Chapter 35
Blood.
The King was drinking blood.
Viscous, thick, dark crimson blood.
The thought scratched at the back of her mind throughout the night, clawing its way deeper into her bones by morning.
No matter how hard she tried to think of anything else, the image of that blackened bottle kept resurfacing—the crimson liquid spilling across the marble, the strange clots floating within it, the metallic tang still lingering at the back of her throat.
And now she knew her relentless mind would never let her forget it.
When Ellaryn saw the King that morning, a cold shiver crawled up her spine.
He spoke to her, issuing orders for the day, but she barely heard a word. Her gaze had fixed itself on his mouth instead, watching the way his lips peeled back to reveal his rotting teeth with every word he spoke.
She wondered if he had drunk blood that morning.
Was it something he consumed every day? Or was it merely an evening indulgence?
Her throat tightened at the thoughts.
The King snapped something at her, impatiently ordering her to get on with it, and she forced herself to move.
Check the blood lists.
Blood.
Blood.
More blood.
The irony nearly made, but the smell of antiseptic as she eased through the hospital doors made her sicker.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and made her face stone again.
Just like she had been taught.
The hospital was still cloaked in darkness, most of the patients asleep in long rows of beds, tubes and wires trailing from mouths, arms, and hollowed flesh. The air was thick with steriliser and sickness.
Though most slept, the Burner’s Blight cough echoed through the ward, violent and wet, jolting some from uneasy dreams. Those patients were kept at the far end of the building, sealed together in a single room so their suffering could be contained, their sounds muffled behind brick and steel.
It didn’t work.
The deep rumble of it travelled through the walls anyway, bleeding into every corridor.
A cold shiver traced Ellaryn’s spine as she moved deeper inside.
Usually, a nurse would meet her the moment she entered, but today the welcome desk stood empty. This wasn’t too unusual. The workers were stretched thin these days—too many sick, not enough staff.
Her mind flicked back to him, memories rising unbidden of crimson staining his teeth, coating his tongue, and seeping into his rotten gums.
Her breath hitched.
She found Arielle in the staff quarters.
When their eyes met, Arielle glanced away quickly—then looked back and held Ellaryn’s gaze for a moment too long, frozen like a deer caught in lantern light.
The staff always feared her. Everyone did, but for some reason this time felt different.
This time, it felt like she was being caught in the act.
Ellaryn cleared her throat. “I’m here to check the numbers.” She said.
“Right…” Arielle hesitated, her gaze drifting somewhere far away before snapping back. “Yes. Right this way.”
“No matron again?” Ellaryn furrowed her brows. “I thought we’d agreed she’d be here—”
“The matron is no longer with us,” the girl replied timidly, her eyes welling as she quickly averted Ruin’s cold gaze.
“The Blight?” Ellaryn asked.
Arielle nodded, wiping beneath her eyes.
“That’s unfortunate.” Her voice softened despite herself.
“It seems I’ve been promoted.” Arielle tucked her damp fringe behind her ear, keeping her head bowed as she moved towards the office door they had used last time.
“I’m sorry the circumstances weren’t better,” Ellaryn said stiffly, watching as Arielle’s fingers trembled around the heavy ring of keys hanging from her hip.
The words had barely left her mouth before she realised her mistake.
She wasn’t Ellaryn.
She was Ruin.
And Ruin didn’t apologise. She didn’t offer condolences. She certainly didn’t show warmth to the dwellers.
“You are?” Arielle questioned, brows furrowing almost in disbelief.
Ellaryn forced a nod, her features hardening into the familiar mask. “Now, are you going to open the door, or just stare at me all day?” she snapped, the threat returning to her voice.
Predator.
The woman visibly flinched.
“Of course,” she said quickly, sliding the iron key into the lock. Her hands still trembled as she twisted it, a nervous smile tugging at her lips before she pushed the door open.
Ellaryn felt it then—A thickness in the air. Heavier than the smoke in Cinders. Warmer, too.
Arielle’s forehead glistened with sweat, and she wiped it away quickly with her sleeve, only for fresh beads to form almost immediately.
“Is there something wrong with the air vents?” Ellaryn asked, her face becoming flushed with the instant warmth.
“We had to close them,” Arielle replied, her answers clipped. “Too much smoke drifting in. Bad for the Blight.”
Short sentences. Careful words.
The same way Ellaryn spoke to the King, because the fewer syllables you released into the world, the fewer chances there were to make a fatal mistake.
People feared her the way she feared him, and the thought left a bitter taste in her mouth as she nodded once and stepped into the office.
Arielle handed her the list with quick hands, and Ellaryn’s eyes lingered on it a moment too long, drawn despite herself.
She found her breath catch as she scanned the page, her stomach twisting as the truth settled over her: now she knew where the King was drawing his power from—and what he would do to a newborn Potential.
Her gaze moved slowly down the page, deliberate, careful, while Arielle watched her just as intently, fingers tightening around the list.
No babies had been born this week.
None admitted.
No Potentials.
Not this time.
“And how many have we lost to the Blight?” Ellaryn asked, gripping the papers a little tighter.
“Too many,” Arielle breathed, her eyes growing glassy as she bent down, retrieving another stack of papers from inside the desk before handing them over.
Blight to Birth Ratio.
Ellaryn’s stomach dropped.
Her hand rose slowly towards her mouth as she scanned the figures.
Thirteen.
Thirteen lives consumed by the Blight in a single week.
And not one child born to replace them.
Thirteen people gone.
Zero births.
For the first time, Ellaryn understood why the King was pushing the expansion so aggressively. It wasn’t just about territory or power.
He needed more lives—and he needed them quickly.
Because if the numbers continued like this, Cinders wouldn’t survive long enough for him to conquer anything.
She handed the clipboard back without a word, and Arielle snatched it up with a quick, almost nervous motion, but just as Ellaryn turned toward the door, ready to leave, and had barely taken two steps, she heard it—a soft, high-pitched wail.
It was faint at first, nearly swallowed by the hum of machines and the occasional cough, but it tugged at her attention like a thread weaving through darkness. She froze mid-step, senses straining.
Arielle remained at the desk, her shoulders stiff, her fingers clenched tightly around the list, and her eyes flicking nervously down the far corridor, as if she too had heard the sound that shouldn’t exist.
“You hear that?” Ellaryn asked, voice low.
Arielle’s throat worked. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”
Her response only sharpened Ellaryn’s intrigue. “The cry. Back there. It sounds like a baby?”
She knew the moment she heard it, with painful clarity—it was a baby.
She had carried too many to the King to forget the sound of unmistakable cries. They echoed in her dreams, even when she tried with all her might to banish the desperate wails for their mothers.
“…But there were no babies on the list?” She furrowed her brows, noticing Arielle visibly swallow.
The new matron stuttered, “I… I completely forgot you were coming…”
Ellaryn’s pulse spiked. She moved toward the corridor, following the sound down a narrow side hallway, her boots silent against the stone floor. The air grew warmer with every step, heavier, almost pressing against her chest, as if it were trying to suffocate her.
At the end of the hall, a small door stood slightly ajar.
Ellaryn pushed it open, and what she saw stole the breath from her lungs faster than the blight could.
Inside, a single lantern cast a pale glow over a crib that stood against the wall.
Ellaryn froze.
The baby was impossibly small, wrapped in thin cloth, chest rising in fragile, desperate breaths. And hovering above the crib—a wooden toy, spinning slowly in the air.
Ellaryn’s heart slammed against her ribs.
A Potential.
She turned back toward Arielle.
“This child isn’t on the list.” She pointed, but Arielle said nothing. She just stood unmoving, covering her mouth as quiet sobs escaped.
If she had come later… if she had just ignored the desperate sound…
Ellaryn let out a slow, heavy sigh.
She couldn’t deliver this baby to the King. Not this one. He would only take more power, grow stronger, feed on innocence again.
She couldn’t do it.
There were limits to her cruelty, limits to her ruin.
“I don’t understand. It’s not a newborn.” Ellaryn said, shaking her head. It was a lot bigger than the babies she had previously seen and handed to the King.
“A dweller brought it in this morning. It was a home birth.” Arielle said hesitantly. “They didn’t know it was a Potential. Not until…” Her trembling fingers pointed to the toy spinning in the air as if held by an invisible force.
“How could they not know? Surely they tested its blood at birth to make sure.” Ellaryn asked, her voice steady despite the tremor pulling at her lips.
“That’s the thing…” Arielle choked, taking a step towards Ellaryn. “He passed every blood test. Every single one.”
“That’s not possible,” she said, a lump forming in her throat, heavy and unmoving.
“His blood doesn’t shimmer,” Arielle whispered. “It never did.”
Her sobs began to quiet, exhaustion replacing panic as she straightened herself against the wall, sliding down until she sat crumpled at its base and when Ellaryn turned slowly toward the small form in the cot, the child lay still, tiny chest rising and falling in fragile rhythm. So small. So unassuming.
An enigma.
His blood was normal—plain, human, red. But she could feel it. There was no doubt. He was a Potential.
A chill traced down her spine.
Evolution.
Of course.
If the King hunted by shimmer and shine, by the flare of magic in veins, then it was only a matter of time before magic learned to hide. To adapt. To survive. Blend in. Present as ordinary. Stay alive.
The King believed he had mastered power—had reduced it to something measurable, something he could drain and store.
But this?
This was something he would never see coming.
“Please don’t take him… he’s just a baby.” Arielle pleaded, running a shaky hand down her face, and the small thing began to cry again. “The King will kill him.”
Ellaryn approached the crib slowly, keeping her hands relaxed at her sides. The lantern’s pale light flickered over the baby’s small, delicate features. Its skin was soft and unblemished, its tiny fists curling and uncurling as it lay swaddled in a simple blanket.
The crying subsided the moment their eyes met. The baby’s wide, unguarded gaze fixed on her, and a small, toothless smile spread across its face.
Ellaryn’s breath hitched.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to tilt. The baby didn’t see her as Ruin. Didn’t see the monster the King had forced her to be. To it, she was just a stranger leaning over its crib, and the smile it gave her was pure, untarnished, unafraid.
Her throat tightened. The weight of the secrets she carried—the lives she had ended, the cruelty she had enacted—pressed against her chest. But in that moment, the baby’s innocence pierced through it all.
She knelt, careful not to reach too close, letting the baby’s small smile wash over her.
Its babbles, soft and airy, tugged at something she hadn’t let herself feel completely.
“I won’t let him touch you.” The words came out in a whisper, almost to herself, and the baby cooed again, tilting its head, tiny hands reaching out as if to accept her promise.
She let the silence stretch for a heartbeat before speaking, her voice low and controlled as she turned to Arielle.
“I’m not going to take him.” She said, and Arielle’s sobs stopped instantly. Her eyes were fixed on Ellaryn, wide and unblinking, as if she had seen a ghost.
“W-What?” she whispered, her breath hitching.
“How many people know about him?” Ellaryn repeated, drawing the blinds and shutting the curtains. Arielle began to rise from the floor, trembling, straightening out her apron which had crumpled in her sombre.
“J-Just me. And the parent. But me. They left him in my care. I-I’m the only one who knows,” Arielle admitted, pressing her hands against her blue linen dress. Clearly, the dweller had seen his powers manifest and not wanted to suffer the consequences of birthing a Potential.
“Good. Keep it that way,” Ellaryn murmured.
“But I don’t know what to do… his powers aren’t exactly subtle… they’ll notice,” Arielle stammered, panic lacing her voice.
Ellaryn glanced at the toy drifting above the crib and drew in a sharp breath. She leaned closer, urgency tightening her voice.
“There’s a place you can take him,” she said quickly. “Dead Man’s Alley. There’s a crate—move it. You’ll find a hatch in the floor. Go down the stairs and wait there for me.”
She lifted the baby boy carefully and pressed him into Arielle’s arms. Arielle nodded frantically, fear written plainly across her face—and rightly so.
“You have to take him now,” Ellaryn whispered, her voice low but firm, every word heavy with command.
Arielle nodded, tears streaming freely now. She tightened the swaddle and cradled him carefully, reverence and fear mixed in every motion.
“Go,” Ellaryn ordered, and Arielle hesitated only a moment before she fled, the baby’s soft cry muffled against her chest.
Ellaryn stayed by the crib, chest tight, pulse steady, but deep inside… something raw had stirred.
The plan had suddenly become far more complicated, and part of her wished—desperately—that Xander were here.
He would know what to do.
He had said a few days.
A few meant three… right?
So that meant he would be back tomorrow.
Twenty-four hours. She just had to keep Arielle and the baby safe for twenty-four hours until Xander could get them out.
That was, if he came back by then.
What if he still hadn’t found the King’s weakness?
No.
She couldn’t think like that.
She turned from the empty crib, keeping her movements measured, almost casual, tucking the image of the baby deep in her mind, like a secret she could never let slip.
And she couldn’t. Not now.
Not ever.