The ceremony itself was brief—no vampire wanted to spend more time watching a bunch of religious ritual more than they wanted to spend it eating and drinking and fucking. The feast was to commemorate the end of one lunar year and the beginning of a new one. I’d seen Vincent perform this rite only once before, and I’d had to sneak out to do it, watching from the rooftop of a nearby building and quietly creeping away before anyone could smell me.
It was, needless to say, very different when you were at the center of it.
Raihn and I had to give Nyaxia three offerings.
First, wine—to thank her for the abundance of the year and ask for abundance in the next. We held the glass goblet up together, raising it to the sky, our magic urging the liquid from the glass in an eel-like swirl of deep red and sending it to the stars above.
Then, the bone of an enemy—in appreciation for her protection, and in request for continued strength. We had more than enough to pick from this year, but it seemed particularly appropriate to offer her one of Simon’s—a finger bone. We held the polished piece of ivory up to the sky, and with a flash of black light, Raihn’s Asteris reduced it to dust, swept away in the wind.
And finally, we would offer her our blood. This was the most important of the three offerings, the one that signaled our eternal loyalty and devotion. She had made our blood what it was, the scriptures said, and thus we would offer it back to her as a sign of our fealty.
Tonight, this seemed a little redundant, given just how much of it we’d spilled for her over the last few months, but neither of us was going to complain about a little more.
Raihn and I made this offering together, our blood shared. We used my blade—because of course, I still carried them everywhere—to open cuts across our palms. Then we pressed our hands together and cupped them. When we lifted them to the night sky, we offered Nyaxia a pool of mingling crimson and black.
Traditionally, Nyaxia would take this offering herself, calling the blood up to the stars.
But now, nothing happened.
Long seconds passed. Raihn and I both grew silently more tense.
If Nyaxia didn’t accept the offering, it would make a terrible impression on such an important night. I was prepared to fake it if I had to. It was all a show, after all. Our magic was more than capable of convincingly swirling some blood around in the air.
But finally—after what felt like an eternity, but was only seconds—the blood rose. It danced against the velvet-black like an unfurling wisp of liquid smoke, before being consumed by the darkness.
Raihn and I let out simultaneous exhales of relief.
The spectators, oblivious, broke into applause, mostly cheering that they were now free to go feast and drink. We turned to address them, raising our hands in celebration and thanks, and we looked every bit the picture of the royalty we were supposed to be.
But my eyes drifted up to the night sky, where swirls of odd, gleaming clouds lingered, like clustered fragments of moonlight.
And for some reason, Acaeja’s warning rang out in my mind:
There will come a day when Nyaxia will bring a reckoning.
Not today. Not tomorrow.
But it will come.
Then I blinked, and the strange clouds disappeared—like they’d never existed at all, just another figment of my imagination.
79
RAIHN
The feast was one for the record books. Historians would, one day, write about this party, though they’d have to make some things up, because if they were there, they were probably too drunk to remember it firsthand. It was almost a shame that Cairis wasn’t around to appreciate it. He’d have been impressed.
After the ceremony, Oraya and I were thrown into engagement after engagement, shuffled around by Vale and Lilith from one set of nobles to another, making deadly-polite conversation and making sure all the right people knew just how frightening and powerful we were.
I preferred the Kejari. I was much more comfortable fighting with swords than words. Still, Oraya and I both turned out to be better at this than we thought. The hours wore on, and the event was, by all accounts, a success.
It was the small hours of the morning by the time I finally managed to slip away from my obligations. Oraya and I had gotten separated some time ago—Vale dragging me one way and Jesmine dragging her another—but one of the many benefits of the Coriatis bond was that I now always knew when Oraya was safe and when she wasn’t. I sensed no hint of distress, so instead of fighting through the crowd to look for her and risking getting pulled aside by yet another Rishan noble, I decided to find someone I actually wanted to talk to.
It was never that hard to find Mische at these types of events. She was always either near the food or the flowers. This time, I found her near the flowers. She’d wandered away from the main party, walking through the garden’s blooming shrubberies. When I came across her, she was staring into a wall of blossoms, silhouetted against them.
I’d paused for a moment, my smile fading.
Something about the image was so... sad.
“Careful where you wander unannounced out here,” I said, approaching her. “There are at least a dozen couples fucking somewhere in this maze.”
She laughed a little as she turned to me. A bit of my concern eased when I saw the overflowing plate of food in her hand. If she’d been empty-handed, I’d know we were really in trouble.
“Surprised you’re not one of them,” she said.
“Yet.”
That thought distracted me briefly. I was joking, but also, it wasn’t a bad idea.
She scoffed, then took a bite of a pastry. “That went well,” she said, through a mouthful. “The ceremony. The party, too. I haven’t seen anyone die yet.”
I wasn’t sure if that was the measure of a successful royal vampire party or an unsuccessful one.
But that thought faded away as I watched her. She was now carefully avoiding eye contact, looking very interested in the flowers.
“Thought you were done keeping secrets from me, Mish,” I said.
She stopped mid-chew. Then turned to me, wide-eyed, dismayed.
“She said she wouldn’t tell you!”
She?
My eyes narrowed. “She?”
Mische’s eyes widened more. “Fuck,” she hissed.
“Right. Fuck. Who’s she? Oraya?”
“I’ve got to go look at the—”
She started to turn away, but I grabbed her elbow.
“Mische. What the hell is wrong?”
She let out a long sigh, then turned back to me. “I just—I didn’t want to do this here.”
“Do what?”
I hated when suspicions were confirmed. Mische hadn’t been herself the last few weeks. She hadn’t been the same since the prince. Or—who was I kidding? She hadn’t been the same since the Moon Palace. My gaze fell to her arms, and the long gloves covering the burn scars she didn’t let anyone see—even me.
“What, Mische?” I asked, more gently.
She nudged food around her plate with her fork. “I’m... I decided I’m going to go away for a while.”
My heart sank.