Chapter 38 Kidan
KIDAN
She focused on the plan, the opposing sides of Uxlay:
The Dirt Diggers—Piran, Temo, Rojit—change Dranacti.
Their outside aid: the Panther Order.
The 13th—Makary, Ajtaf, Delarus, Qaros, and who knows who else—open deanship to all Border Houses and alternate claiming the middle position. Remove Adane House.
Their outside aid: the Eagle Order and Oryx Order.
She still wasn’t sure how Goro, Luroz, and Umil House would vote, but one issue at a time. She hoped Yusef could sway his family to her side. But wasn’t entirely sure.
Temo House would stand before the Mot Zebeya Courts tomorrow and declare their vote, which meant Kidan couldn’t fail today.
There would be no point in learning how to sever her mother’s culture if in a couple of weeks Adane House was demoted to Border House, only allowed to set the “No Soul Can Enter Uxlay” law.
Now, more than ever, Kidan clung close to her three laws: Make June pay, make GK human, make Susenyos tell her the truth about the artifacts.
She had nothing else but these laws, and God help her, she would set them.
The doorbell chimed, and three people in long coats entered together. They marched toward the designated spot, just like in the picture they took in the 1990s beside her mother and father.
Next to Adjoa was a Black woman with one sharp eye and a brown-skinned muscular man in a thick scarf.
Osa Rojit’s eye patch was dark green with a fern plant decorating the edges.
The Rojit House sigil. Kidan had heard many things about how Osa lost her eye.
Some said it was in the riots after Kidan’s parents were murdered.
But Slen had mentioned something more sinister about Rojit House.
How they loved to play God with medicine.
Stitching vampire limbs to humans, experimenting to the point of death.
Mikhail Temo, on the other hand, occupied the most space in the booth, thick arm extended on the back of the seat. Looking at his size, it was hard to believe he was once the fastest athlete at Uxlay. Crazy enough to race with dranaics instead of humans.
The Dirt Diggers.
These had been her mother’s closest friends.
“Thank you for coming.” Kidan squared her shoulders, injecting strength into her voice. “I’m here to tell you why you should vote to keep Adane House in the middle.”
They were silent, their faces hardened with years of education and politics.
Kidan had thought very carefully on how to sway them.
“You all believe my mother failed in locating the artifact, but she didn’t.” She inhaled deeply for what she planned to say and lifted her forged letter, holding it like a prize. “I’ll get the mask artifact the day I turn twenty-one. My mother entrusted it to someone outside of Uxlay.”
Kidan left the letter on the table. No one reached out to read it.
Sudden erratic drums beat in her ears.
She’d chosen the age because the number twenty-one was scrawled all over her mother’s books, haunting her.
And she’d been careful not to tell them it was inside Adane House because she didn’t trust them not to murder her here and take it for themselves.
Kidan almost believed her story.
“Why didn’t Mahlet tell me?” Temo demanded. The way he used her first name made Kidan tense. Grow protective. What right did these strangers have to form such intimacy with her mother when she never got the chance?
Her forefinger pressed against the wooden table in a triangle.
“Tell you?” Adjoa’s voice was nothing but knives. “Why would she trust you?”
His large face darkened. “I was loyal to her to the end. I reported what Daric did. I did my duty.”
Kidan knew what they were talking about from the articles. On the night Kidan’s parents were murdered, Mikhail Temo had gone to Adane House to deliver some documents. He had witnessed the entire act through the window and raised the alarm.
Then he’d testified in court.
Daric was arrested immediately after he’d taken out their hearts. Grief swelled around her. Six weeks later, he was murdered. No one knew who did it. Susenyos had taken his revenge quietly.
“What were you doing there? At that hour?” Adjoa’s cold tone pulled Kidan to the present. “You had motive to kill her parents more than Daric.”
Kidan’s head snapped up in question.
Adjoa blinked, realizing she’d said something she shouldn’t have. But her eyes were carved of stone. “Mikhail’s brother died because of Dranacti. We’re not allowed to disclose who took whose life but it’s no secret the year your mother graduated there was only one death. Star athlete Rashil Temo.”
Kidan sucked in a sharp breath. She’d wanted to know whom her mother had killed and here it was. An ordinary student, who had a brother, a family.
Her mother, the murderer.
Kill all evil.
The words burst across her skull painfully.
After all these weeks, they still felt impossibly right.
A holy command she could follow. But Kidan didn’t know what evil meant anymore.
She was without a compass, adrift, and now she knew why.
It was her ancestry. Their roots were soaked in blood and every generation followed the ritual.
She’d hoped they were saviors, martyrs, but perhaps they were monsters.
Had these three words haunted her mother?
It must be why she’d been desperate to stop Dranacti.
Kidan drew her squares for fear. She hadn’t felt this alone since before Uxlay, the dark months between searching for June and eating cold noodles in her sweltering apartment.
Adjoa was studying her closely, a shift in her expression. Almost sympathy. “You can’t trust the Temos with this.”
A fist came down, jarring all their drinks. Veins tightened on Mikhail Temo’s thick arm. “I forgave Mahlet for what she did long before that. Do not sour our friendship. It was pure. We both understood Dranacti was evil. It couldn’t be a way of life. Not for our children. What Daric did—”
“He did not do it!” Adjoa shot to her feet, yelling now, startling them all. “He had no cruel bone in his body. He was no traitor.”
Their side of the bar rang with the emotion in her voice. And Kidan saw the woman clearly for the first time. Calm and collected except when Daric was brought up. Aseracti called it the devil’s snare—companionship—and Kidan was beginning to agree.
“I saw him, Adjoa,” Mikhail repeated. “I saw him carve out their hearts.”
“Daric has betrayed us before.” Osa Rojit spoke, silver Afro cloaking her like a cloud.
Her attention drifted to Kidan. “When he was human and ill, he received a life exchange from one of my house vampires. He swore to serve House Rojit. Yet the moment he received his vampirism, what did he do? He swore companionship to House Piran.”
Daric was… human. Kidan was surprised by that. Like Ramyn, he must have paraded in front of the dranaics, hoping for a like exchange and gotten it.
Adjoa’s angular face was prominent when she became furious. “He did not do that out of a calculated move. Why do you always bring it up?”
“Because every vampire Rojit House loses, yours gains.” Osa’s face was hard. “You continue to rob us.”
“Wait,” Kidan interrupted. “If Daric had been acti like us, which house did he belong to?”
Only his first name showed up on Uxlay’s database.
Silence extended between them.
Osa answered, “His house was Temo.”
Mikhail Temo squared his jaw, looking away. “He was my younger brother. Rashil was the oldest.”
Shock gave way to sour understanding. If Mahlet killed Rashil Temo, Daric must have murdered her in revenge.
Adjoa’s thin fingers curled on the table. “You betrayed your own brother. Didn’t even give him a chance to explain.”
Mikhail sighed deeply. “I saw him, Adjoa. With my own eyes. He murdered them.”
Acid pooled in Kidan’s mouth. She didn’t want to hear about this anymore.
Adjoa’s chair screeched back, her voice shaking with anger. “There is no reviving the Dirt Diggers. It is filled with traitors.”
She turned and left. Kidan was out of her chair instantly, hurrying after her. She couldn’t let this fall apart. She had come too fucking far.
The door chimed and the evening breeze nipped at her.
“Wait!”
Kidan crossed over the cobblestone path, barely missed by a speeding car. Adjoa walked the curb of the park with her hands in her pockets.
Her breath formed clouds before her. Kidan ran in front of her. “If you didn’t want me to revive this group, why tell me about my parents?”
Sprinkles of rain caught in her wrapped-up curls. “You deserve to know their legacy.”
“Then help me now,” Kidan urged, stepping closer. “You know the 13th want my house position. Three houses have already voted against me. I can’t fight them by myself. I need all your votes. Why can’t you let this go?”
In the fanned wave of the lamplight, Adjoa’s features changed between hard stone and emotion. “You’ve been to the Arcane Tower. You’re meant to find your love, but your eyes keep sliding to him. Always searching for Susenyos.”
Kidan shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you mean.”
A sad smile formed on her lips, before it smoothed out. “I know the love that comes with vampires. It is a ruinous thing.”
The picture of Daric and a younger Adjoa on the Graduate Portal slid before Kidan’s eyes. They were smiling broadly, not touching, but there had been… something. The way Daric’s body turned toward her, to protect, leaning in like she was his main source of warmth, a silent intimacy.
“You and Daric… were together,” Kidan said, confirming her suspicion.
Adjoa’s eyes were hard, but it was as if she didn’t see Kidan as she spoke. “I loved him. I knew I wasn’t supposed to. I knew choosing him would mean forsaking my legacy, leaving Uxlay.”
Her sadness choked the air, bleeding into Kidan in a way she didn’t expect.
“But I couldn’t leave the only home I ever knew. My family, my brothers and sisters. So I tried. I tried year after year to go to the Arcane Tower and fall for a human boy. I still try because marriage and a child is the only way to secure a legacy.”
Kidan’s eyes fell. She didn’t want to feel close to these people. All she had wanted was a deal. A contract.
But not for the first time, Uxlay’s protective walls morphed into a gilded cage. She wondered: If every acti was this miserable, why did they stay?
Why did her mother?
“Your mother saved me back then. She welcomed me with a warm smile. Gave me hope. We could break the binds so vampires could drink on all humans. We wouldn’t bear the responsibilities of birthing children vampires could feed off. Both Osa and Mikhail had their own reasons for joining.”
Nostalgia lingered in the words.
“You were friends,” Kidan said.
“Of course we were.” She shook her head.
“I replay that night till this day. Every second and every moment, trying to figure out what went wrong. Daric took me to the orchestra. He escorted me back, and we walked under those lamps. He walked me to my room, and said, See you soon. I went to sleep. Two hours later, Uxlay’s alarm was raised.
Even before I knew what happened, my body wouldn’t leave the bed.
I let the emergency alarm ring around me, wishing it away, calling for him.
He didn’t answer. Then news of the murder broke out.
But I knew his heart and he would never do such a thing. ”
It took Kidan a long time to speak, staring at the pain in the woman. The tangle of webs spun around the families made it difficult to trust anyone. Their history ran deep, steeped in too many betrayals to ever heal.
Help me. Kidan couldn’t help but speak to her mother for the first time. How do I fix all this?
“What would my mother do in this position?” Kidan asked, searching the woman’s eyes. “How would she fix this?”
Adjoa’s intelligent amber eyes lingered on her for a long time, then looked away. “You won’t like it.”
“That’s fine.”
“Marriage is what bonds us when we’re like this. Trust is lost but business will always sway them.”
“I don’t understand.”
Adjoa gave her a grave look. “If you marry into our Panther Order, we will have no choice but to support you.”
Kidan inhaled deeply. “And whoever I marry will have access to my house, and its unlimited lawmaking power.”
Adjoa nodded. “The Panther Order will reward us in turn. Help our various business in the outside world. Uxlay can’t function independently.”
Kidan mulled it over, cautious. “And you will pass up the opportunity of being dean and seizing the middle position yourself ?”
“Uxlay has survived for generations with Faris and Adane House taking position of dean. That has never been our problem. It’s greed.
And the only way to combat that is with strategy.
Dean Faris voted for the 13th proposal because she is protecting her image.
She needs to appear like a just leader but trust me, she hopes this proposal fails just as much as you. ”
Maybe. But while Dean Faris was protecting her image, Kidan was out here fighting alone.
Her mother’s ghost stood just over Adjoa’s shoulder. She seemed to nod.
“If I declare for the Panther Order, it will mean alienating the other houses.”
Adjoa nodded slowly. “I know. Goro House has always been loyal to Adane House because of your grandmother. And Yusra Umil is a traditionalist. She will vote your way. That will mean six for the proposal and six against. A tie is your best option. It will take another three years before the proposal is brought forward again. Plenty of time for you to turn twenty-one and receive the artifact.” Adjoa seemed to scan her face for a lie, but Kidan squared her shoulders.
Lying shouldn’t be difficult. And Kidan would gladly take one or three years.
Despite it all, Kidan was beginning to appreciate having Adjoa on her side. Though the idea of marriage, even if it was in the future, left her skin with a pervasive chill.
She touched her pocket, Susenyos’s letter tucked inside it. Before letting it drop.
There was no other way.
“Okay.”
Together, they walked back to Rita’s Bar.