Chapter 47
Episode 47
Poems about Vlad the Impaler
The late afternoon sun, a hazy apricot smear through the grimy windowpane, cast long, distorted shadows across the small, sparsely furnished room. It was a room I’d known for what felt like an eternity, a place where the scent of old paper and drying ink was as familiar as my own breath. My fingers, stained with the same ink, hovered over the page, a tremor running through them. The words, they wouldn't come. Not the ones I needed, anyway. The ones that whispered of Vlad, of his quiet strength, of the battles fought not with the sword, but with the pen.
I’d tried. Oh, how I’d tried. For weeks, it felt like, I’d sat here, wrestling with the ghosts of his words, the echoes of his thoughts. But the historical accounts, the dry, impartial chronicles, they painted him as a monster. They spoke of impalement, of blood, of a cruelty that chilled the bone. And while I knew, in the deepest, truest part of my soul, that this was a lie, a deliberate distortion, the weight of it pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating. How could I, Amy, the woman who had endured so much, who had seen the true gentleness behind the fearsome reputation, convince anyone else?
Then, a memory, sharp and clear as a mountain spring, surfaced. It was a night, long ago, when the fear had been a tangible thing, coiling in my gut. I was a child, small and vulnerable, and the world outside my window had felt like a hungry beast. He had been there, a silent guardian, his presence a shield against the darkness. And in that moment, a whisper, not of words, but of a feeling, had passed between us. It was a promise, a silent understanding. And it had been accompanied by a vision, a fleeting glimpse of him, not as the terrifying warrior of legend, but as a man, his eyes filled with a profound sadness, his hand holding a quill, not a sword.
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