Chapter 17 Ophelia
It’s not a bell that summons us. It’s not a siren or a call or even the Board messenger.
It’s a knock—two, then three, then a long scrape that means “now.” Caius is already half-dressed, shirt perfect, hair damp from his two-minute shower.
He doesn’t speak. He just grabs my hand, not rough, not gentle, and leads me out into the corridor like he’s been rehearsing this since birth.
The hallway is bright as fuck, students milling around, rushing to get to wherever they’re going.
We turn the corner and go up a flight of stairs to a section I’ve never been up, and a set of big oak doors are waiting. Massive. Older than my grandparents’ great-grandparents. Caius doesn’t knock, he just shoves them open, both at once, and the sound echoes like a gunshot in the room.
Inside, the Board is already assembled.
The room is a cathedral gone feral. The ceiling is three stories high, every inch webbed with plaster roses and twisting gold-leaf vines.
The columns are so thick I could hide behind them if I thought it would matter.
Every wall is lined with ancient depictions of hunters and runners: above them all is a man, with a crown that resembles the sun, staring down, as if waiting for the new generation to humiliate itself for their amusement.
At the far end, there’s a platform. Five steps up.
Carved from the same stone as the rest of the place, but polished to a mirror’s gloss.
The Board sits behind it, five to a side, Abelard in the center with his hands steepled and his mouth pursed in what he probably thinks is a kindly smile. Valence stands behind him.
Their robes are absurd. Black, high-collared, trimmed in gold. They look like cultists, like they’re going to light a candle and sacrifice us to the old gods. Their faces are a spectrum of pale: all the way from “sickly egg” to “blue at the edges.” No one moves except for their eyes.
Caius sighs and rolls his eyes, squeezing my hand gently.
He walks me to the center of the floor. There’s a circle inlaid in the marble, black and gold, big enough for a dozen people to stand in. He stops just at the edge, like there’s an electric fence, and turns to face The Board.
I follow, refusing to limp, refusing to wrap my arms around my body the way I want to.
There’s a furnace, low and ancient, at the front of the platform. It’s burning slow, coals radiating a dull orange, smoke creeping up in a lazy spiral toward the ceiling. The heat washes over my shins, a reminder that the spectacle is never really over.
Abelard stands, bows and then sits. It’s too smooth to be spontaneous. He probably practiced this, too.
“Welcome, Mr. Montgomery. Miss Morrow.” His voice is dry and raspy. “I trust you both slept well.”
Caius nods. “We did.”
I don’t respond. I keep my eyes on the bruises crawling up Abelard’s hands, the way his veins stand out like blue ink scribbled under wax.
He pretends not to notice the silence, but his mouth tightens.
“You both know why you’re here. But allow me to offer formal congratulations.
Miss Morrow, your performance in the Night Hunt exceeded even our most optimistic projections.
You are a testament to the resilience of your bloodline. A legacy, indeed.”
The rest of the Board doesn’t clap. But they do the thing—every one of them, in perfect sync—where their heads incline a fraction, a subtle nod, as if bestowing a knighthood.
The leftmost Board member is a woman with a helmet of white hair and eyes like the beady little eyes of a rat. She stares at me without blinking. It’s disconcerting.
Abelard keeps talking. “It is tradition, as you know, to conclude the Hunt with a formal binding. For the continuity of the line, for the purity of the contract, and—above all—for the assurance of legacy. Are you prepared to do your duty?”
His eyes fix on Caius, but his words are for both of us.
Caius doesn’t flinch. “Yes, sir.”
Abelard looks at me. “And you, Miss Morrow? Are you prepared?”
My voice is sandpaper. “Do I have a choice?”
A ripple goes through the Board, a tiny, synchronized smirk.
“Choice,” Abelard repeats, as if tasting the word for the first time. “Choice is the foundation of our great experiment. You were chosen, Miss Morrow, because you represent something rare and valuable. The ability to adapt. To survive.”
He gestures at my body. “Your presence here is proof that you belong. That you are, in every sense, one of us. You see, there’s a common misconception that all of us came from old money. No, my dear, some of us were chosen for the unseen talents hiding beneath the shadows of poverty and ruin.”
I can feel Caius’s eyes on me. I don’t look at him. I watch Abelard, watch the way he grips the arms of his chair like he’s afraid of being swept away by his own words.
“Tonight’s events will ensure the continuation of our legacy. And, should you both succeed, a place on this dais is assured. Caius, you will take over your father’s place at the helm of his empire, and Ophelia will become protected under the tenants of our laws.”
He says it like a reward, but it sounds like a sentence.
The rest of the Board leans back, satisfied with his long-winded speech.
The woman with white hair leans forward, eyes boring into me.
“We have high hopes for you, Ophelia,” she says. “Do not disappoint us.”
I want to tell her to go fuck herself. But I don’t. I just smile, teeth showing, and watch as her eyes go even colder.
The room is silent. The smoke from the brazier hangs in the air, filling my nose with the taste of old paper and burnt roses.
I realize, in that moment, that this is the real Hunt. The one that doesn’t end until someone finally breaks.
Caius grunts.
I don’t look at him. I just stare straight ahead, into the flat, hungry eyes of the people who run this world, and I refuse to blink first.
It’s going to take more than a room full of half-dead skin sacks to finish me off.
Abelard stands again, this time slower. His hands are trembling, but not from fear.
“We will proceed,” he says.
And the doors behind us slam shut, sealing us in.
The silence is total, broken only by the shifting of bodies in seats—silk on wood, a dry cough disguised as a yawn. Abelard lets it marinate, lets the weight of the chamber settle onto Caius and me, like a tarp over something waiting to suffocate.
He doesn’t speak right away. He takes the stairs down from the dais, hands behind his back, the trailing edge of his robe a black tongue licking at the polished floor. When he gets close enough to the circle, he stops, and looks at us with what could be mistaken for pity.
“Tradition is never a gentle mother,” he says, voice softer now, almost fatherly. “She demands much. And she never asks twice.”
Caius doesn’t respond. He’s gone absolutely still. A predator waiting out a threat.
Abelard nods, as if he expected that. He pivots, looks straight at me.
“There is a ritual to completion. The rules are—how shall I say it—non-negotiable. The Hunt is merely the preamble. The real test is what comes after.”
I want to ask “What comes after?” but I know better. The Board hates questions. They only like answers.
Abelard glances back at his bench, where Valence sits with a silver case on her lap. The kind of box you use for heirlooms. Valence unlatches it, his long fingers flickering over the clasp. He draws out a long object, wrapped in black velvet.
He walks it to the edge of the dais and sets it down beside the furnace.
Abelard continues, voice rising as if giving a eulogy.
“It is the will of the Board that, within three lunar cycles, a union of flesh and blood be made official.” He turns the words over in his mouth, letting each syllable land.
“Mr. Montgomery is to prove his worth by inseminating you, Miss Morrow, within that time frame. Upon successful confirmation, your union will be recognized, and the Board will take custody of the result at birth.”
He waits, lets that horror breathe.
At first I think I misheard. Then my brain reruns the sentence: “the Board will take custody of the result at birth.”
Of the result.
Not a child. Not a person. A result. A fucking heir to hell.
My throat is raw. I try to swallow, but there’s nothing left. Beside me, Caius’s hand crushes the bones in my hand, his shoulders tense.
Guess he won’t be abiding by their rules, after all.
“You will be allowed,” Abelard says, with a gesture as if granting a gift, “to maintain your relationship. But the offspring—your firstborn—will be raised by the handlers, as is custom. Groomed for leadership. Or, in the case of exceptional genetics, for the next cycle of selection.”
He looks at Caius. “You understand the responsibility, Mr. Montgomery?”
Caius’s jaw jumps once, twice, like he’s chewing glass. “I understand.”
“And do you accept it?”
Silence.
Then: “No.”
The woman with white hair lets out a sound that might be a sigh, or just the expulsion of hope she didn’t know she was holding.
Abelard squints. “There is no defiance to be had here, Caius. You will obey because the alternate choice is death.” Then he carries on talking as if he hadn’t even heard Caius say no. “Now, for The Mark.”
He picks up the velvet-wrapped object inside the box and peels back the cloth. Inside is a branding iron. Not a Western cattle rancher’s tool. This is smaller, more delicate, the end shaped into a perfect seal: a stylized “M,” surrounded by a spiked halo. The Montgomery crest.
Abelard holds it up so the room can see. “To secure the inheritance, the Son must brand his chosen. The mark is both a proof and a promise.”
He looks to Caius. “You know the words?”
Caius nods, but he’s staring at the iron, at the way the steel catches the sick yellow of the fire.
Abelard sets the iron into the coals. It hisses, a snake’s warning. Smoke curls up, smelling instantly of rust and old meat.