The massive doors of the Obsidian Suite slammed back against the stone wall, the sound sharp and brutal. Damon stood in the doorway, soaked from the northern rain, his calm exterior shattered. His entire focus was on Isolde, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop sharply, even as the fury radiating from him felt like cold fire.
His naturally Crimson Red eyes were now blazing, burning with an almost solid, incandescent light, the sign that his royal Vampire power was fully activated.
Silvana, standing near the window, instantly buckled under the psychic weight. She slid to her knees, hiding her face, her own pale amber eyes squeezed shut against the terrifying pressure. She was a Pureblood, but her strength was nowhere near Damon's... the sight of his active power was overwhelming.
Isolde, however, remained standing. The cold dread in her stomach was challenged by the sudden, intense heat in her chest... the raw energy of her emerging Witch lineage. She actively pushed back against the terror, instinctively channeling that internal pressure to create a chaotic mental barrier.
Damon didn't waste time with formalities. With a speed that defied the laws of physics, he was suddenly gone from the doorway and right in front of her. His movement was a terrifying blur, a flash of black and white against the dark backdrop of the room. It was an inhuman velocity that a heavily built Dragon like Draven could never match in a confined space.
"Where is the Dragon?" Damon's voice was a deep, resonant hum, laced with commanding power. "You are the key, Isolde. The breach in my defense. Tell me how he got here. Look at me."
He grabbed her chin, his grip vice-like and cold, forcing her head up. His glowing, blood-red eyes locked onto hers, preparing to use the Vampire's most ancient weapon... the power to manipulate minds, extract truth, or erase inconvenient memories.
Isolde stared into the terrifying inferno of his gaze. This was the moment she broke, or the moment she won. She knew that if she could not break the eye-lock, she would be completely exposed.
She didn't try to pull away. Instead, she fiercely channeled the internal, buzzing Witch power, pushing it out as mental static. She didn't try to fight his power, only to confuse it. She forced her mind to focus on a chaotic storm of safe, irrelevant memories... the scent of her childhood garden, the texture of her mother's favorite shawl, the pattern of the floor tiles.
Damon's mental probe slammed against her resistance. He felt the cold shock of human thought, but instead of the clear, linear memory of Draven's face and the secret vow, he found a storm of disorganized, non-sequential anxiety and mundane details.
His eyes flickered, the intense blood red haze wavering as his focus was disrupted by the unexpected mental resistance. She is generating noise, he realized with burning anger. A human should be a clear, open scroll.
"What are you doing?" Damon growled, his grip tightening. "You resist my command. You are hiding a rebellion."
"I am terrified, my Lord," Isolde gasped, forcing a wave of genuine, blinding fear to penetrate the mental static. "I am terrified that I was the reason. I saw the ash on Lord Casimir's shoulder at the reception. I saw the dust, and I thought... I thought it was from the stables." She forced her eyes to glisten with tears. "I was afraid to tell you, my Lord. Afraid you would blame me for the incompetence of your servants."
She had perfectly layered two truths... the dust and her fear... over the central lie of her ignorance. She offered him a betrayal he could easily digest... incompetence within his staff.
Damon searched her eyes again. The truth of her fear was overwhelming, and the memory of the ash on the Lord's shoulder was clear.
He found the panicked human memory of dust and fear of punishment, not the conspirator he sought. He was redirected by his own arrogance... he could not conceive that a mere human could intentionally deceive him.
He released Isolde, pushing her back with a sudden surge of cold air. He turned his terrifying, active gaze onto Silvana.
"Silvana," Damon commanded, his voice sharp and demanding. The young Princess struggled to look up, her eyes still flickering with fear. "Identify the origin of the incompetence. The stable hands. The lowest order."
Silvana, shaken but loyal to Isolde, immediately complied, her voice trembling but functional. "The stable master, my Lord, complained of a new hand... a crude one named Kael who smelled of ash and did not know the protocol. He was dismissed after the tunnels were sealed. He was suspected of causing a distraction."
Damon's eyes narrowed. A low-caste stable hand, easily dismissed, easily forgotten. A perfect, disposable scapegoat.
"Find this 'Kael'," he ordered his guards. "Bring me his body, and the body of the stable master who failed to vet him."
He turned back to Isolde, the fury slowly receding as he regained control. His eyes returned to their deep, intense Crimson Red, the burning light replaced by a calculating coldness. "You are valuable, Isolde. But you are also a conduit for weakness. This attack confirms that. You will not leave this suite. If the Dragon returns, your death will be his undoing."
He paused, a terrifying, thoughtful expression on his face. "Your resistance was... peculiar. We will explore that later. For now, compliance is your only function."
Damon gave her one final, chilling look, then vanished with the same inhuman speed he had entered, his guards rushing to follow.
Isolde collapsed to the floor, breathing hard. She had just stared down the most powerful Vampire in the kingdom and survived the ultimate test of his manipulation. She had to find a way to make this defensive power more reliable, perhaps by finding a Witch counter-agent. She thought of the ancient legends her grandmother told her of Iron-Leaf Rue, a rare herb that protected human thoughts from the night.