Chapter 7
Sidney
Fire raced through my veins the moment the chain settled against me. The flask blazed bright white upon my skin. An ancient and powerful presence unfurled, almost too much for my mind.
“Well, well.” Its venomous tone slithered in my thoughts, carrying a sense of amusement laced with danger. “What do we have here? A little slayer dressed up like a lamb for the slaughter. I see you, chaos bringer. How deliciously ironic.”
My heart hammered against my ribs.
“I should incinerate you where you stand.” Its voice glided through my thoughts, power tightening around my mind like a serpent coiling to strike.
“But oh, the entertainment you’ll bring to these sterile trials…
Yes, I think I’ll let you play. This will be a fun competition.
” As the presence withdrew, it added, “Try not to disappoint me, little huntress.” Its laughter faded into silence.
Its departure rang in my ears, leaving behind a hollow ache and hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. The light faded to a steady glow.
I’m alive. Thank Aetherius!
Eona’s twisted influence on the artifact was obvious. The fact that it had seen through every layer of my disguise, held my life in its metaphysical hands, and chosen to let me live for its bloody entertainment was testament.
Around me, the other competitors watched with raised or narrowed brows.
Mathias’s maroon eyes met mine. “Accepted.”
For a heartbeat, his presence had a hold on me, and I simply couldn’t look away. A shiver of awareness passed up my spine as he leaned in close.
“Welcome to the trials.” His breath caressed my ear and triggered a flutter in my stomach. “You belong to the Flask now.” A flicker of brighter red spun from one of his irises to the other, then vanished. It was so quick I could’ve imagined it.
In a blink, the spell was broken and I turned to join the group of approved contestants. I focused on the other vampiresses, each an obstacle between me and my goals.
The statuesque brunette with the predatory smile stood with practiced poise, but I caught the slight tremor in her left hand. Nerves, or withdrawal from some substance. Her stance favored her right side—an old injury, perhaps, or simply poor balance.
The pale, sharp-featured woman near the northern wall kept touching her throat, a nervous habit revealing insecurity despite her haughty expression. She pressed her back to the stone, never letting anyone slip behind her. Not caution. Paranoia. The kind that frays under pressure.
A woman with glossy raven hair stood at rigid attention, her strong bearing honed and deliberate.
Her sharp, calculating gaze swept the room like a hunter tracking weakness.
She didn’t glance at the exits in fear but in strategy, mapping every escape route and blind spot. This one had seen battle and won.
My focus moved to a willowy blonde who appeared almost ethereal in her beauty, but something about her set my instincts on edge. Her smile hovered just shy of vacancy, and her gaze lingered on the servants’ throats for a beat too long. Something feral simmered beneath that porcelain exterior.
I cataloged each face, each twitch of muscle and flicker of unease. Confidence lived in certain postures, fear in restless hands and darting eyes. I marked who could be useful and who should die first.
Felicity stepped toward the Flask next, and the necklace quivered in her grasp. It pulsed once against her skin, flared white, then settled into a steady glow. She let out a shaky breath and nodded to herself.
“Accepted,” Mathias announced.
She moved to stand beside me, close enough that I caught the faint scent of lilac from her hair. “Do you want to pretend to know what the other aspirants are saying while we wait?” Mischief danced in her eyes as she smiled.
When I didn’t respond, she nodded toward two candidates locked in an animated discussion.
The first had hair teased so high it defied both gravity and good taste.
“I made my coiffure so magnificently tall so everyone can see I have a brain up there somewhere,” Felicity said in a breathy, affected voice as the woman gestured grandly.
The second contestant, a woman with a nose like a hawk’s beak, leaned in closer. “Well, perhaps I could raise my children in that glorious nest of yours,” Felicity continued, switching to a simpering tone. “Think of the real estate value!”
I pressed my lips together, fighting back a laugh. Felicity must have caught the tremor in my shoulders, because, emboldened, she turned her attention to another pair across the room.
“My lovely,” she declared, pretending to be a contestant swathed in pink, “your complexion is stunning. What’s the secret? The blood of tortured artists or just classic aristocratic spite?”
Effortlessly switching gears, she imitated the female vampire in the cape beside the pink atrocity: “Spite is underrated. I exfoliate with betrayal twice a week.”
“Indeed. How do you stay entertained after eight centuries? Personally, I’ve already mastered boredom, chess, and murder,” Felicity continued, mimicking Pink.
She hummed, adopting a saccharine lilt as a third contender wandered in to join Pink and the caped vampire. Speaking as their lips moved, Felicity said, “She tried knitting once. It ended in flames and a missing stable boy.”
I snickered before quickly schooling my expression into a clinical mask. Yet warmth lingered in my chest as I scanned the crowd of spectators, oddly grateful for this strange, irreverent girl who could find humor even here.
I almost regretted that I would have to kill her. Not today, but soon.
The great hall stretched before us like a monument to vampire excess—soaring arches carved with scenes of human hunts, massive columns twisting toward a vaulted ceiling painted with constellations.
Tapestries depicting the founding of the House of the Sanguine hung between towering windows, their deep crimsons and midnight blues shimmering under the glow of crystal chandeliers.
Yet beneath all this grandeur, I felt the familiar suffocation of this place.
The weight of centuries of cruelty pressed down all around us.
Every stone had absorbed the screams of those who’d served here, each shadow hid the ghosts of the broken.
This had been my prison once; these halls, my cage.
Now I was back, and the air tasted of old blood and older sins.
The hairs on my arms rose as I spotted more of my childhood tormentors.
Head Priest Bruvor stood near the eastern wall, his brown hair tied back in a low tail. His cruel smile was unchanged.
Beside him lurked Lord Elliot, massive and brutish. His strong hands had once held me underwater until my lungs burned with desperate need. Both watched the proceedings with the casual interest of predators selecting prey.
My fingers curled into fists. The scars they’d left, both physical and emotional, throbbed with phantom pain.
I forced myself to breathe, to maintain the facade of just another ambitious contestant.
The glamor I wore had held up so far. Yet being this close to them, in this cursed place, made my skin crawl with the urge to drop all pretense and make them burn now.
Survival first, I reminded myself. Revenge is worthless if it gets you killed.
Still, my internal war raged on. Every fiber of my being screamed to lunge at Bruvor and Lord Elliot, to wrap my hands around their throats and squeeze. I wanted Bruvor to feel the same helplessness he had forced on me so many times. I would destroy them all, down to the system that’d created them.
From the spectators, voices carried with the typical vampire disregard for discretion.
“More Turned pretenders.” A feminine voice dripped with aristocratic disdain. “In my day, they knew their place.”
“Your day is ending, Lorelei,” came the smooth reply of a male’s voice. I didn’t have to look up to recognize Lord Valerius’s deep tones. “Merit over birthright…that’s the future. These trials will prove it.”
Lady Lorelei’s chilling laugh had my fingers curling into fists. “Merit? Oh, you mean desperation. Look at these street rats, thinking they can claim what belongs to the pure bloodlines.”
“While your precious Born children play at politics, the Made have been forged in actual fire. They have built their own fortunes and understand survival in ways your pampered whelps never will.”
“Survival is not the same as worthiness to rule,” she shot back. “They lack the wisdom that comes with centuries of noble blood.”
Finally, I spotted them in the crowd. She sat next to Lord Valerius, draped in shimmering copper, her brown hair styled with pearls. From a distance, her face was a mask of polite interest. Yet I remembered it up close, recalled the ancient winter trapped in her eyes.
The world faded. I was a child again, no more than six, and Nemea had lent me to Lorelei for a few months. It was one of her punishments, to serve in the opulent halls of her old friend’s estate.
My small hands burned, raw from hours of scrubbing stone floors. Dust still clung to my sleeves as I slipped into the drawing room. The scent of polish and old velvet was thick in the air.
I should have left. Instead, I lingered, drawn to the delicate music box perched on the mantel, its silver filigree gleaming in the candlelight. A forbidden treasure. I’d cleaned it but never had the chance to hear its song. Yet today, I took it down. I sat with it in my lap and wound it.
Music spilled from the tiny mechanism in the box as a miniature ballerina spun to the tune. I watched it with delight, wondering how such a thing was made.
Footsteps echoed down the hall as someone approached.
I shot to my feet and raced to put the music box back. Too late. Lady Lorelei entered as the song slowed, its chimes giving away my indulgence.