glow around one of them. I clear the floor in seconds, and press my hands to the glass. The blue and gold brooch stops glowing behind its encasing, almost as soon as I pinpoint it. For a second, it seems different. It’s more familiar. I go to reach for it only for the entire display to melt right in front of my eyes. The rest of the room is melting too, into golden tar—blacksmith sludge. As I turn toward the violet door, everything around me shatters, literal shards of reality falling and breaking apart in front of me! All that’s left is the dark, empty hallway from before. Except not quite as empty as I thought.
Clawed hands grab me by the neck and hoist me off the ground. I gag, coughing, scraping and throwing fists at my unidentified attacker. My brain channels its focus to my sight, where I can make out the blond hair.
“I knew it.” Seriesa snarls at me. “I needed confirmation, but I knew it all along.”
I can’t breathe. Oh god, I really can’t breathe.
“No normal supply unit could do what you did and still receive the Laisse, except...”
I don’t know if she throws me into the wall or if bricks hit me out of nowhere, but all of a sudden, I’m lying on the ground, everything threatening to give out. Shock. I’m in shock.
Seriesa pulls out a knife from her black sash and glides toward me. All I can focus on is how she nears on her tiptoes, my face level with her tattooed feet.
“Indeed, you found Zein’s favor, didn’t you? You deserved far worse for your outbursts against Lord Giomar.”
Giomar?
I recall his voice in the dining hall.
“My little birdies don’t lie.”
Adrenaline soars through my veins at the realization. I sit up and back myself into the wall, pulling out my own wooden knife I finished carving weeks ago. The scrap metal piece that is looped around the handle is cool to the touch, the edge—sharp as it could ever reasonably be. But what can I hope to achieve when something as flimsy as wood can’t even cut her skin?
She giggles. “You are a born fighter, no doubt. Unfortunately, I cannot allow your continued existence to demoralize what’s left of our honorable council.”
Her orchid-blue lips slither into a sinister smirk as she pins my hand to the wall, rendering my knife useless. She kneels down to me and presses her own knife to my neck.
“What are you—”
“Today your blood will pool and stain the floor. I must set this example, if not for Lord Giomar then for the continued respect of the vampire race. Elders, please forgive me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, tears lingering in the crevices. The pressure intensifies.
Zein, please help me.
The thought doesn’t even have the time to transfer into speech. In an instant, the pressure releases and the knife drops to the ground. Seriesa’s eyes widen horrifically, her veins popping through her skin with intensifying pulses—imploding with blood. It coats her mouth, floods her eyes, seeps out of her ears and nostrils. Every part of her begins to bruise, each greenish-purple affliction connecting and spreading to the others like a disease. She falls over, and there, far behind her fallen form, is Zein.
He’s standing tall in full armor, expressionless. He has a fist raised and clenched, and his eyes, coated with tar; blacker than night. In this moment, he is the epitome of murderous. That’s when it hits me. Zein did this. Every blood vessel within Seriesa’s body was ravaged, torn apart by him. And he did all of it without touching her. This is the result of that power he bragged about the first night I arrived. He could have done that to me. He still can. Little by little, bile rises into my throat the more my gaze lingers on his ferocity.
“Wavorly, darling?” A calm, fluttery voice reaches my ears. A woman rushes my way from behind Zein. Madam Ceti.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” she asks.
“I smell her blood.” Zein’s voice. Except it sounds strained, like he’s a hair trigger away from destroying his own castle.
“I-I fought with Anaya earlier.” I barely manage to say, pointing to the cut on my cheek as Ceti rushes over to me.
Blankly, I focus on the mangled heap that is Seriesa before me as my feet shy away from the ever-growing pool of blood.
Was she the one sending information to Giomar? Where does her allegiance lie?
I turn past Ceti who now has a hand