Chapter 24

Chapter 24
"What are you looking at?" She asked me as she walked inside. I stood still in front of the mirror, observing the mark, unresponsive to her presence. She walked towards me when she was done and looked at the mark.

And then she gasped.

"What?" I asked, as I pulled the strap of the dress over my shoulder. "What is it?"

She looked aghast, almost the same way Lucien had looked when he too first saw the mark. And with that, the significance of it slowly registered itself in my mind. My heart pounded. I desperately wanted to know what it was all about.

"Bianca, what is it?" I asked her again, this time more sternly.

"No-nothing," she said and then started to walk away. "Excuse me. I have to go now. Good night!"

She started to walk away, but I knew she was the only one who could give me any real answers, so I dashed forward and stepped in front of her, blocking her path. I was an inch taller than her, and even though she was on the chubbier side, with the way I stood facing her, my eyes hard, I must have seemed forbidding.

"Bianca, you're not going anywhere until you tell me what it is," I said to her.

"But, I saw nothing," she protested, her voice sounding small for the first time since I had known her.

"Don't give me that, Bianca," I said. "You didn't see nothing. You saw something. I saw it in your eyes. You and I both know that. Don't lie to me, Bianca. Don't fucking lie to me. Tell me what it was you saw."

There was something imperious in my voice as I spoke, and I knew it, in fact, it was deliberate, but I kept it up, because I knew that was the only way to squeeze out any answer from her. It was almost like I had to remind her of the power dynamic between the both of us, and it must have felt bad for her.

"Okay, it was the birthmark," she said. "It looked quite ... peculiar."

"Peculiar how?" I said, my brows furrowed. 

"Why are you even bothered?" She asked, raising her hands in frustration. "What does it matter to you, Amara?"

"It matters if I say so, Bianca!" I said, my voice raised more than a few octaves, and then I lowered it again. "It matters. I want you to tell me about the birthmark, or the both of us will remain standing here. I swear on my dead mother."

She looked frightened. I had never raised my voice at her before, had never spoken to her in such harsh, authoritative voice, but without it, I would have gotten nowhere. And it was clearly working; she was cowed.

"It's the Blood Sigil," she finally said, her voice hardly above a whisper.

Immediately, I remembered Lucien's hysteria, how flustered he had been when he saw the mark, and what he had called the mark — the Blood Sigil — the same thing Bianca has just called it. My heart sped up in pace.

"What— what is that?"

"It's a kind of ancient mark found in vampire nobles of some sorts," she went on to explain. "I don't really know what it is, or what it's about, but I remember reading about it in some ancient text a long long time ago. If you want to know about it, you're going to have to do some digging. Or..."

She stopped talking and looked to the ground.

"Or what, Bianca?" I asked her, tipping her chin so that she was facing me again.

"Or, it's just a coincidence," she said. "Maybe it's not really the Blood Sigil. Maybe it's just an ordinary mark on your skin, and that's all. Who knows?"

"Maybe," I said, nodding, knowing that that was a poor excuse for a mark so elaborate.

"Can I go now, miss?" She asked me sardonically.

"Yeah, sure," I said, stepping aside. Just as she walked out of the room I stoped her.

"Bianca, I'm sorry," I said. "I am, really. I didn't mean to be like that to you. I was just desperate to find out what it was. But I shouldn't have spoken to you in such arrogant way. We shouldn't be like this; we should be friends."

"Of course," she answered. "It's fine, Amara."

"Is it, really?" I asked.

"Sure, we're cool," she said, and before she left, she added, "good night."

I knew, from that night on, that our relationship would be upturned and everything would change between the both of us. But for now, I had bigger problems — the birthmark on my shoulder, or the Blood Sigil, as it had twice been called.

I went back to my food, but I could hardly eat, and so even though it was delicious, I picked at it. Soon enough, I set it aside. I took my clothes off, had a bath and lay on the bed, thinking. It was well into the night by now, almost midnight, and the night air just outside my window was chilly and alive with the sound of night creatures.

I fell asleep with my hand on my shoulder as I mulled over the mystery, but my mind gave me no respite in my slumber. When I closed my eyes, I saw myself sitting atop a hill, overlooking a battle field. There was great fighting and a loud noise, but up there on the hill, I was very composed, even watching the fight with some thrill. Just then, one of the soldiers from the other side sped towards the side I was on. Men fell in her wake. She stood just below the hill and pointed at me with a sword, shouting something unintelligible.

"What?" I shouted back. "I can't hear you."

Her voice was drowning in the din of the battle, but I strained my ears to listen to her and soon enough I heard her. She was saying, "come take this sword, now is your time to fight!"