Chapter 23
REGAN
Wind rattled the window panes as I walked slowly through the castle halls.
The Avaris had gotten what they wanted. Kage’s engagement ball was being held this evening in the school refectory.
When Viktor tried to refuse them, Lady Avari attacked him with the full force of the Bloodwing Board of Directors.
The Board demanded an explanation for all of the recent—and completely unauthorized—changes at Bloodwing.
They wanted most to be rolled back. Viktor refused, deeming them all necessary for student security.
Even so, he was treading a little more lightly now. So Lady Avari had got her ball.
To be honest, it was a relief. Not the ball, but the fact that the Board had been able to intimidate Viktor in any way whatsoever. Oh, I didn’t kid myself that he was actually afraid of them, but perhaps they might be able to slow him down a little.
In the meantime, here I was, decked out in a dress of black netting over scarlet satin, the whalebone stays digging into my ribs, preparing to go to the Avari ball. Not because I wanted to, but because I was an invited guest and Bloodwing’s headmistress.
I paused beneath a flickering torch on the wall to gather myself.
Outside the doors of the refectory, four of the Bloodguards were gathered.
They were supposed to be a kind of peace offering—extra security for the most exclusive highblood event of the season.
I gritted my teeth. My Bloodguards lounged around as Avari guests waltzed past them into the refectory.
They were supposed to be checking each guest against the list Lady Avari had provided.
They were supposed to be doing their fucking jobs.
Instead, it seemed they had brought a little snack.
A young dwarven woman lolled between two of them, her pupils blown black, her throat covered in bite marks both old and new.
And standing before them, his voice already raised with dramatic flair, was Professor Rodriguez.
He’d obviously come straight from class, carrying a leather satchel and wearing a heavy brown overcoat—not exactly dressed for the ball.
I quickened my pace as I noticed some guests stopping to watch. “Please go into the ballroom,” I said brightly, urging them inside. “I’ll handle this matter.” Moving to stand beside Rodriguez, I hissed, “Lower your damn voice.”
“Lower my voice? Lower my voice, Regan?” He’d begun refusing to address me as Headmistress, preferring to treat me as if I were still one of his students. “I’ll lower my voice as soon as your fucking Bloodguard sends this child to the infirmary.”
One of the Bloodguards snickered. I whirled around. “Something amusing, Silvio?” I asked coldly.
The House Mortis guard held up his hands innocently. “I was just telling the professor here that everything’s fine. This girl is my personal thrall.” He leered. “Believe me, she’s no child.”
I glanced past him at the girl. She was dwarven and a blightborn, of course. All dwarven were. She was also young but not a child as Rodriguez had claimed, though she was obviously a First Year.
I frowned. The girl was a thrall, obviously. But I didn’t have to be a healer to see that she looked a little worse for wear. Her skin was pale and clammy, and she was breathing strangely—each breath a shallow flutter, the bodice of the royal blue dress she wore scarcely moving.
Rodriguez’s voice dropped to a vicious whisper meant only for me. “Look at the girl. She’s one fainting spell away from going into severe shock. She’s dwarven, which means she’s even more susceptible to blood loss—” his voice rose “—and these assholes are draining her dry. Can’t you see it?”
“Hey, back off, you blightborn bastard. Unless you want a taste of my fangs. I hear you like that.” Silvio stepped forward with a nasty grin, put his hands on Rodriguez’s chest and gave the professor a shove. “Now, get the fuck out of here. I already told you, she’s fine.”
My temples were already throbbing. I didn’t need this. The Board was breathing down my neck. Viktor’s shadow was at my back. And now this, right outside the ballroom doors.
I’d heard Rodriguez had been fed from. I didn’t know which student had done it, but I suspected it was one of my former House Drakharrow friends.
Maybe Quinn Riley. Funny how the higher I rose, the fewer friends I seemed to have.
For a while the number had actually spiked to a pitiful one, but it had been a mistake to count a wolf as a friend.
I looked between Silvio and Rodriguez. I’d warned Viktor that the blood donation program could result in the total disrespect of our blightborn faculty.
He hadn’t seemed to care, so I’d done his bidding and pushed the program through.
He was cruel to me even when I obeyed him, but he was much, much worse when I challenged him.
I had a scar on the back of my thigh still left from that specific conversation …
and it took a lot for a highblood to permanently scar.
No one could say my archon wasn’t hardworking.
I stared at Silvio, suddenly filled with dislike.
He was just like Viktor. He was a bully.They were all bullies.
At first I’d thought Viktor’s plan was a good one, that the Bloodguards would be a symbolic presence, nothing more.
But things had gotten out of control. My Bloodguards had done terrible things—and they kept getting away with them.There was no one to stop them, no one but me.
I knew if I tried to rein them in, there’d have been hell to pay with Viktor.
Still, I’d enabled them. Now they needed to remember who was in charge here.They didn’t need to know I was just as much of a pawn as they were.They were supposed to be intimidating the blightborn students, but killing them was going too far.
I knew Viktor wouldn’t care about the loss of a few students.
It had happened even under Headmaster Kim’s watch—just look at the Consort Games.
But as I stared at the girl, I felt something. Revulsion. Was this really the highblood way, treating a thrall like this with no concern for her safety whatsoever? Passing her around like a bottle of wine? It was disgusting. It was uncivilized. It was wrong.
Something else followed hard on the heels of my sense of revulsion, something far worse: recognition. I looked at the girl. She was dwarven. She was blightborn. But she was me.
I felt dizzy with a wave of terrible understanding. An awareness of a similarity I wanted to reject—but knew I would never be able to deny again.
“Mind your tongue,” I snapped at Silvio. “You’re addressing a faculty member. You’ll keep your hands off him and step back. Now.”
Silvio looked at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Then he bowed in a mocking way. “Yes, Headmistress.”
I turned to Rodriguez. He didn’t look shaken. If anything, he looked even more furious. For a moment, I rather hoped his fist would fly and he’d deal Silvio the blow he deserved. Instead, he looked back at me grimly. “It’s textbook depletion. See her eyes?”
“The professor exaggerates,” Silvio declared. “A few mouthfuls and she always swoons. She’s fine. Aren’t you, sweetheart?” The girl moaned.
“You keep saying she. Do you even know your own thrall’s name?” I hissed.
“Sure I do.” Silvio cleared his throat. “It’s … Dari.”
“It’s Dani, you dumbass,” the Bloodguard beside him said, bursting out laughing.
“Thank you, Cade,” I said coldly.
“Whatever. Dani. I knew that.” Silvio looked annoyed. “Whatever her name is, she’s my thrall. The law is clear. You wouldn’t trample over highblood custom, would you, Headmistress? Not after all you and Lord Drakharrow have done to uphold tradition.”
I glared at him. Tradition. It was tradition for an archon to be the final authority in a triad, too, to have total control over his consorts. Tradition. The word suddenly tasted like iron chains.
Rodriguez rounded on me. “If you leave this girl another hour, I assure you it will be too late. You’ll be trying to resuscitate a corpse. Custom be damned.”
A clear, sweet voice rang out. “What’s going on here? Is something wrong?”
I whirled around as Medra Pendragon and Florence Shen emerged from the nearby stairwell. Florence’s eyes were wide. She looked demure and innocent. Medra, on the other hand, assessed me from green flashing eyes. I wondered if Blake was far behind.
Wonderful. More witnesses I absolutely did not need.
I drew myself up a little taller. Silvio had stepped back. Now his fingers tightened on Dani’s arm. The girl swayed, her eyelids fluttering.
Rodriguez swore under his breath. Then he leaned down. “Do you even know who this girl is?”
I stared at him blankly. “A First Year, I assume.”
“She’s Professor Stonefist’s niece,” he hissed. “Do you want to tell the professor, who I might add is already none too pleased with you, how her niece died in your halls because you refused to send her to a healer?”
I stared back at him thoughtfully. The fact that Professor Stonefist was dwarven did complicate things—in a way I could use to my advantage in this situation.
We’d already had dwarven deaths. Viktor had received a missive from the Dwarven Council demanding that there be no more this year.
I knew he didn’t want to have to worry about the threat of their involvement as he continued rolling back blightborn freedoms above the surface. I reached a decision swiftly.
“Professor Rodriguez, escort this thrall to the First Year infirmary, if you please,” I declared.
“Silvio, she may be your thrall, but you will feed from her only if and when a healer decides it is safe. And as she is a pupil at Bloodwing and you have caused what may be permanent injury already, you will do so only under supervision.”This was pushing things a little, but I didn’t care. I felt suddenly reckless.
Anger flashed across the Bloodguard’s golden face. “Is that an order, Headmistress?”