Blood Is Chapter 3-2

[eiahmon]

Title: Blood Is
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Do I really have to mention that I don't own Castlevania? If I did, we would have gotten to see Julius curbstomp Dracula, the storyline would have been neatened up a bit, and Dracula and Alucard would have just HUGGED already after the reveal in Lords of Shadow 2.
Summary: Lords of Shadow Continuity: AU to Mirror of Fate and Lords of Shadow 2: Trevor wasn't the only one that had the truth of his parentage kept from him by the Brotherhood.
A/N: So I got the last chapter up just in time. Less than 12 hours later, my hard drive failed suddenly and catastrophically. I didn't lose any part of the fic itself, but I did lose all my notes on it. Thankfully, I was able to recover the drive, get my notes back, and now I bring you the next chapter.

2.

Wolfram was dead.

That single thought ran endlessly in circles in Edeline's mind as she laid in bed in the dark bedroom. Wolfram was dead. Her husband of 49 years, her rock, her light, her love. He was gone, suddenly, without warning. The moment when he had dropped his wine glass kept replaying over and over in her mind – she didn't think she would be able to stand the sound of breaking glass ever again. She had tried to catch him as he fell, but he had been too heavy, so she had been forced to watch him hitting the floor, limbs splaying out, head lolling to the side as the light faded from his eyes.

And Gabriel... Oh Gabriel. His quiet plea for his father not to leave him.. She closed her eyes and hid her face in the crook of her arm, and then she paused.

Where was Gabriel? She hadn't see him since... She sat up and tried to remember. She could vaguely recall hearing his voice, saying something. He tone had been worried and upset... What had happened? Had she been so focused on her husband that she had forgotten about her son? She needed to go check on him right away.

She swung her legs off the bed, stood up, and moved towards the door, but it opened before she could reach it, and Sonja stepped in. Edeline stopped and stared as Sonja turned and closed the door slowly and silently behind her.

"Sonja?" Edeline asked as the other woman turned to face her, wringing her hands.

"Not here." Sonja whispered. "Let's move away from the door."

"What is going on? Where is Gabriel?"

Sonja steered her over to the seating area by the fireplace and sat them down on the small couch. "Gabriel is gone." she said in a whisper.

"Gone!"

Sonja hunched down and cast a wary look about. "Lower your voice, Edeline. Speaking of Gabriel is a dangerous thing to do now."

"Gabriel is not dangerous and you know it, now stop speaking nonsense and tell me what is going on!"

"What do you think is going on!" Sonja hissed as she cast another look towards the door. "Wolfram has died, and Adelar is now Lord Cronqvist in name only while Cordrin pulls on his strings like a puppet."

Edeline seized the other woman by the arms and shook her a little. "Where is my son?"

"Gabriel... Gabriel left." Edeline felt her heart freeze. "While you were worried about Wolfram, Cordrin openly accused him of murdering his father. We were all too shocked to say otherwise, and I think Gabriel took that to mean that we agreed. He ran away, and no one knows where he went."

"Trevor? What about Trevor?"

"Gabriel took Trevor with him, and Adelar has already ordered that any sign that either of them were here destroyed. Anything that belonged to them - clothes, toys, books - was tossed into a fire earlier today. Thankfully, Gabriel's pet seems to have made it out safely, or she would have been tossed in as well, I'm sure. We all know that Adelar is saying the words, but it's really Cordrin issuing the orders, just as we always feared." Sonja hesitated, and the look in her eyes made Edeline's heart stutter. "He's ordered..." Sonja paused and took a deep breath. "He's ordered Wolfram's body destroyed."

"Destroyed! Why!"

Sonja turned to stare at the door again, and after a few minutes, she turned back, but she did not relax. "Because Gabriel gave him some of his blood, Cordrin has declared him tainted. Caleb has insisted that that is not true, but Cordrin responded to that by telling the boy to pack his bags and be out by tomorrow. If not..." She trailed off.

Edeline slumped against the back of the couch. This.. this couldn't be happening! Her husband was dead, her son and grandson were missing, her nephew was being driven out of his home, and her brother-in-law was making the rules.

"Do you know where Wolfram is?" she asked, and Sonja shook her head.

"No, I don't. Adelar does, as do the men who took him out of the room earlier, but none of them are saying anything."

Edeline nodded; that was to be expected. She then stood up and moved towards the door.

"What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"I'm going to find my husband. Then I will look for my son."

"Edeline, wait! You can't! You know what Cordrin will do!"

Edeline shook her head and walked right out the door. Cordrin wasn't important now.

It was a quick walk to the study, and she found the door closed with Sir Pershan standing beside it.

"Lord Cronqvist does not wish to be disturbed." he said with a stricken look in his eyes as she approached.

"I don't care; I am going to speak to him, and he's going to tell me where Wolfram is."

"I can't let you in there."

"Just try and stop me." Edeline strode up to the door and raised his fist to bang on it, but Sir Pershan's large hand wrapped around her slim wrist and stopped her. "Let go of me!"

Her husband's old friend cast a quick glance at the door, and then he took several steps away from it. Despite his age, he kept an iron grip on her wrist, which forced her to follow him. They finally came to a stop some distance down the hallway, and he glanced back at the door one more time before he turned to face her.

"Edeline," he said in a low tone, and the familiar address made her pause for a moment and look up at him in surprise, "we've known each other since we were children, and I need you to trust me as Wolfram once did. Things are very dangerous for you right now. You are no longer Lady Cronqvist and do not have the power you once did, nor do you have a powerful husband to shield you. If Adelar or Cordrin decide to eject you from the family, there is little that your or I can do about it. You need to keep your head down and your mouth shut if you don't want to end up on the street or worse."

"Worse?" Edeline hissed. "What could possible be worse?"

"Your son is a vampire. Your husband was given his blood. How hard would it be for Cordrin to tar you with that brush if he so chose?" She sucked in a breath as the implications hit her, and Sir Pershan gave her a sympathetic look. "I don't like it anymore than you do, but there is nothing I can do. I swore as a boy to always server Lord and Lady Cronqvist, though I never thought that it would be a puppet lord dancing on a controlling man's strings." He glanced at the door a third time and then turned back to her. "I'll have one of my men take you back to your rooms. Stay quiet, keep to yourself and hope you outlive Cordrin." He raised his head and waved someone over, and Edeline looked away from him to see another one of the guards walking up. She began to walk away, and she heard Sir Pershan whisper something to the other, followed by quick footsteps as the guard hastened to catch up with her. He said nothing as he walked her down the empty corridors, and Edeline thought for a second that the house almost seemed like a tomb. She saw no one about, and the only sounds were that of her and the guard's footsteps. They made it back to her rooms without encountering anyone else, and she thanked the man for walking her back and went to go inside, he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"Wolfram Cronqvist is in the dungeons under the house until a suitable pyre can be built." he whispered. "You are a grieving widow, pining for your husband of many years. Stay out of sight, let others think that you are too distraught to leave your rooms, and sneak down to see him tonight. Do not be seen."

Edeline froze in place as the words penetrated her mind, and she nodded slowly as the guard leaned away from her. She opened her door and went through as the man walked away, and she closed it behind her and leaned against it. A quick glance at the nearest window showed that it was still fairly early in the morning; she had hours yet to wait. With that thought, she moved over to the fireplace and sat down to try and pass the time.

******

Gabriel watched warily as the last slivers of sunlight vanished below the horizon and breathed a sigh of relief. It had been just over 24 hours since he had fled his family's home, since his father... his father... Gabriel felt his chest tighten, and he blinked his eyes and wiped them with the back of his hand. He could grieve for his father later; now he needed to worry about getting Trevor somewhere safe.

He turned and looked at Trevor, who was wound up in Gabriel's overturnic for warmth, sleeping in the ruins of the small shack he had sheltered in years ago. The roof and one of the walls had come down during the ensuing years, but enough of it remained to keep him safe from the sun during the day. He sighed again as he looked at his son. Trevor deserved so much more, but he shook that thought away as the child began to stir.

"Papa?" Trevor mumbled as he began to sit up, but there was not enough room in the collapsed shack, and Gabriel rushed forward to stop him from hitting his head.

"Hold on, Trevor, let me get you out of there." He grabbed the wool of the tunic and used that to pull Trevor out of the small cubby that they had slept in. He hefted the child up into his arms, and Trevor rubbed at his eyes.

"I'm hungry, Papa. When are we going home?"

"We'll be home soon." Gabriel said as he carefully brushed the boy's sleep tousled hair out of his face. "We'll find you something to eat then."

Trevor nodded in understanding, and Gabriel ignored the twisting of his heart as his son's head came down to rest on his shoulder. It was for the best, he told himself as he began to walk through the thick undergrowth.

He had moved faster than he had ever gone before after fleeing the house, though the longer night had helped. Before when he had left the house years ago, it had taken him three days to cross the distance between the house and the abandoned shack, but this time he had made it in a single night. That meant it would be mere hours, if that, before he reached their destination. Good, the sooner he had Trevor taken care of, the better.

That turned out to be true, as it was just before midnight when his senses detected the presence of a few hundred heartbeats close ahead of them. His heart fluttered in his chest, and he tightened his arms around Trevor as light became visible through breaks in the trees.

A sizable village had grown up around the compound where he had been raised, and he hung back in the shadows of the treeline as he made note of the locations of the darkest shadows, so he could easily slip through the area without being seen. His bright white linen undertunic would make that a bit more difficult, but if he was careful, he would be able to make it through the tightly packed cottages to Master Liam's windows without being seen. A mental command send Delilah fluttering up to a tree branch to wait as Gabriel turned to Trevor.

"Trevor," he whispered in his son's ear, "I need you to be quiet and not make a sound for a little while, all right? Can you do that for Papa?"

Trevor nodded without saying anything, and his arms tightened around his father's neck as Gabriel cautiously stepped out of the treeline and into the village. It would have been easier as a rat, but of course that was impossible with a child in his arms. He would just have to hope that no one spotted them as they moved soundlessly between patches of darkness towards the compound. He had to freeze in place and press himself back against a wall or duck into a crevice between walls once or twice, but no one seemed to have seen them as he walked up to a dark window at the back of the compound. He though briefly about knocking on the glass, but he didn't want to risk calling anyone else hearing it.

"Why are you opening the window, Papa?" Trevor asked, and Gabriel paused to look at him.
"What did I say just a few minutes ago, Trevor? I need you to be quiet."

"But Papa, this isn't -"

Gabriel gave the child a stern glare. "Hush your mouth, Trevor Belmont. Not another word." Trevor looked at him and fell silent, and Gabriel ignored the tight feeling in his chest as he opened the window and climbed up and through it. His feet touched down without a sound on the well wooden floor inside, and he recognized the study that had once belonged to Cardinal Volpe. He hadn't seen it in years, but there were a few things that hinted that the space was occupied by someone else. There were more books stacked onto the shelves and piled on top of the desk, the place had a bit more clutter and a bit more dust, as Volpe had insisted that the place be kept immaculate. Master Liam disliked disorder, but he wasn't as particular about it.

"Papa -" Trevor began, but Gabriel hissed at him as he shut the window, even as his chest tightened again at how stern he was being. He moved over to a chair in front of the desk and plopped Trevor down.

"Don't move, Trevor." he told the child as he stared down at him. "Don't move from this spot, and don't make any noise. "I'll be right back."

"Where are you -"

"What did I just say, Trevor Belmont?"

Trevor bit his lip and looked down, and Gabriel's heart twisted with pain at the glint of moisture he saw in those bright green eyes as he turned away and walked out of the room. It took him on a few seconds to find the bedroom, where he found his old teacher asleep under his fur blankets against the wall. The fireplace had burned down to coals, and he moved over to it, tossed a few more logs in, and sent the fire burning up with a thought. Master Liam was an old man, and the warmer room would be a help to him once he was out of his bed.

He turned away from the crackling fire and looked towards the bed and hesitated. It was only a few feet to cross between where he was standing and where Master Liam was sleeping. It would be a simple matter to wake his old teacher up, explain what had happened and ask him...

Gabriel swallowed thickly.

… and ask him to take care of Trevor for him, but his feet seemed rooted to the floor. The decision was taken out of his hands then, as the old man began to stir, and then he sat up in bed.

"Gabriel?" Master Liam said in confusion. "Gabriel, is that you? Why are you here?"

Gabriel didn't answer; the words died in his throat before he could speak them. He still had time. All he had to do was leave the room too fast to be seen, and Master Liam would think that he had dreamed seeing him. He didn't have to do this...

"Lord Gabriel?" Master Liam threw his blankets back, stood up, and began to cautiously approach him. Gabriel gnawed on his lip and turned his head to face the crackling fire and tried to calm his whirling thoughts long enough to give voice to them. He needed to do this. Trevor deserved so much more than to be trapped with him.

"Lord Gabriel, are you all right?"

"I'm not Lord Gabriel anymore!" he blurted out as he turned to face his old teacher. "My father..." His heart twisted, and his voice shook and cracked. "My father is dead."

Master Liam's gaze softened. "Oh Gabriel, I am so sorry to hear that." He reached out to put his hand on Gabriel's shoulder, but Gabriel stepped away from the touch. "Gabriel?"

"I need you to take care of Trevor for me." The words came out in a rush, and the room fell silent save for the flames crackling and popping in the fireplace as Master Liam stared at him with wide eyes for a few minutes before he regained his composure.

"Why Gabriel? What happened?"

"That's not important! I just need you to look after Trevor now."

"What about your family?"

"I don't have a family anymore! Now will you take Trevor or not!"

"Papa!"

Gabriel felt his heart stutter in his chest as he spun around to see Trevor standing in the doorway, looking at him with horrified eyes.

"I told you to stay in the other room, Trevor!"

"You said we were going home!"

"You are home!"

"No, I'm not!"

"Yes, you are!"

"But why, Papa?"

"Because where I go, people die! First your mother, then Claudia, then Pan, Laura, and now your grandfather! I will not have your death on my soul as well!"

Trevor wailed as he turned and fled the room, and Gabriel ignored the stinging in his eyes as he turned to face a still shocked Master Liam. "Give him your name, and make sure he forgets me. Never tell him anything about me; he doesn't need to know."

Without giving the old man a chance to answer, Gabriel used his mist form to vanish from the room and exit via the window he had come in through. He relaxed into his normal form and moved too quickly to be seen through the sleeping village until he reached the forest at its edge. Delilah chirped in greeting and fluttered down to hang from his shoulder as she always did, but he shook his head.

"I couldn't bear it if anything were to happen to you, girl." he said softly as he rubbed her head between her ears. "I need you to stay with Trevor and look after him for me. Can you do that?"

Delilah blinked her large, dark eyes at him and let out a quiet meep as her ears folded back against her head.

"I know, but it'll be safer for you, and Trevor could use a friend right now." He lowered his head to touch his nose to hers and managed a faint smile. "You have been a good and loyal friend these past few years, Delilah, but where I am going, you cannot follow." A warm, pink tongue snaked out to lick his nose, and he smiled again. "I'll feel better knowing that Trevor has you keeping an eye on him." He raised his head and gave her one last long look. "Fly Delilah."

He launched her from his arm, and she circled him once, twice, before she dipped down and brushed his hair with one wing and then flew off in the direction of the compound. He watched her fly through the village and into the open window that he had gone through as he ears picked up the sound of Trevor crying.

Gabriel turned away and closed his ears to the sound.

This is a mistake, Gabriel.

He didn't notice when he started to run away, from the compound, from the only family he had left. The further away he was, the safer Trevor would be. He ignored the burning in his eyes and the pain in his heart. He needed to get far away, so far that no one knew the name Gabriel Belmont or the story of the man that had defeated the Lords of Shadow.

This isn't the answer, Gabriel.

******

Edeline crept down the rough cut stone steps into the dungeon below the house. It was not in use, so there were no guards to worry about, but she had no doubt that that would change soon. Cordrin would start with the servants, weeding out those that still held loyalty to Wolfram, then he would move onto the guards and knights, followed by other members of the family. No doubt she was near the top of that list, and she would either end up thrown out of her home of so many years, or she would end up down here to rot until death claimed her.

She and Wolfram had often played down here as children, until Wolfram's father had made them stop, fearing that one would get lost or hurt in the poorly lit spaces. The dungeon had two levels and was a bit of a maze, and she tried to remember the layout as she reached the bottom of the stairs that led down to the first level.

If she were Cordrin, then she would have hidden Wolfram as far down in the dungeons as possible, to prevent anyone from finding him. But evidently, that hadn't occurred to him, because she found Wolfram in the upper level, not far from the stairs. Edeline was only barely able to contain her horrified gasp as she ran in through the open door.

Her husband was lying against the back wall, like he had just been dumped there without a care for dignity or respect. Their own knights wouldn't have done that, would they? His sightless eyes were staring towards the door, and what had to be Gabriel's blood had dried on his face and neck. She wasn't aware just when she fell to her knees beside him, and she reached out with a hand that trembled to touch him. His skin was cold, as cold as Gabriel's, and she yanked her hand back as bile rose in the back of her throat.

She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself for a moment and swallowed a few times, before she steadied herself with a deep breath and opened her eyes. She reached out again, but footsteps behind her made her stand up and turn around just in time to see her brother-in-law's smirk as he slammed the cell door shut. A second later, she heard the bolt slide across, locking the door from the outside.

"Cordrin!"

"You are far too predictable." he responded from the other side of the solid oak door. "If my brother's corpse is so important to you, then you can stay down here with it." He laughed quietly to himself and began to walk away, and Edeline ran towards the door.

"Cordrin, wait!"

He laughed again, and she heard him ascending the steps into the house above, followed by the shutting of the heavy door that kept the dungeon closed off. The closing of the door also shut out the faint light she had used to get down there, trapping her in the darkness with only her husband's body for company.

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Comments

[tatteredseraph.livejournal.com]

*Sobs* Oh, poor Edeline and Gabriel! :( Your cliffhangers are evil.

Glad to hear that your hardrive's sorted out and that you didn't lose your notes and the fic.

[eiahmon.livejournal.com]

Mwahahahaha!

Yes, thankfully the drive didn't suffer a mechanical failure. I can only assume that a sector went bad or a file cluster corrupted that prevented Windows from starting up. Once I popped a new drive in I ordered an enclosure that turns an internal drive into an external one, and I was able to browse the files without issue. Now I just need to make sure the drive itself is in working order, and once that's confirmed, I'm going to reformat it, and then use it to set up a RAID 1 array to prevent this from happening again.

[tatteredseraph.livejournal.com]

Good luck! :D

I hope that you don't end up losing anything, be it work or any of your fics. Computers, eh? To tweak a quote by Martial, "You can't live with them, you can't live without them."

Oh, by the way, the author demonfox (who wrote that superb 'Whole Tatters' fic), has posted a really good fic on Archive of Our Own, called 'Dedication': http://archiveofourown.org/works/4854992/chapters/11124932. It's a Sorrow-arc fic. 'Embers in her Eyes', which is also on there, is very good as well, which is SotN era.