10 Roux

Slightly earlier...

Zion sat next to a new grave, the shovel stuck vertical out of the freshly packed dirt. Contessa, from beneath the ground, telepathically voiced her concerns. Vampires are known for their telepathy. It's how they can get into the heads of their victims as well as be quite cunning foes.

'How long do I have to stay down here again?' Contessa whined.

"You really want to question me about magic?" Zion replied.

'Who would know better than you?' Contessa wryly telepathically retorted.

"Asking won't hurry up the process." Zion replied annoyed.

'No, but I know you and how you work and you're always hiding something. You tell the truth, just not all of it.' Contessa finally showed her hand.

"If you think I'm keeping secrets, you should know that trying to get me to share them isn't a worthwhile endeavor." Zion sighed. "I promised to share only one story with you, you can't renegotiate after you've already signed the contract. I may inhabit the bodies of humans, but that's where the similarities end."

'I can't believe I have to lie in dirt overnight with this corpse.' Contessa whined again.

"Ok 1) you are literally a curse away from being a corpse yourself, don't act mighty and forget where you came from 2) that 'corpse' as you call it is the body Nyx's soul lies dormant in. She is still very much undead just like the two of us, so show some respect. 3) I explained all this in detail BEFORE you agreed to do it, you bemoaning your own choices wasn't part of the agreement. Also, don't act like you've never made one before." Zion snapped back.

'An agreement or a vampire?' Contessa asked coyly.

"Honestly, both. Do I need to remind you of the 1800s?" Zion asked.

'Well, you kind of already did. But let's just leave it at that, no specifics necessary.' Contessa quickly replied hoping to prevent any further reflection.

"Good because I was starting to feel embarrassed for you. Anyway, all 3 of us here have had our run ins with with the Fae King. As promised, I'm going to tell you mine. So if you can imagine I used to be quite a princess." Zion had grabbed a stick and started carving in the dirt.

'Kind of? Zion you are THE princess. I've never met anyone more picky about magic. I can't even show you a spell I found without you critiquing it. Nothing ever impresses you, you're too good for it.' Contessa vented.

"No, I mean an actual princess, as in my father was a king, my mother a queen." Zion picked up some of the dirt they'd carved in and cupped it in their fist. "I wasn't interested in being married off or politics. I had befriended priests (the only people I was allowed any contact with other than servants and other royals) and I became fascinated with magic. I wanted, I hoped, I thought could escape my destiny by devoting my life to it." The dirt glowed in their hand as they patted it down on the grave.

'So the Fae King was a priest?' Contessa had never learned patience in her unnaturally long life.

"No, he isn't even human. Do you want me to tell the story or not?" Zion felt newly frustrated.

'I let you bury me in the ground with a..' Contessa was interrupted.

"Do not finish that thought, Contessa." Zion sometimes had a slight complex about being a lich.

'Finish the story, Zion.' Contessa snapped back.

"So I was a natural at magic, I learned too quickly and this threatened the priests. Likewise my parents wanted me as a political bargaining chip and decided to marry me off. I decided to start stealing spell books to teach myself. Being shipped off to a foreign country as a wife I only used as an opportunity to study other kinds of magic under the guise of familiarizing myself with their customs. Being desperate and lonely I opened up a portal to another dimension." Zion looked off in the distance almost nostalgic.

'You taught yourself magic and then used it to discover another world?' Contessa was flabbergasted.

"Yeah, that's what I just said." Zion began carving in the dirt with a stick again.

'So let me guess the Fae King was there and he was impressed with what you did?' Contessa had a very presumptive mind.

"No, that's mostly false. The other realm was inhabited by a much more intelligent species. Do you know how more intelligent species view us? About the same way we view wild animals. If we're not judged an invasive threat we're seen as something best left alone because of how potentially dangerous and unreasonable we can be. The dimensional inhabitants saw me as the first thing and attacked me." Zion kept carving. "I escaped back through the portal mortally wounded. The magical discharge from opening and closing the portal was significant enough to attract the attention of the Fae King who was from yet another magical realm. He helped me heal myself and we started sharing magical techniques and spells. He helped me escape my husband and I lived in the realm of the Fae for a while. When I lived there I fell in love, but not with him. He killed my beloved out of jealousy and I devoted myself, in secret, to obtaining the key to life and resurrection to bring my lover back. A human life being very short I started to realize I was running out of time, so I escaped the realm of the Fae and used what I learned to bind my soul to a phylactery so that when my body started to wither I could just inhabit another one. That's how I met the Fae King and became a lich." Zion wiped their hand across what they had been carving, erasing it. The earth glowed for a second. Zion set the twig on fire in their hands until it dropped to ashes on the grave, pulled the shovel out of the dirt and said over their shoulder. "Ok, story time's over, see you tomorrow Contessa."