Only when I scrubbed my blood from my hands and face did I sit myself on the bank of the lake, weak and tired.īegrudgingly, I accepted my need to drain a vial immediately.

It took a while for the coughing to finally calm before I had the energy to clean myself again. I had tried to convince myself that was what the blood was. I was dying, and only one form of medicine could keep death from claiming me. Vampire’s blood was the only thing which gave me relief from the pain and the impending doom the agony revealed. It was the warning I needed to know when it was time to devour a vial of my bounty. Soon, becoming heavy rasping breaths which sounded wet and gargled in my chest, as though water filled my lungs and I drowned in it. They would start small, tickling spasms in my chest. These fits were warnings my body was failing. It filled my mouth with the taste of copper, staining my teeth red and leaking out the corners of my lips.

I caught the droplets of blood in my cupped hands. If it was not daylight, I would have sent a message to all the vampires close enough to hear that I was ready for the taking. I stumbled a step, almost falling completely, as the world seemed to shudder beneath my feet. Wet gargles scratched up through my throat and made my lungs feel as though they would implode if I took a full breath in.Ī sudden pain clamped across my chest and squeezed. The coughing began as I stood knee-deep in a shallow lake closest to Tithe’s boundary, scrubbing the vampire’s melted flesh from my leather breeches until the body of water turned grey. Trading freedom for safety was the price to pay for being kept alive. Even when I did not need to leave to get blood, I longed to step outside if only for a moment, just to see, to look around and let my eyes stretch for as far as they desired. Many of Tithe’s occupants hardly cared for the world beyond the walls. It was surrounded by a wall so high it blocked out the view of anything and everything beyond it. It was not a place of freedom like the outside world. I drank it all in every time I came, hoping the vision would sustain me until my next visit. I admired the wall-less view around Darkmourn, looking towards the faint outline of rolling hills and the dense forests which filled the horizon for miles.Įven the towering, charred remains of Castle Dread did not displease me. But one thing I was certain of was they had something I did not: freedom.

I could hardly imagine what life was like for the occupants of this town before the curse had spread.

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Immortal tithe