobbed. “They came for their own people.”
Is this what my nightmare was hinting at? Grégoire Saint Clair had been experimenting with vampire blood on himself. Talyssa said he was a strigoi, but that he was somehow different. Whole.
“With what was left of my people, we took up arms against them, fighting with the very people we’d been raiding for years, in order to keep the monsters from spreading further.”
“Strigoican’t make more of themselves like vampires can,” Asher explains. “But they can inseminate humans.”
Ew, that’s gross.
