Distant taps of her stumbling feet stirred the silence of the room, the sound whooshing in made people part like red sea as they moved back almost tripping over their own feet to hurriedly step away from the chained ‘witch’ getting dragged by her hair towards the altar.

’They were not scared of a vampire because he had never harmed them but they’re scared of getting close to me—­a human, because they think I’ve started the killing spree since I stepped in here.’

The thought made her want to laugh with disdain.

She had been standing behind the silver doors, doing a poor attempt at hiding herself in the shadows; this was her motive, trying to be found without being too obvious of her intentions. It was not long before someone from the crowd witnessed her bright red cotehardie peeking out of the corner of the door. Everything after that happened in a flash. There was some yelling, rustling of chains, sensation of a tight grip on her wrist and before she knew it, someone had wrapped a chain around her neck, hauling her inside the room.

“Here is the witch!”

The man holding her by her hair practically screamed as he yanked her head up almost pulling her hair out of their roots.

“Worshippers of Devil!”

She vaguely heard someone hollering in the background but her mind was too distracted to comprehend the meaning behind it. Every person in there seemed to have melted into darkness as if a long black curtain had been cast between her and them.

‘Ares…’

The memory from when she had first met his stone built sprung to life as her teary gaze fell on his body. Blood pooling around his feet had formed a scarlet boundary resembling the outskirts of a bloodied warzone. He was kneeling on the ground, his slacks loosely hanging down his body. His shirt had been torn to shreds, exposing his flesh to the burning sensation of silver chains snaking all over his body. Numerous cuts, some fresh, some already in the process of healing were scattered all over his torso, concealing the paleness of his skin. They appeared to be maggots residing in the decaying flesh of a corpse.

Her heart sank as her gaze continued sliding up his frame, stopping to rest on the blood trickling down his jawbone. His head which had been hanging low had shot up upon hearing the man’s call making their eyes meet.

Surrounded by patches of fresh and dried blood, his eyes seemed to be a pair of lone islands getting swallowed by a crimson sea with every passing moment.

His lips had remained but his eyes were speaking volume. He had done this all to save her yet here she was, rendering all his efforts pointless.

“Stake them!”

Impulsively, her arms shot out in a protective stance as the man clutching her hair tossed her to the side. A burning sensation erupted in the skin of her palm as she grazed her hands in the process of hugging one of the pillars to break her fall.

“Leave her!”

Every being in that room halted for a second as the tall walls of the castle shook with the angry vampire’s roar. Whipping her head back, she saw him struggling to free himself of his chains but the harder he tried to pull away, the harder the silver dug inside his burnt flesh.

“Chain the witch immediately!”

Her eyes stayed glued to vampire wrestling to get out of his chains as the sensation of grappling was soon replaced by that of a cool metal pressing against her skin. They were binding her to that pillar with silver chains yet she made no signs to oppose their actions. Her eyes were unable to see anything but his green irises, her only source of warmth in that cold black dungeon.

“Faith,”

She felt like she had slipped inside one of her nightmares again. The scene before her was playing out just as it started out in her dreams. A shackled bloodied man, kneeling in front of her, asking her of things she had never done.

His head was hanging low and his shoulders were shaking as if he were crying but she knew he was not. He was furious. He felt helpless.

“Why did you do it, Faith? Why?!”

Her very first dream from when she took a train to East Sussex had materialized right before her eyes. Her worst nightmares were coming to life.

‘But I had this nightmare before Ares and I shared a bond. This couldn’t be from his memories.’

Before she was fully able to piece it together, low murmuring broke out through the crowd.

“It did not harm her flesh.”

“She must have used magic.”

“Witches can return from the afterlife unless they are burnt. We ought to burn them.”

“Burn them!”

“Burn them!”

“Burn them!”

The howls had turned into loud chants making it appear as if they were performing some kind of a ritual.

Neither Ares nor she uttered a single word in response to fuel their madness. Ares only tightened his hold on his chains. She could tell by the way his hands were trembling that he was having a hard time controlling the animal inside him.

‘The thought of shouldering the death of an innocent soul is more burdensome to him than staying captured as a statue for centuries.’

Suddenly a strange smell of burning charcoal mixed with a faint trace of olive oil wafted through her nostrils making her tear her gaze away from the vampire,

‘Hay?’

In her haste, she had failed to notice that the latter group had continued filling the corners of the room with hay and charcoal, probably to aid their intentions of burning the castle.

‘So this is why the nightmares I suffered from always appeared so dark and gloomy.’

“There have been sightings of King’s messenger coming after the lord. Hurry!”

‘King’s messenger?’

Scuffling of their feet was soon drowned in the background as she found herself recalling the information she had read from the book, “Lords of the Medieval Times.”

It came as a huge shock when his castle caught fire in early 1450/AD. No one knew how it happened. The King sent his men there to investigate but nothing was found. Not even the body of the Lord. In 1453, The King became mentally unstable and the case was closed.

‘Is this how the King found out? Through the messenger he had sent after Ares.’

By now almost everyone had evacuated the room; they had gathered outside the silver doors peering inside with an uncanny interest. She could tell it was all a sort of entertainment for them. They were deriving pleasure from it.

‘Animals.’

Through the thin layer of tears blurring her eyes, she saw a short, old villager pause and look back inside the room where they were kept restrained, his facial expressions slowly morphing into that of disgust. She recognized him as the man who had killed the vampiress, Ares’ original beloved.

Her brimming eyes suddenly widened as she realized what the man was about to do,

“No…”

“Burn in hell!”

Her whisper was drowned by his loud holler as he tossed his torch into the piles of hay, setting them on fire.