The large writing desk was full of scrolls of parchment, quills, inkwells and letters. This place looked a lot like a part of a movie set of Hogwarts, I realised, and looked behind me half-expecting Professor Snape materializing out of thin air, telling me to turn to page three hundred and ninety-four. Not that it would help me much, as that particular page was supposed to deal with werewolves, and not vampires. I laughed; if Katerina thought I was losing it, maybe she wasn't completely wrong.
Still giggling I moved a few things around the desk to make space for my book. Then I froze, all mirth forgotten. My eyes fell on a book that lay half-hidden under a pile of opened letters. I brought it closer, a shiver running down my spine. This was weird. It couldn't be. But it was. Bram Stoker's Dracula. Not my battered paperback copy, but, as its first page informed me, a first edition, published in London by Archibald Constable and Company in May, 1897. But how? We were in fourteen hundred and something here... It seemed that with every step I took around the castle I was burying myself deeper in its mysteries.
I had no idea how long I sat there, staring at the book in front of me, caressing its spine with my finger.
Shaking my head I slid the book gently back in its place.
I stood up, stretching my stiff limbs and decided to abandon the library.
I walked into Vlad's chamber, hoping to clear my thoughts and make some sense of... something... anything. Or at least to find something to draw my attention from this new enigma.
The room was as warm and welcoming as my own now, a lively fire burning in the great fireplace. There was a large painting hanging above it, which I had failed to notice in the morning, distracted as I had been. I glanced towards the bed, blushing at the memory, then started to walk towards the painting, and paused in my tracks.
I was looking at myself and Vlad from some six hundred years ago. It was a mind-blowing realisation. Six hundred years have passed since then, more less. A small inscription on the golden frame confirmed my estimate. The painting was dated, 'Spring, 1460'.
I hadn't changed much, I had to admit. I was still slim and quite short, arriving up to Vlad's shoulder. My hair was the same, curly, long, unruly copper coloured chaos, but tied up as Katerina liked it, with only a few stray locks flowing free around my face. Even my silvery, curious eyes were looking back at me from the painting, from above the sprinkling of annoying freckles covering my pale nose and cheeks. The dress depicted in the picture was the one I was wearing right now. That, and Vlad's serious face and the protective way in which his arms were folded around me, told me that the portrait was from our wedding day.
I couldn't take my eyes off the painting for a long time, hit by a flood of new memories. They were too many, coming back too fast to try to understand them all at the same time. And they were not all good. I shivered and decided not to think about any of them right now.
Finally I walked to the window overlooking the courtyard, just in time to see Vlad mounting a black horse, Midnight!, and riding away with a group of his guests and a few knights.
"Your chamber is ready now, Lady Samara." Katerina announced, entering the room and joining me by the window.
"Where are they going?" I asked her, nodding to the group in the courtyard, suddenly sad at seeing him leaving.
"Nowhere far, surely. They like... hunting," she murmured darkly, the tone of her voice disapproving. "Your husband promised you he would be back tonight and he will keep his promise. You don't have to worry about anything else." She said more cheerfully, making me feel better. "Now come. The maids were too slow this morning and it's nearly time to think about your lunch. The cook is excited to have someone here to cook for except for the maids and servants, she is expecting your orders, my lady."
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