Chapter 28
Episode 28
The love of Vlad the Impaler for His first born Prince
The silence in the small Maine town after the Canadian ordeal was a fragile thing. It clung to me like the damp sea air, a constant reminder of the hostility we’d fled. My parents, their faces etched with a peculiar blend of exhaustion and resentment, had deposited me at this all-girls boarding school with the same impersonal efficiency they’d shown when packing me onto buses and into cars. It was a place of hushed corridors and the scent of floor wax, a stark contrast to the wild, untamed beauty of the natural world I craved.
Vlad, a shadow at first, then a comforting presence, was there. He didn't speak in words, not in the way humans do. It was more a feeling, a quiet assurance that settled in my bones. When the other girls whispered and giggled, their eyes flicking towards me with an unspoken judgment, he was the steady anchor that kept me from drifting. He’d stand just beyond the periphery of my vision, a silent sentinel, his gaze a warm, protective fire against the chill of their exclusion.
The school itself was a peculiar microcosm. Some of the girls were kind, their innocence a balm to my wounded spirit. Others, however, carried the same venom I’d encountered in Canada, their cruelty a twisted echo of the world outside. They’d mock my worn clothes, my quiet demeanor, the way I flinched at sudden movements. It was a constant, low-level torment, a drip, drip, drip of negativity that threatened to erode my already fragile sense of self.
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