Chapter 31
BLAKE
Now
Cade’s fingers tightened around Pendragon’s wrists.
I could hear his heartbeat stuttering, could smell the rot spreading like coils of corruption through his veins.
Any second now and he’d turn. He’d lunge for the warmest throat within reach.
He’d sink his teeth into Pendragon’s skin and then …
and then every pulse of blood he took would be blood I’d poured into her veins earlier tonight myself. My own gift, my own weakness.
I’d gladly given my blood to keep her alive—but the exchange had hollowed me.
Even now my limbs felt a half second slower.
When I’d fought back in the hall, my movements had felt sluggish, like moving through water.
My pulse thudded in my ears. And with it came a faint prickle of something like curiosity.
No. I slammed the sensation back. You’re gone. Dead and buried.
Viktor watched me like a vulture scenting a wounded animal. “You feel it, don’t you? You smell the taint on him.”
“Let her go,” I growled, trying to focus on Viktor and Pen-dragon instead of the sudden confusion in my head. “What do you want?”
“Finally, the right question.” My uncle leaned forward, his red eyes gleaming. “We have purged this school. The plague is gone from here—save for what you see.”
“You slaughtered everyone,” I said bluntly. “Infected or not.”
“We took no chances. Bloodwing is safe. The best and the brightest of the highblood race live within these walls. Our children, our future.”
Around me I could practically feel Quinn, Silvio, and the other Bloodguards stand up a little straighter with pride. Pathetic.
“Of course, one I was too late to save. But he, too, shall play his part.” Viktor glanced over at Cade. “Tell me, my boy, how do you feel?”
I looked at Cade, my blood going cold. His eyes were turning a milky white. Black veins were branching across his throat.
“Strange,” Cade whispered. He cleared his throat, a gurgle reaching his lips. “I feel strange, my lord. Perhaps I should see a healer.”
Pendragon’s face was as white as a sheet. She was holding very, very still.
Viktor smiled. “Soon, very soon.”
“Get him the fuck away from her. You can see what’s happening as well as I,” I shouted at my uncle. “I swear to all that’s holy, I swear by every drop of blood in Sangratha, I will do nothing for you, nothing, if harm befalls her. Do you hear me?”
Viktor looked back at me, and I knew both of us were remembering the last time I’d come at him.
There I’d stood, thinking I’d won, blood running off my scales.
And then? He’d filleted my eye from its socket.
The phantom pain of that wound pulsed behind my temple.
If I attacked him here, now, in the state I was in, he’d do worse.
Pendragon would watch me fall. Then, where would that leave her and Theo?
Viktor smiled as if he’d known exactly what I was about to say, then snapped his fingers. “Hold the girl. Bind the Avari boy. Quickly, now.”
Quinn slipped in as if playing a part she’d rehearsed, jerking Pendragon out of Cade’s grasp as two Bloodguards stepped forward quickly, iron shackles already in hand. They clanged them shut around Cade’s wrists just as he lunged at them with a wet snarl.
“What fucking games are you playing at, Uncle?” I demanded. “End him before he kills one of your own.”
Viktor’s mouth curved. “Not so fast. A preview tends to sharpen the mind. Quinn, be a good girl and fetch our prisoner.”
She nodded eagerly, moving to one of the doors leading off into the kitchens, and reemerging a moment later, dragging a woman by the wrist.
“Professor!” Pendragon cried. The instructor’s purple velvet coat was ripped, and her long, brightly colored hair was matted with blood. She stumbled with a groan as Quinn jerked her roughly.
“Allenvale?” I turned to face Viktor. “Really, a teacher of alchemy? What’d she do to you? Brew a tonic you didn’t like? So you’re torturing even highblood professors now?”
My uncle’s lips twisted. “When will you learn there is always logic behind all I do, Nephew? I have not lived this long for naught. Everything I do I do for House Drakharrow.”
I scoffed. Everything Viktor did was for himself and only himself. He was destroying my father’s legacy, one step at a time.
“Lord Drakharrow,” Professor Allenvale gasped as Quinn shoved her down before the dais. “I don’t understand how I’ve come to offend you. I was aiding injured students. Blightborn and highblood, yes, but nothing more.”
Viktor’s lips stretched in a parody of sympathy. “Aiding? Don’t play the innocent, Professor. We confiscated your correspondence. I’ve seen the notes you had in your desk.”
Allenvale’s dark eyes widened with guilt, and my heart sank. Whatever mistake she’d made, I knew he had her.
Viktor looked over at me. “Our little visiting professor has been funding a rebellion. An uprising nurtured by House Orphos right under our very noses.”
Allenvale’s eyes were on me, panicked and pleading.
“Let her go, Viktor,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
“Aren’t there more important things to deal with right now?
Who the fuck cares what Orphos has been doing?
Their house is weak. We both know that. They could never stand up to ours.
Let her go, and we’ll discuss this when things have settled down. ”
“Pleading for traitors? And you, my heir? You’re pathetic, Blake. You’ve always been too soft. You act as if mercy were a virtue. Now, Marcus, there was a lad with foresight, with ambition. You’re correct that Orphos is weak. They are weaker now thanks to Marcus.”
“Marcus?” I snapped. “I don’t see Marcus here by your side. He took off as soon as he had a chance.”
Viktor frowned. “He was hasty. Impatient. Yet what he’s done may do more good than harm, in the end. He’s given us an opportunity to crush Orphos and their treachery now, here—beginning with her.”
Cade suddenly lunged against his chains, snapping at the air as Quinn propelled Allenvale closer towards him.
“Talk to Lysander,” I said quickly. “Surely our quarrel is with him, not this woman. You need her. She represents proof. Take her to Lysander, and let’s have this all out. Stop the games. You’ve made your point. Let me help you deal with Orphos.”
Anything that would buy Allenvale a little more fucking time. Anything that would get the four of us out of this blooddamned death chamber.
“Stop the games? I’ll stop as soon as you prove to me you can do what’s really necessary.
” His eyes moved to Pendragon, still pinned by Larissa, flanked by Bloodguards.
“Now, our Cade must be fed. I owe the poor boy that much for his unswerving loyalty. But I’ll be charitable.
I’ll give you a choice. This traitor or your consort. ”
Time crashed to a standstill.Theo strained against his guards, his eyes wild. I could feel Pendragon’s furious eyes on me. Don’t you dare choose me, they cried. She twisted in Larissa’s arms, trying to break free.
Viktor spread his skeletal hands. “Choose, Nephew. Our dear Cade grows hungrier by the second.”
“What do you really want, Viktor?” I shouted, my voice echoing across the refectory. “Power? Allegiance? My head bowed lower? Just tell me what you want, and leave them out of this!”
Cade’s chains rattled. The infected highblood slavered in anticipation as Quinn shoved Allenvale another step closer. Pendragon’s eyes were on me, wide, pleading for me to think of some way out of this—for all our sakes.
Viktor’s smile faded, and he rose to his feet. “You want to know what I want? Then, enough games. Show them what you truly are. Transform, right here, right now.”
I clenched my fists. “I can’t do that. I’ve already told you, the dragon is gone.” I wouldn’t meet Pendragon’s eyes. I didn’t dare. Deep inside, something stirred—scales flickering, talons clicking.
Viktor sneered. “You lie to yourself, boy. I see its glow behind your eyes. Now, shift. Shift and fly to Veilmar. Rain fire down upon the infected city, and burn it clean.”
I stared at him, understanding quickly dawning.
“So that’s what you’re really up to. Cleanse Veilmar?
You don’t want me to cleanse the city, you want me to purge it.
Thanks to the Avaris, the most powerful highbloods in the Thralldom are lodged in the city tonight.
You don’t want me to stop a plague. You want me to wipe out your enemies. ”
There was a buzz of sound as the other highbloods grasped exactly what Viktor was trying to get me to do. Clearly he hadn’t shared his little plan with them before he’d conscripted them all to do his bidding.
“Silence!” he roared. The hall quieted. He looked down at me.
“Let Veilmar die tonight, and House Drakharrow will rise from the ashes to build a New Sangratha. The students of Bloodwing will stand at the forefront. A Pure Blood army in service to a most righteous cause. Marcus and Catherine were heralds of a new dawn, but it was one which I’d already set in motion.
Already the infection grows within the city’s walls.
The Avari roost within, smug and selfsatisfied. One blaze and their line ends.”
Their line? But not Kage—as far as I knew, he was still at Bloodwing. Or did my uncle know something I didn’t … Had Kage gone into the city? If my uncle did this, would the Avaris truly be wiped out?
“You’d have me scorch an entire city of innocent people and blame it on an outbreak?” I demanded.“Even you can’t be that stupid.”