Chapter Six Samuel
Chapter Six
Samuel
S amuel walked the streets for hours, the anger festering inside him. Panic thrummed a heavy beat in his chest, his breath coming hard and fast. He knew that he needed to make a plan, that he should be at home, calculating what little money he had left and putting it into an even harsher budget, rationing out what food he had. He should be looking at other jobs, other opportunities, he should take anything he could find. But it was pointless—no sensible Unblooded would employ him with Alessi sniffing around, and he shouldn’t turn to any Blood Worker that would hire chaff like him.
Not with the secrets he carried in his veins.
No, he was well and truly fucked. It was still a shock to him—his entire life, everything he had worked so hard for, gone in a moment. He had been born in the gutter, his unwed, single mother scraping to provide for them. In Aeravin, it was difficult enough to provide for yourself, but add in a bastard son? With no family?
Sometimes Samuel thought it was a miracle he had survived to adulthood at all. But he had, thanks to his mother’s hard work. She had made sure he was fed and clothed and educated—taught him reading and writing and arithmetic in the dim candlelight in the dark hours after work. She had kept him off the streets, kept him safe. And when he came into his terrible, terrible gifts, she had not shunned him. Just accepted him and helped him tame it. All she had asked was that he would take care of himself and avoid Blood Workers.
Now he had failed her twice over.
By the time his feet finally carried him home, night had already fallen. Tired and hungry, he fumbled for his keys—once, twice, three times before realizing he didn’t need them.
The door was unlocked.
He had definitely locked it that morning. He might not have much, but that didn’t mean he could afford to replace anything lost. Especially now. Carefully, he placed his hand on the doorknob, easing it open.
“Well, what have we here?” A woman asked, her voice cutting through the silence.
Samuel stood in the open doorway, his heart pounding in his ears as he looked at the stranger perched on his bed. The woman—young, she couldn’t have been older than him—rose gracefully, pocketing the lock-picks she had been fiddling with. She made no move towards him, folding her hands demurely in front of her as she waited.
Samuel released the air from his lungs, taking that burst of fear and shoving it aside. If she was a thief, she would have already taken what she wanted and been gone. If she was here to hurt him, she would have done it while he was cowering in the doorway like a fool.
No, she wanted something , but Samuel hadn’t the faintest idea what.
Closing the door, he stepped forward, searching her face in the moonlight. She wasn’t wearing a mask, like some common criminal, and that intrigued him.
Praying that it wouldn’t be the last thing he did, Samuel turned away from her, reaching for the candle and matches with surprisingly steady hands. A quick flick of his wrist and the light bloomed, caught and held on the wick, and he took the candle and lit the stubs he left around the small flat. It wasn’t as bright or clean as witch light, but it was what he could afford. If it offended the stranger’s sensibilities, at least she didn’t show it.
“Well,” Samuel said, turning to look her in the eyes. “Who are you?”
“A friend,” she replied.
Samuel had to laugh. To her credit, she didn’t flinch or frown. She kept her expression composed, and Samuel admired it. He studied her face, from her golden skin to the shape of her features, noting the Tagalan ancestry in her. She was exceedingly pretty, and her skin was clear and flawless. She wore her hair long—longer than most girls in the slums did, given the price that hair like that would fetch—and even in the faint candlelight Samuel could see its healthy shine.
Her clothes were fine as well, though he had never seen anything like them. She wore dark leathers, not quite black, but the same shade of nothingness as the shingles that lined the roofs of Dameral. Her cloak was the same color, that empty shade that would make the eye glaze right over it.
So strange, this girl in fine clothes, breaking into a home that she could afford to buy with the price of her hair alone.
“I’ve got nothing of value,” he said.
Her nose wrinkled in the first sign of emotion he had gotten from her. Distaste. “It is rather quaint,” she said, and though the words and tone were polite enough, Samuel still heard the veiled insult behind it.
“So, you’re clearly not here to rob me,” Samuel continued, his curiosity burning. He could force her to tell him why she had broken into his room, who she was and what someone of her means could want from him.
He could make her do it, and he could make her do it on her knees.
Samuel clenched his fists, disgusted with the way his mind had turned naturally to that. It was the lingering echoes of his power flowing through his veins, tempting him to darkness. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself, what he had been telling himself for years. He wasn’t his power. That ugliness that was in his blood was a curse, but it wasn’t him .
He still didn’t know if he was lying or not.
But knowing that he could throw it at this stranger was a comfort, a layer of protection he couldn’t ignore, though it was one he didn’t want to look at too closely.
And still, she just watched him.
“I have nothing to offer you,” he said, inclining his head slightly. With no other recourse open to him, and not wanting to fall into the darkness, he turned to the only other option—manners. “No tea, no coffee. No snacks or cakes. I know that makes me a poor host, but I’m afraid that I was not expecting company.”
The woman smiled, and in one swift movement there was a blade in her hand, glinting. “Those aren’t what I came to taste.”
Samuel swallowed hard, suddenly reconsidering his reluctance to use his power on her. “Blood Worker,” he whispered, and she nodded.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Samuel,” the woman offered, turning the blade over in her hand. “I’m a friend. An ally. But I need to know something.”
Samuel shook his head. “I’m not ignorant. I know what you can do with my blood.”
“I can tell you who your father was,” the woman replied. “And everything you can gain from claiming his name.”
“It won’t matter,” Samuel said. “I know enough about my father to know that I don’t care about the asshole who sired me.” He had seen enough in his mother’s eyes, in the fear that she had carried through her whole life. “And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I’m no Blood Worker.”
It was the only reason she would be here. That his family would be looking for him in the first place. It was a common enough fantasy that almost every child of the slums dreamed of it. That out there, somewhere, a Blood Worker family had lost their heirs, that they would come to the slums for the bastard child they had cast aside. That there was magic in their blood and nobility in their future.
Anything would be better than this life, this hopelessness. But Samuel never had that dream, because it didn’t take him long to realize that he was one of those bastards. Though his mother had never given him a name, he had figured out the truth, that a nobleman had taken a fancy to his mother, had raped her and left her with a child in her belly and no way to care for it.
And worst of all, he wasn’t even a Blood Worker. He couldn’t master the simple tests that the Academy gave all their applicants, the magic somehow slipping through his fingers like water.
Instead, he was something far worse.
The woman looked concerned at his announcement, but not deterred. “I’m sure you only need a proper teacher,” she said. “Your bloodline is strong.”
Samuel smiled sadly. “I thought you needed to test that to be sure.”
She cast him a grin that was all teeth. “You’re right. Will you give me a little blood?”
Samuel considered it. Despite the anger he carried—or maybe because of it—he wanted to know who the man was. Who had destroyed his mother’s life, who left her without a job or references or opportunity. Who had left her with a child she had spent her life protecting from the Blood Workers, at great cost to herself.
He had already failed her. Why not break the last promise he had left if it meant answers? If it meant revenge?
Never let them get your blood , she had said.
But he had nothing left to lose. If anything, this was an opportunity. He could come crashing back into his father’s life, demanding retribution, money, answers. Find out if he even remembered his mother’s name.
Perhaps even find out what he was.
It was certainly better than starving, and even if this woman was playing him, even with a drop of his blood, he could still force her back. Make her forget that she had ever seen his face. Make her take her own knife to her throat and slit it to the bone.
Probably.
“All right,” he said. “But first I want your name.”
She smiled—just a quirk of the lips, really—but she held out her free hand, dropping into a perfect curtsy. “Lady Shan LeClaire, at your service.” She cast her gaze low, the perfect image of sweet and demure, marred only by her strange clothes.
Not knowing what else to do, he took her hand and bowed low, his forehead level with her outstretched fingers. In the game of courtly manners, he only knew the barest basics, but even he knew that someone like him ought to bow before someone like her.
And, strange gifts or not, it would be in his favor to not anger the Blood Worker.
“It’s a pleasure, Lady LeClaire,” Samuel said as he straightened. “I am Samuel Hutchinson.”
“Well, Samuel…” she flashed her blade again, the small silver dagger dancing in her fingers. “I won’t need much.”
Samuel steeled himself and stepped forward.
Meeting him halfway, she took his hand in hers. It was soft and small, but there were callouses on her fingertips. A lady’s hand, but the type who was used to work, to handling daggers and claws and heaven knows what else. She had held him steadily, drawing her blade against the pad of his thumb, and the blood welled, bright and scarlet. Before either of them could think about what they were doing and the shocking intimacy of it, she raised his thumb to her lips and sucked it into her mouth.
The warmth shocked him, as well as the sudden swipe of her tongue against the cut, and he ripped his hand away before he could stop himself.
He watched her face, the shock and the sudden openness in her eyes, and she grabbed him again—hard. Pulling him closer, she pressed her nail below the wound, forcing another drop of blood out. Then her mouth was on him again, her teeth pressing against his flesh as she worked the wound.
Something flashed through him—an emotion he dared not recognize—and he wrenched himself away from her. “Get away from me!” he snapped, his power slipping. It was dark and heavy on his tongue, fueled by confusion and anger, and he could feel it hanging heavy in the room around him as she scrambled away.
All dignity, all pretense, all grace was gone as she mindlessly scurried backwards, eyes empty as she pressed against the far wall, putting as much distance between herself and Samuel as possible in the small room. For a moment they just stood in silence, Samuel’s chest heaving and Shan staring blankly, then awareness started creeping back into her expression.
“Do you know what you are?” she asked, still breathless and raw, and Samuel couldn’t help the smug feeling that washed over him. He had been the one to shatter her carefully constructed airs, and for the first time since she arrived, he felt like he had the upper hand.
Turning away, he took an old handkerchief from his pocket and held it against the cut. Pressed firmly against it until it clotted. “So,” he asked, “am I not who you’re looking for?”
He heard her swallow hard. “No, you are, Samuel Aberforth. But you are also so much more.”
She stepped away from the wall, coming back into his line of sight, and held out the dagger to him, hilt first.
Looking down, he saw the shine of his blood still on it. Her words still ringing in his ears, he took the dagger and started absently cleaning it as well, till not a drop remained.
“I’m sorry, but did you just…” he finally said as he returned the dagger. But he stopped himself, shaking his head roughly. “No, the Aberforths are all dead. All but…”
“Yes,” she said. She no longer seemed shaken; no, she looked at him with a brightness in her eyes, and he might not know this Lady LeClaire, but he knew a schemer when he saw one. She was looking at him like he was the answer to all her questions, and he felt suddenly, desperately, unbalanced. “All but the King. Until now. You are the last living heir of the Aberforth line and the last descendant of our Eternal King.”
“No,” he whispered, freezing up. It could not be. Out of every single option he had ever considered, every nobleman he had wondered about, he had never dreamed it was the Mad Aberforth. Fate had already been cruel enough to him—it could not do this now.
“Samuel,” Shan said, gently, calmly, like she was speaking to a scared child or a skittish animal. “Do you understand what I am saying? Your father was Nathaniel Aberforth.”
“No,” he said stubbornly, looking down at her, at her pleading dark eyes and her gentle smile.
She took her hands in his, unable to hide her glee. “You are the answer to everything.”
There it was—the scheme. “I am not your puppet,” he swore, and she just smiled all the wider.
“And this is what you prefer?” she asked. Dropping his hands, she turned around, gesturing to the room around them. To its small quarters and its cheap, mismatched furniture. She pushed past him—graceful and elegant once more—and rummaged through his little pantry.
Rice.
Dried beans.
An apple so far gone that she wouldn’t even touch it.
“This?” She gestured again. “This paltry life?” Turning, she obviously, slowly, looked him over from top to bottom in a way that made him squirm. “I see you don’t have the strength to be a hard laborer, and your hands are too smooth to suggest that you work as a servant.”
“I am an accountant,” Samuel muttered crossly, clenching his hands at his side, discomforted by the fact that she had noticed him as much as he had noticed her.
“Ah, well, forgive me then.” She pressed a hand over her heart. “Surely keeping numbers for someone else’s profits is the life you’ve dreamed of.”
“What would you have of me?” he all but snarled. “Go the King? Grovel for a place at his side?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There is a perfectly legitimate system in place for recognizing bastard heirs,” she replied calmly. “No groveling involved.”
“But to what end? Don’t toy with me. I’m sure you’re not doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”
“No, of course not,” she said, clearly pleased. She stalked forward, into his space, and he could feel her breath hitch as she looked up at him. Something sparked between them, and she tilted her head to the side, exposing the long line of her neck. His eyes followed it, as naturally as the pull of gravity, and he forced himself to look away.
This was not just foolish, it was dangerous.
Yet he could feel her next to him, the warmth of her presence, the pull of her charm. Except for the brief break caused by his power, she had been strong, confident, commanding, ever since he found her in his room. And that momentary slip didn’t make her any less compelling—if anything, it made him want to take her apart bit by bit, strip away each layer until he found the true woman underneath.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep, steadying breath. “Just speak.”
“The King would welcome you,” she said, softly, her words a whisper against skin. “After the passing of his entire family, he mourned them for years. But now, I can give his family back to him.”
And just like that, the allure faded, all the mystery gone in the blink of an eye. “You want to ride my coattails to power,” he realized. “A simple glory hound.”
He might as well have smacked her. She rocked back on her heels, her hand clenched at her side. “I found you, Samuel Aberforth, don’t you forget that. I am no mere opportunist. I already have power, more than you could ever realize. This? This is just one of my many plans in play.”
Samuel smiled, cruelly, and she leaned in. “And I should thank you for that?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “A little gratitude would be nice. Understand this, Aberforth. You have nothing left to lose. I could give you the world.”
“I don’t want the world,” he said. “I’ve seen what you and your kind do with your powers, your riches. I’ve lived the results of it.” He gestured to the same room she mocked just moments before. “You see this? This is the best life I can hope for, the most I can afford, because you and your Blood Workers exploit us so you can have your riches. Hells, my very existence is proof of that. The late, great, mad Lord Aberforth saw my mother and wanted her, not caring that she didn’t want him back. And so I was born, and my mother? She was ruined.”
She studied him then, the artifice dropping as she took in the anger that flowed through him. He stepped away, raking his hands through his hair as he tried to bring himself back in line. He wasn’t normally so open—he couldn’t allow himself to be so open—but it had just crashed over him, like a wave, the words that he had held back for so long spilling past his lips.
“Samuel,” she said, softly, giving him his space. “I’ve dropped a lot on you. I know you don’t know me, and I am everything you hate about this world. But I understand you.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I know you can’t yet,” she replied. “But take this—my name is Lady Shan LeClaire. My father brought my mother from her home, a nation of islands where Blood Working was banned, but she was powerful and feared. He brought her here, made her his wife and his possession. And after he got his heir and a spare, he drove her away, keeping her children hostage.”
He turned back to her, drawn by her tale, by the simple way she told it. There were no hysterics, no attempts at drama to earn his pity. It was the simple, honest truth, layered with a pain that was old and well-worn, but none the less potent for it.
“My whole life, I’ve been shamed for my tainted blood, for my brother who inherited my mother’s looks but none of her power. I’ve seen the cruelty of Blood Workers turned against him. I’ve seen the way they use people like him—the Unblooded—as laborers and servants and disposable things.”
She reached out and he let her take his hand. “I’ve spent my whole life building power on my own terms, by rallying the very people they dismiss. The people who surround their lives but are too unimportant to be anything more. I’ve gathered secrets and lies, truth and blackmail, and I’ll use it to burn this system to the ground and create something new. I had planned to use you to do it,” she paused, that small smile coming back, “but I see you’re an idealist.”
Samuel openly stared at her. “So, this is what you’re scheming.”
“And clever,” she added. “It’s hard enough to enact real change as a LeClaire. As tainted blood. But with you on my side, with an Aberforth on my side, suddenly things that were impossible are no longer so.”
“You’re mad.”
“I’m not,” she said, bitingly. “You have every reason to hate Aeravin as much as I do, and everything to gain. So, Samuel Aberforth, what do you say? Will you help me?”
For a long moment he didn’t answer, weighing what she told him. He did not know this woman, he didn’t know her plans or her schemes, just that she admitted to having them. But she was here, giving him just enough information that, should he wish it, he could turn her in to the Guard and have her executed for treason.
So perhaps, if she was willing to take a leap of faith on him, he should do the same.
Shrugging, he said, “What do I have to lose anyway?”