<—Part 1
Part 2
Belphagor studied the woman and dog at the edge of the meadow. Expecting them to continue on like all the others, he was caught off guard when she stopped to stare appreciatively at the portal space. Her expression was lit with joy as she gazed upon the bright clearing. He almost didn’t see the shadowed emptiness in her eyes as her gaze swept over the spot he stood in. She might see the meadow—something most humans did not—but the true sight eluded her.
As she moved to step inside, he pulled downward with his hand, tightening the dormant vines before the woman. Wouldn’t do to have her stumbling through any portals just yet. At least, not until he’d gotten a better understanding of what she was, and how best to proceed. She reached out to lift one of the vines away, and he clenched one fist, an amused quirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. She pulled her hand away with a pained gasp, leaving behind a smear of red.
The golden dog displayed a level of awareness that eluded the human, for all her ability to see the meadow. The moment he had clenched his fist, the dog’s gaze had tracked him as it whined softly. The sound was so low it could almost be mistaken as a trick of the wind.
Interesting. For the first time in a long while, Belphagor felt the grip of boredom begin to loosen its hold on him. The dog sees me, but not the woman. By itself, that wouldn’t be terribly unusual. Animals in general saw more than the humans did. That she could see the meadow, though—that was unusual. No one else had in a very long time. To humans, it was a dreary brown field lost in the trailing edge of winter, the same as the rest of the surrounding landscape.
He watched as she backed away nervously, signaling her dog. The two loped off the way they’d come, leaving him with the scent and taste of her, and a head starting to fill with ideas. It had been too long. His family’s blood contract had broken with their last human death close to a quarter century ago. And with it, the last time his family had been able to freely travel between the realms.
For many years, Belphagor could only watch from the portal between realms as humanity milled back and forth, unseeing. More and more of the natural landscape had been eaten away by growing civilization. Fashions shifted, but never the humans themselves. They saw only what pertained to themselves.
How strange, after all this time, to discover a human who could see the portal. Was she an untended remnant of a blood contract line? If not, was she only part human? If fae blood lingered in her veins, it would account for her ability to see beyond some level of illusion, even if she couldn’t see fully into the portal.
The more Belphagor thought on it, the more his mind settled on the latter. A blood contract would have had her seeing him; would have compelled her toward him. Fae blood, on the other hand—that could be tricky. It was stronger in some offspring than others. But only very rarely strong enough to pass for full fae. But, just as their fae nature was weakened, so too was their human side, to include the strength of the blood contract. That, in turn, opened up the ability to break the blood contract. It was one of several reasons the fae usually refused to mingle their family bloodlines with that of their blood contracts. It wasn’t normally worth it to the more powerful families. Why dilute your blood contracts and curse your own children to a human-short life with the likelihood that they’d have either weak or no magic at all?
He narrowed golden-yellow eyes, remembrance and resentment flashing briefly through his thoughts. It would have been his turn next. To finally be able to access the blood contract, cross into the human realm, and renew his family’s prestige and power. It would have been his turn next, if his idiot cousin hadn’t gotten the last of their blood contract killed before the human could reproduce.
The most powerful families maintained a wide range of blood contracts to ensure their entrance to the human realm would never be cut off. The more footholds, the better a family’s chance at unlocking the secrets to invading the other realms, not just the human one. Favor granting kept humans willing to form blood contracts, ignorant to the life of servitude they were inflicting on their future descendants.
Sometimes the favor granting got messy, and attachments formed. The resultant half-breeds occasionally provided a cheap source of indentured labor for those families that couldn’t afford better, even though it came with the risk that some of those half-breeds would be more dominantly fae than human. At best, the family acquired a short-lived slave, and at worst, the stronger fae blood made them harder to control. For families that could afford proper servants, they were rarely worth the effort of keeping.
Other less powerful families only managed to hold on to one or two blood contract lines, however. Families like his. They were usually the purists whom viewed favor granting to humans as a weakness. Their initial contracts were fully coerced from the human in the form of a very simple deal. Kidnapping and death threats followed by bargaining. The human’s freedom in exchange for their future offspring's’ freedom. Some humans were selfish enough to accept. But it only took one acceptance to curse an entire line of humans to servitude. Once they had the first generation hooked, they only needed to worry about ensuring the line continued to reproduce.
His family’s blood contract had been formed over a thousand years ago, when his great grandfather had kidnapped some idiot human and offered him freedom for the promise of his first born. But that had been his great grandfather. Each generation after had gradually lost the magics that had first enabled their family’s patriarch to successfully travel across the sealed portals unaided. In their arrogance, not one of them had had the foresight to form new blood contracts between the time the original contract was formed, and when it had ended with his idiot cousin’s betrayal.
For years he had watched with bitter longing, the tales of exploits and intrigue still vivid in his head, knowing he would never have his chance to reclaim the power and prestige for his family line. His family was obsolete, barely a step above the half-breed servants of other houses, now that they had lost the last of their blood contracts.
Walking over to the thorny vine, he grasped it gently and raised the blood smeared surface to his mouth. The smell was acrid and sweet, the strange blend that only came with half-breeds. Underneath that all, he could sense something else. A heady, haunting scent—magic that stirred deeper. The bloodline contract. Not just any, though. He recognized the magical signature. It had the essence of his family’s contract. But how? His cousin had let the human male die in captivity before they could coerce him into reproducing.
Shocked giddiness washed over him as he shoved the questions aside. He could worry about the how of it later, if at all. This was his chance to bring prestige back to his family. For now, he needed to focus on how to bring the contract back into full alignment. It would be trickier with the fae blood. That had certainly been a shock to realize.
His family didn’t hold with half-breeding blood contracts. It just hadn’t been worth the risk. Or at least, it hadn’t seemed to be worth the risk back when they had an established contract in place. The weaker the human blood, the weaker the contract. His family had prided themselves on their pure human line contracts. It had made the contract stronger than many of the more powerful families, and gave them the ability to channel more potent magic within the human realm. They’d been able to touch portals to other realms that most other families had not thought possible. Not that that had done his family any good with the death of their last human 25 years ago.
Belphagor smiled, feeling genuine mirth as he stared past the meadow in the direction of the human. He would worry about the politics later. For now, he needed to focus on regaining control over the contract. It would need renewal before his family could activate it properly.
She’s sightless, though. She must see first. His momentary joy was dampened as he began to realize the full extent of the task ahead of him. His own magic was too weak to do what his elders had been able to. He would need to make her see him, and convince her to cross the meadow over to the fae side of the portal.
With a faint puff of air, he stepped back, fading from the meadow gateway where he had stood his watch. There were other ways to reach out—to open the sight—if the connection was there. In the human’s blood, he’d tasted that lost connection. He had research to do, without alerting the elders in his family. They might try to steal this from him, and he had waited too long for his own chance at power.