“Why does your blood slave always look so depressed when she is so lucky?” Princess Delphia exclaims, yawning after she is done. Vampyres don’t sleep and they don’t get tired. She is yawning in boredom, and a bored, insane princess is frightening. I’ve only ever met Princess Delphia. The other two princesses haven’t come to visit, and I’m glad of it after seeing how she behaves when she doesn’t get her own way. Princess Delphia looks like Emyr, with the same silver hair and unnaturally vivid blue eyes, the same red fangs tipped with silver to mark them as royalty. They hold themselves the same way—like the world owes them a debt.
Princess Delphia’s favourite blood slave is on his feet in front of her, his head bowed in submission. He’s a big, muscular blond man and completely gorgeous. A fae woman with matching silky long blonde hair is bowing at his side. I’m splayed across Emyr’s lap, and his sharp fingers dig into my waist, crunching the silk dress. I smile at Princess Delphia, knowing better than to frown for even a second longer. I clear my throat before speaking. “I’m very sorry, your grace. It’s been a long day.”
“Hmm.” She clicks her fingers on the chair she is perched on, like a pretty bird in a beautifully decorated cage. Her eyes drift over me. “When are you going to get a new one? You’ve only ever had two. You’re boring! I adore breaking them in, seeing the fight leave their eyes in the end. This is my fifth, just in this year alone.” She kicks the man, and he stumbles back, and the crack of his ribs breaking echoes louder than the silence from his lips. He doesn’t scream, cry out in pain, nothing but a small grunt. What has she done to him?
The fae climbs back up to his feet, bowing his head once again. I swear I hear the distaste in Emyr’s voice. “My tastes are pretty different from yours. This fae is staying at my side forever.”
“Forever?” she laughs. “Oh, brother, don’t tell me you have genuine feelings for the fae bitch?” Her eyes drop to me. “You never even let me have a taste. Aren’t siblings meant to share?”
“No,” he snarls. “Not her.”
She flutters her eyelashes at him. “Oh, brother, come on—”
“No.” The single word rings out as he puts me down onto his seat and stands up in front of me. “Siblings also fight over things. She is mine, and I’ll make sure you can’t even look at her if you try it.”
Princess Delphia barks out a laugh. “You protect her like you love her. It’s sickening. She’s a fae. She can never be a vampyre! She can never be your bride! You need to take one; otherwise, I will be the next heir. I can’t wait to tell our father—”
His hand is around her throat in a heartbeat. He laughs right into her face. “You’re a woman. You can’t be an heir. You can’t be anything but something to breed for new male heirs when it’s decided. I doubt father will even bother with you. You’re not half as pretty as our sisters, who he adores.” He throws her away, and she growls as she rises to her feet. “Get out of my castle. I’m bored of you. Tell father whatever you wish.”
“Your pointless and old castle, here in a fae city!” she screams at him. “You are the forgotten heir, Emyr. Forgotten and pointless.” Princess Delphia wipes her hands on her dress, which is torn from the fight. “I will leave. I don’t want to cause any more family drama. Mother will always be annoyed if we fight. Talking of which, she’ll be here in a month to visit you. I would hide your precious blood slave. You know she hates redheads.”
My heart races. The queen is coming here? The princess walks out with her blood slaves following with a limb, several fae workers stumbling after her. When they’re gone, Emyr looks back at me from the head of the table. “My sister is spoilt.”
We finally agree on something, but I wouldn’t dare voice it. “Your sister is…lovely.” The lie is pointless. He knows I don’t mean it. He walks over, sitting on the edge of the table and reaching out to touch me. Years ago, I would have recoiled at his touch and been punished for it, but now I don’t. Recoiling from him would mean a night of pain and torture, instead of the pleasure he can offer me when he chooses. I know I crave his touch, well, my body does, even if my mind still fights. Sex means nothing, it isn’t what I want and I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything. I’m always pointlessly, endlessly fighting my body when he is near. His hand runs across my cheek, down my jaw, and finally he curls his hand around my neck. “Shall we go back to my room? We can—”
Interrupted as the doors are open, he lets go, snarling as he turns towards whoever came in. “Who the fuck says you can come in here without knocking?”
A nervous voice echoes. “My prince, there is a problem that requires your urgent attention. I’m sorry to have interrupted.”
I look at the vampyre by the door, and I recognise him from several of the balls. It’s the nobleman that Kyrell is in a relationship with. Lewin. He looks after the armies in the city, and he is rich enough to make even Emyr pause to listen to him. Killing nobles is frowned upon, even for the prince. Emyr told me how his family was annoyed with him for murdering the professor, but they forgave him. I doubt he will kill more nobles anytime soon. Emyr swears under his breath before standing up. “Go back to the room, Story. I’ll meet you there later.”
“Of course.” I bow my head, and he leaves. Kyrell is waiting outside the room to escort me back and, to my surprise, the minute we get inside, he shuts the door behind us both. Hurriedly, he leads me over to the bathroom, turning on the shower. Once the rain is pattering away on the stone below, he looks at me and smiles. “We don’t have much time, but I have a plan. You’re going to think it’s mad, but I need you to be ready and on board.”
“Lewin is a distraction, isn’t he?” I figure it out. I just don’t understand why.
“Yes, and no. There’s something going on in the city, and I haven’t told you about it…but we need to leave soon. There are maps in the army room where the weapons are.” He presses a cold metal key into my palm. Steam is rising in the room, fogging everything but not the light in his eyes. “This is the key. You need to go in there when you can and scour the maps to the south of the city. The ones that lead to the sea. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“What?” I shake my head. “That’s just a mission to get yourself killed. Are you insane?”
“No. Listen to me. I have a way to get you out. People who want to help us, you. There are things going on that you’re not aware of. I’m going to get you out, okay?” He cups my cheeks. “I’m going to get your mother out too, back to you, because you cannot die here, and you need her. I want you to scour the maps. Make yourself a drawing of a way to escape through the fields and trees to the sea, and make sure the prince does not see it. The path needs to be hidden, out of the view of the houses and vampyres. I will do everything else with Lewin and the others. Be ready in two weeks. We’ll do it the day after your twenty-first birth year.”
My mouth is dry. “If anyone finds out, he will kill you. I’ll lose the only person who…my best friend. I can’t lose you.”
He wipes away my tears. “I will always be your best friend, little Tory. I know this place is destroying you. He is destroying you. But listen to me. We’re going to get out. My mother is making the plan with us too, and Lewin is coming. We’re going to leave. Okay? We can then spend the rest of your birth years somewhere safe. You can live your life as you want it.” His eyes are sad. “I can’t erase your scars, but I can vow to find you a better life where there won’t be another scar. Another bite.”
“Where would we go?” I whisper. It feels too good to be true.
Kyrell grins. “There are places to go where the vampyres cannot find us. Not even the royals.”
“He will never stop looking for me. You know how he is obsessed! You know what he’s like. It’s too dangerous.” I shake my head. “I can’t—”
“Isn’t it worth it? Don’t you want to get out of here?” he demands.
Instantly I go to tell him no, that I’ve given up wanting anything a long time ago, but I pause. The only way I’ve thought about getting out of here is by dying. The only way I’ve tried to get out of here is… I can’t even think the word in my mind. I look into my best friend’s eyes. I trust him. I trust him more than I’ve trusted anyone in my entire life. He’s my best friend and if he thinks we can get out of here, maybe we can. Maybe he’s right. “You gotta live for me. You gotta believe that there is a reason to live, to want to fight, to want a life. You are so much more than his blood slave, Story. You are incredible and the world needs to see you. I’ve believed in you since the moment we met. You were just a teenager then, so scared and broken, but I saw you. That spark. It only takes a spark to make a fire, Story. Burn it all down.”
I want that. I’ve wanted freedom since I came here, and he believes in me. “My mother wants that for you, too. She’s going to get your mother to meet us in the sea. Everything will be planned perfectly, I promise. No room for error. We’re going to get out of this together.” He pulls me in, hugging me tight, both of us knowing that I have to shower after this hug so that the prince doesn’t smell him on me. I hate that I have to do that. Could I escape? Something foreign enters my heart, lancing through it like a knife. Hope, hope of something more. Hope of seeing my mother again for the first time in so long. I smile brightly as I hug my best friend.
Hope was like a healing drug in that moment, and it took only two weeks for it to be crushed away.
There are twelve of us left, twelve to face the fifth test. I feel like I can’t breathe as I watch the line, wondering if it’s going to be even fewer next time. Catherine’s at my side, nervously rambling about people I haven’t met, and I enjoy listening to her. Her rambling calms us both down. Daegan smiles at me from near the front, and I smile back. The Sun king has brought me romance books, flowers for my room that he picked himself, and soaps for the bath that smell like roses. He looks after me, and he takes me to the library for my job, picking me up afterwards. He really is perfect in every sense of the word, and yet something just doesn’t always feel right. I can’t put my finger on what it is that bothers me, but something does, and I can’t shake it.
My eyes drift over my shoulders when I feel someone else staring at me, meeting Ziven’s stony gaze. He is with Calix and the twins, who look far friendlier. Ziven nods once to me, and I suppose that’s better than him wishing I was dead. I finally know the name of the bulky man from the Moon Dynasty after Calix mentioned him. Fritz stands at the other side of me, looking down from his towering state. I ignore him, wishing he chose to stand anywhere else. I know a bully when I spot one. He took lessons from Ziven in that too, I bet. He hasn’t spoken to me once in all the days I’ve spent in the Decidere, since the first one. He just glares at me from the other side of the group, but now the group is much smaller, and it feels like he has a score to settle.
I’ve seen him glaring at me for days over a table. After I was sick, Ziven actually let me come to the meals, all three of them. I’m still not allowed to wander on my own around the apartments, but it’s better than nothing. On my third day there, I managed to get back to training, feeling much better. Ziven made sure I made up for the days lost, and I left feeling very bruised and sore. My body is still slightly aching.
Daegan doesn’t like it, but I go and run on the track before the library in the mornings and afternoons on the days I’m with him. At first, he scowled at me, but now he runs too, and I’ve begun to enjoy the quietness of running. The slight feeling of freedom that comes with the exhaustion.
“You’re lost in your thoughts again.” Catherine nearly makes me jump. “Are you worried about today too? Did you know once we get to the sixth day, our history only writes of ten people who ever got that far? Something about the fifth test breaks people, and they end up dead or giving up.”
I shiver. “Only ten?”
“Yes. Five is extremely rare too. Four is usually where people stop. Three is quite normal,” she explains, rubbing her arm.
“How many do you need to do to become a dragon rider?” I clear my throat.
“It’s not about how many you need,” she says, lowering her voice. “It’s whether the dragons see you as worthy enough to be a rider. The dragons may take a liking to you after just one Decidere, or five or even ten. Or they may not. There was a prince of Dawn that never got a dragon, and he did eleven. I really don’t know how I’ve gotten this far.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t turned back or died yet,” Fritz interrupts.
