Eternal Night

(III) Chapter 16: The Cardinal Rule

Francesca felt a wave of horror spider-walk down her spine as her stomach dropped. Her hands covered her mouth and tears burned in her eyes. This wasn't happening. This had to be some kind of a nightmare. If she could just figure out how to wake herself up!

But the fury in Vladislaus' gaze was all too real, and the darkness that emanated from his very being like a blackened mist, the way the entire room suddenly went unnaturally cold when his gaze had fallen on her... this was no dream.

Those electric blue eyes of his were eternal, boundless, accusing, and far too bright. They saw everything and it chilled her to the bone.

"Vladislaus, I can explain," she began, but then she felt it – a powerful wave coming down that bond like an avalanche of snow and retribution. It immediately knocked her off her bearings and flooded her out in a millisecond. It was all darkness and rage and ice – ice so cold it burned, and before she even realized it had happened, his will had overpowered her and her tongue went limp in her mouth.

"Where are they?"

With the demand came a vast pressure in her mind, as if he had taken hold of her skull and was now squeezing it with his hands – yet he hadn't lifted a finger. She felt the unnatural urge to speak rise within her, but she fought it tooth and nail, shoving herself against the door that kept the answer to his query secret. Yet the weight of him... it was too much.

When she didn't answer, he took a step toward her and she watched in a blend of horror and disbelief as the room grew inexplicably dark, frost gathering around his feet as if his fury was enough to freeze the room over.

"I said, where are they?"

Frankie managed to bite down on her tongue as she struggled to hold him back from claiming full and complete control over her mind and faculties. With an exertion of will, she managed to mentally push him back just long enough to say,

"Vlad, please don't do this..."

But then that pressure in her head returned and her knees buckled from the assault.

"As your king I command you," he snarled, fangs out. "I invoke the right of sovereign. You tell me where my children are now!"

Frankie felt it hit as he uttered the words – compulsion.

He was using compulsion on her.

Tears continued to well in her eyes, but it wasn't from the horror anymore, but rather at the betrayal, that violation. Still, she bit down harder on her tongue to keep from answering, so hard that she drew blood.

"How dare you fight me on this," he snapped, suddenly in her face.

The weight of his stronger will continued to crush her until at last, she could resist no longer.

Her knees gave out and she fell to the ground at his feet with a cry as he all but pulled the words from her lips without even touching her.

"Vilkova," she wept. "They're at Vilkova."

Dracula felt the earth shift beneath his feet, an incomprehensible, otherworldly something that held him in its vice-like grip, constricting painfully as it began to set down roots in his veins, until every ounce of his blood sang – find them.

He made a move to step around her for the door when Frankie, in a surprising burst of strength, threw herself in front of him, blocking his exit.

"Vlad, don't do this!" she begged him. "Please... they're under a blood-hex – all of you are. It's Augustine. If you go to them now, they'll die!"