The Tea . . . Party?

"Welcome, Lady Christina," The vampire Queen Vasilisa said from the tea table as Chris entered the oldfashioned looking parlour.

"Just Christina is fine," Chris replied politely.

"Sure. Please, have a seat," Queen Vasilisa smiled.

Chris sat down opposite to Queen Vasilisa on a big round table. On one side of Vasilisa, there was Prince Oziyat and on the other side was a middle-aged man, who wore expensive blue robes and more jewellery than the Queen. There were also many guards, including Gweneth and a few servants were standing around. As soon as Chris sat down, one of the servants came forward and filled a cup with tea and offered it to Chris.

"Thank you," Chris said without touching the tea.

"So, I think we should do the introduction first," Vasilisa took a sip of her tea and gestured the men beside her. "This is my son Prince Volker and this is my youngest son Prince Oziyat."

Prince Volker, the middle-aged man with loads of jewellery gave a stiff nod towards Chris. Chris nodded back, noting the frown and disgusted look on his face. Prince Oziyat, on the other hand, smirked a little bit when his eyes met Chris'.

"This is all nice, Queen Vasilisa, but --" a loud grunting noise from Prince Volker interrupted Chris. She looked at him questioningly but before he could say anything the Queen spoke to his son reassuringly, "Its fine, Volker."

Chris didn't understand what was going on, she just stared at the angry Volker for a moment then started again. Maybe she had broken some royal rules, so better safe than sorry.

"Look, I'm sorry if I said or did something wrong, but seriously I need to know what's in the south-east part of your forest. I need to go there. This is extremely important," Chris said clearly.

"So you think we don't know it's importance? Are you trying to say we are stupid?" Volker growled.

Honestly, Chris thought, he was behaving like a stupid person. She was talking about something else and he was dragging it to god knows where.

"No of course not, I am just saying how important this is to me," Chris said frowning. "I am travelling for a long time for this destination. I simply need some answers, that's all."

"Of course, we understand, Lady Christina," said the Queen. "I will try to answer your questions as much as I can. Please ask."

"But mother, she --" Volker began looking more furious.

"At least, let her ask the questions first, brother, before you start accusing her motives," Oziyat said cutting Volker off. His voice quiet and smooth.

As the brothers looked at each other Chris could feel the tension around them. Volker looked pissed as Oziyat regarded him coolly. Finally, Queen Vasilisa cleared her throat loudly and the Princes looked at her. Vasilisa gave them two critical looks, which made Chris think that there was much more going on between these royal vampires. Vasilisa looked at Chris expectantly and Chris nodded.

"So, how do you know Malgino," Chris said and there was a sharp intake of breaths all around the room. The only calm-looking persons were the Queen and Oziyat.

"Well, I didn't hope to answer this question first," Vasilisa paused looking at Chris, maybe hoping to change her first question but Chris remained unaffected. Disappointed Vasilisa looked at her teacup and spoke, "But if you want to know it first then. . . very well, Malgino . . . was one of the most trusted wizards once among vampires."

Volker gave an unpleasant grunt and Oziyat observed Chris' expression to see if she looked surprised, but Chris now knew better than anyone about how charming and manipulative Malgino could be, so she barely moved after hearing this revelation.

"At that time, vampires lived freely with the wizards and witches, primarily because we both were hiding their true nature from nonmagical humans. It was hard as the vampires had to drink human blood to survive and so we couldn't live very from them," Vasilisa continued. "And the wizards and witches preferred living among them, so they helped each other a lot. In fact, a few wizards and witches got so close to our kind that, many of them were in the inner-circle of the ancient vampires and they were entrusted with many vampire secrets, related to our magic, bloodline, . . . immortality."

'Just what he wanted,' Chris thought gritting her teeth. But when she spoke, her voice was calm, "So, I guess, Malgino was one of those wizards who knew your secrets?"

"Yes," Vasilisa gave a bitter smile. "But that wasn't all, as you have understood by now, even though vampires and wizards always had different opinions about their hiding situation, they also had a good understanding between them. Vampires believed the wizards and wizards respected vampires. It was nothing like the situation now, where vampires had to choose a colony and live there all their lives there, while the wizards and witches ruled the world, including the nonmagical humans. . ."

Chris wanted to object about her last comment but let ut go, for now.

"But before all of this, we lived together. It was probably one thousand years ago, a bunch of knights and villagers attacked a colony full of wizards and vampires. Many vampires wanted to fight but most of the wizards thought it was better to run away. Wizards and witches didn't want much bloodshed but the vampires were not ready to hide again. They were tired of this. Many wizards and witches, who had good relationships with vampires, stayed and helped them, while the others fled," Vasilisa took a deep breath. "Malgino was one of the wizards, who decided to stay and fight alongside the vampires. He was a gifted wizard, everyone knew that, so many believed that because of him the knights lost the battle quickly and Malgino won the vampires' ultimate trust. He and a few other wizards and witches became the most trusted among ancient vampire. They were sworn to secrecy, so the vampires weren't much worried about them. And the other wizards and witches truly respected our kind but then Malgino did something so unexpected and disrespectful! He stole the most important part of vampire heritage."

Chris waited for Vasilisa to elaborate but she remained silent glaring at nothing in particular. After a very long pause, Chris decided to speak, "What did he steal?" Chris instantly regretted asking that, because as soon as the words left her mouth all eyes in the entire room turned to look at her. Some looked horrorstruck and others looked at her coldly. Specially Queen Vasilisa, who looked so icy as she turned her gaze at Chris that Chris almost thought the temperature of the room had suddenly dropped to minus.

"I think, that's enough for today," Oziyat tried to break the tension in the room. "Mother, you should go and rest. We can continue this conversation tomorrow."

"But --" Chris was about to protest that she didn't have that much time but Oziyat gave her a sharp look and she stopped.

"Alright," Vasilisa stood up and everyone rose up with her, even Chris. "We will meet again, Lady Christina. Until then you are welcome to stay here. As long as you like. You are our special guest, after all."

The way Vasilisa emphasised on the word "guest" spoke a lot about the boundaries Chris had to follow if she wanted to stay here.

After Vasilisa left with some guards followed by Volker, Oziyat offered to walk Chris back to her room. Chris accepted, mostly because it could be a chance to get some answers from this Prince.

"You are still new here, Lady Christina, but you should know you cannot ask things like that," Oziyat spoke after some time walking in silence. "We have secrets and we don't like it when others get too curious about them, especially the wizardkind."

"Please, it's just Chris-tina -- Christina," Chris corrected herself, then cleared her throat. "Look, I'm sorry if it looked like I was being nosy. But you guys have to understand knowing about Malgino is the whole point of me coming here. I need to know everything about him. And if he is connected to vampires then I need to know about your kind too."

"Maybe you will, but you have to be patient for that to happen," Oziyat said looking amused. "It's not easy to win vampires' trust, you know. And to tell you the truth, it's more difficult for a witch to gain our trust, considering our current relationship with wizards."

"You know, you are not right about everything. Technically, wizards don't rule nonmagical people -- I mean, muggles. In fact, we are still in hiding . . . or at least, it was before Riddle and Malgino started to create problems," Chris said remembering Vasilisa's weird misconception about wizards.

"Maybe. But you see, you, a witch is wandering here far away from the place you lived, and me, a vampire Prince is still at the same place where I was born. I think there is some difference here, don't you think?" Oziyat said with his normal silky voice and a mocking tone.

"Yeah, I understand what you mean," Chris replied his mocking tone with full seriousness. "Wizards and witches truly got the best place in the magical world. And now, they have deluded themselves into thinking that they are the most important kind of all and everyone is below them. But I want to know, vampires aren't forbidden to travel around the magical world, are they? I mean, there was a vampire in our school once . . . in Hogwarts. He came with a wizard writer. His name was. . ."

"Sanguini?" Oziyat said the name chuckling. "The hero of the story Blood Brothers by Eldred Worple?"

"So you know them?"

"I have read that book and trust me, there is not a single truth," Oziyat snorted. "They had barely touched upon the lives of vampires and also Sanguini is an outcast. We exiled him for theft a few years back. I have no idea where that Worple had found him."

"But then the entire story is a lie? I mean, in the book he wrote that he lived with Sanguini among the other vampires," Chris was surprised.

"Yeah, all made up," Oziyat nodded and stopped walking. "Your room has arrived."

Chris looked at the door behind her then looked back at Oziyat, debating she should ask him or not. But at the end --

"Hey, I know you all are very powerful and stuff but what is stopping me from sneaking to the south-east part alone?"

Oziyat raised one eyebrow and stared at her for a long time.

"You should not. No one had gone there and returned alive, except --" He abruptly stopped. He had a faraway look on his face. "Good night, Christina."

And the next second he was gone, walking away in an inhuman speed.

________ ________

To be continued. . .