by Kelsey Quick
“The seraglio is five stories deep with each floor serving a unique purpose for the supply unit. The first Standing—where we are at this very moment—is the check-in, check-out, and meeting rooms. Most of you will have no business on the first floor unless you are tending to servants or have been summoned. Which, depending on our lord’s fancy of your blood, could be very rare, or not at all.” Her eyes fall on me for a brief moment and I scowl.
“The second Standing is where we all are stationed for overflow work from the castle’s servants. Laundry washing, food cleaning, blood compounding, and donation. Overflow work may also require the supply unit to leave the seraglio, which is only allowed by servant escort, and by permission from master Gemini, madam Coffet, or madam Seriesa, the caretakers of the seraglio. The dining hall is on the third Standing and holds all rations earned by every supply unit. The quantity of rations that you are given coincides with how much work you complete. So, should you slack off all day, your skimpy meals will show for it.”
That’s alright. I’d rather starve, anyway. I lie to myself out of spite.
“Now, the fourth Standing is devoted solely to blood quality, meaning that it is meant for leisurely and self-pleasing activities. I would highly recommend not to spend the entire length of your days there, but care for your blood as our wonderful Lord Anton Zein’s satisfaction with you is dependent upon it.” I roll my eyes as everyone lights up at the sound of his name. Cattle. All of them.
“And finally.” she takes a breath. “The fifth is our shared bedchamber and latrines. Curfew is at eleven every morning. No earlier, no later. Wake-up call is at seven every night. No earlier, and no later. Sheet and cleaning duty of the bedchamber will be assigned based on-”
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
A high-frequency sound erupts past my ears and across the room, stopping Anaya mid-sentence. I wince, lifting my hands to my ears instinctively only to throw them back down when the sound grows exponentially louder as a result.
Confused, I look down. And there, beneath the arument bandage that is soaked by my blood, is the light of my tag, flashing bright red, and emitting the offending noise.
My heart nearly stops, and shocked gazes fly toward me, making me the center of attention yet again. Anaya’s expression is especially memorable as I lift my eyes enough to see her mouth drop slowly, as if her usually-collected self snapped and she was doing all she could to keep it together.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
The nagging frustration continues as I conclude…
…I’m being summoned.
chapter 7
Nothing can flush the panic that surges through my veins. Black dots swim across the pupils of my eyes as my heart pumps loudly from the bottom of my throat to the tops of my eardrums, drowning out every other sound. I look to Anaya, seeking some sort of guidance. I know that my expression is pathetic and vulnerable, but I can’t help it. My first meeting with Zein, of whom I insulted to an unimaginable degree just hours before, has come much sooner than I anticipated. I am horribly unprepared.
Wittiness, cockiness, bravery, strength. In an instant my best traits are all painted over, wiped away, leaving me with unintelligible mush for brains.
“You mustn’t make him wait.” Anaya shouts at me from the front of the room. Her unusual passion causes the other supply units to become uneasy. “Go. Before you upset him!” She says this as if I haven’t already done so.
Everyone shifts their stares back and forth, between us. I look to Savvy for comfort as I stand. She and Katarii both offer me nods of confidence and naive mumblings of “It’ll be okay,” and, “Good luck.”
Before I am even sure of what I’m doing, I find myself at the front of the auditorium, the band bolted to my arm still shrilly sounding. I take one last look up at Anaya as I pass through the doorway, and at the last second her face contorts with jealous anger; jealous that I’m about to be fed on. I can’t even comprehend it.
In what feels like an instant, I am at the end of the passage, nearing the seraglio’s entrance. I reach the front desk and the same skeletal vampire attendant from before sneers, showcasing his elongated fangs. He looks down and uses a small brass keypad to type in my numbers. The crude noise and flashing light from my tag stops. The vampire reaches up, to the right, and presses a metal button.
He grumbles. “That there tells our lord that you have been accounted for and are officially on your way. So, if you don’t mind...,” he extends his hand toward the exit. At the end of his hand stands a proudly-postured, vampire woman. She is donned in robes of white, gold, and lavender. Her white hair, which looks strange against her youthful face, is as straight and long as Sabbanthian wheat—falling nearly to her knees. She smiles widely at me in my approach.
“Hello. I am Madam Ceti,” she says, and her voice is so melodic that I dwell too long on it. “Follow me.” Her face scrunches up to participate in a giddy smile, giving off a senseless effervescence. What a strangely beautiful vampire… she might be crazy, too.
Madam Ceti turns to make her way down the hall.
I somehow manage to follow, traveling through the dark corridors of the castle with surprising grace this time around. As my toes slide along the cool grainy floors, a small reverberation of my resolve pulses through my body once again. The distance between Zein and I suddenly feels wider, despite truly being closer than moments before. I cherish the peaceful unrest that accompanies the illusion, for it allows my brain the space to start working again.
As I pass through the large mouths of connecting hallways, I analyze my surroundings in hopes that I might find a way to escape before facing him. But every window, every doorway, every hole that looks to have the capacity to fit me through it are heavily obstructed by passing servants, handmaidens, guards, or noblemen. And all seem to take their time studying me. I curse under my breath.
Outside of Nightingale, or any supply school for that matter, humans are hard to come by—endangered, in fact—making the presence of one more of a luxury rather than a commodity. Even here, where the servants probably see humans every day, our sheer presence ignites their predatory senses. Most vampires in the Stratocracy, including the elite’s servants, know blood only through synthetic methods, or through highly expensive blood packs. The latter having grown only a bit more prevalent since cultivating humans became a legitimate practice in Cain. Ignoble vampires are strictly prohibited from killing any humans, and face severe repercussions if they do... but the elite, of course, can do whatever they please.
It makes me sick to my stomach, thinking about the inner-workings of this world. The part of the world that the other humans choose to look past, too lost in their efforts to please.
As strange eyes continue to scan me, and with Madam Ceti on guard, I conclude that my chances for escape have dropped straight down to zero. For now, anyway.
My heartbeat becomes erratic the closer I draw to the grand hall. I’m running out of time. My mind trips over itself. Telling me to run and take the leap for freedom despite the underwhelming odds; anything to get away, and to stay away, from the lord of this castle. A bead of sweat falls down the side of my burning cheeks as my eyes shift upward to take in the twin ivory staircases—the ones that lead straight to Zein so that “he doesn’t have to wait too long for his meals.”
Ugh.
I swallow hard. The thin columns of the cases, carved intricately to look like porous bones, swirl upward with instruction, imploring me to not keep their master waiting.
I take one final look toward the huge paneled windows of the grand hall, the glass reflecting the dull oranges of dawn. I ignore the suspicious stares of the nearby curtain attendants and the expectant eyes of Madam Ceti while I consider shattering a large, stained glass window and making a break for it through the courtyard. However, something holds me firmly to this spot, to this purgatory. An intrepid curiosity that is, bluntly, meaningless.
Why did Zein decide to bring me here?
I c
lench the ivory knob on the base of the handrail as my thoughts shift from a need for freedom, to a need for answers.
Almost instantly I’m climbing the stairs with a renewed sense of determination. The burning need for answers easily replaces my lukewarm fear and hesitation. I won’t stop. Midway up and I’m on my own. Ceti doesn’t follow me and offers no words of comfort or parting as I step ever upward. Sliding my numbing fingers over the handrails, step by step, I ascend, repeating calming mantras to myself in hopes that I’ll handle this event better than the last. Distribution was proof enough that I didn’t know how to control my anger, and if I wanted even half of a chance at living past this day, I couldn’t be rattling off insults the moment I strolled into Zein’s room.
I slow nearing the top of the intertwining staircases. I gulp when I look down, realizing that the height conquered could easily be compared to that of the Nightingale Walls. Maybe even a little higher. I refocus my eyes to the four steps left before me and a new surge of fear amplifies. I move to silence it.
Four. Three. Two. One.
At the top, I still have at least fifty yards of gaping hallway before it opens to an enormous set of doors—of which, I can only assume lead to Zein’s personal quarters. As my feet take the last steps of the journey, more cautious than before, I notice the guards—masked from the forehead down to the nose—lining each side. Their spears are crossed over one another in a similar fashion, and their armored bodies stand rigidly still. Each one I pass never loses face, never coughs, never speaks, never twitches. If it wasn’t for the small layer of sweat glistening upon their jawlines, it would be difficult to tell them apart from sculptures.
“Okay, time to stop distracting yourself,” I mutter. “You’re almost there. You can do this. It’ll be okay.”
If Zein wanted me tortured to death he would have left me at the fallen pit. Surely, this can’t be worse than that.
The guards uncross their spears to turn and open the doors to his chambers, and a shudder of fear slithers along every surface of my body as I take in what lies before me.
Pitch black darkness. The huge room that I’m expected to enter looks to be an abyss of nothing.
“Well?” A voice from behind startles me.
I turn on a dime to see a well-dressed vampire, almost exactly like Gemini, walking toward me. Wait, it is Gemini… Master Blood-Sucking Scumbag.
“You can’t just stand there,” he says, stopping short of me. He smiles in a sarcastic ‘you’re wasting my time’ sort of way.
“Why are you here?” I snap.
He laughs to himself before responding, “I am the ’ensurance’ policy. Here to ensure that you don’t get any funny ideas.”
I scowl at him before he nudges me closer to the two doors. “Don’t keep him waiting, that will only lose you points, Dimwit.”
Reckoning that he’s right, and scowling at the misplaced pet name, I refuse myself a snide comment to speed along the process. My fingers fidget with each other in restless ticks as I take a deep breath, solidifying my journey into the illusory emptiness that is Lord Zein’s quarters.
Each step is an eternity.
Each inch, a leap.
The echoes of my steps grow louder the closer I draw to the center of the room, while everything else becomes engulfed by eerie silence. The two doors shutting behind me, unanticipated and loud, send my heart into overdrive. Looming claustrophobia clouds my thoughts as my eyes are unable to adjust to such stagnant darkness. After minutes pass without even the slightest alleviation to the tense atmosphere, I dare to speak.
“Excuse my entrance... my lord,” the last part burns my tongue, but I refrain from any other potentially insulting honorific. The last thing I need is to dig my own grave. I’ll save that for the day I make a break for the tree line, laughing the entire way with my middle finger in the air. And I’ll leave Zein a note or something, telling him how I really feel about him and his haughty tribe of oversized mosquitoes.
No answer from the abyss, although I can sense down to the bone that I am sharing the room with something else. More agonizing moments pass without reprieve, putting me now on the far side of the edge. I recall Gemini’s presence before. Zein had to be here. If there was back-up called for the task of corralling me into his chambers, how could he not be? When the question leaves my mind, a harnessing and lasting chill shoots its way up my spine. It is so painfully cold that I’m unable to move, frozen in place. I try to cry out but a voice as dreadful as death interjects.
“I think you have done quite enough talking, today.”
Immediately I recognize the affronting octaves as belonging to Zein, and immediately my determined and fearless nature dissolves as if it were a pathetic facade. Following the sharp break in silence, footsteps fill my ears. Every bone in my body, every ligament, and every muscle aches with astonishing pain. Each of them has escaped my control. I can’t move. And the feeling of absolute despair and hopelessness invades my mind the closer the footsteps draw.
“What is this? Why am I-,” I think to myself, beginning to hyperventilate as the effects of the sensations worsen both physically and mentally.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” he suggests. “Enduring something like this can be a bit overwhelming for humans, from what I hear.”
Something like this?
He’s now insanely close to me; towering me, watching me. And although the hints of silvery blond hair have been noticeable for the last couple of steps, only now am I able to make out the faint outlines of his face. I panic at the proximity. Agony sweeps over me in the form of a tormenting and unseen demon. I let escape a silent scream.
Zein’s cupped hand finds my jaw and suddenly his lips are at my ear.
“Are you feeling faint yet?” he whispers, sending hot breaths down my neck. “This is one of many abilities that has been passed down to me as a pureblood vampire.”
My eyes glaze over as he speaks. Pureblood. Only a few lines out of the entire vampire population that are gifted with certain, catastrophic abilities. The lasting chill, the feeling of dread, all of it… is him.
“I can control the blood of any that I have tasted. I can stop it, I can expand it, I can make the very cells cannibalize each other until nothing remains.” The shadows of his lips snake into his cheeks. “I can kill you right now, Wavorly. Without so much as sullying my hands.”
It hits me; my blood halts in circulation for a split second and my whole body aches. I desperately try to cry out, to scream for help that I know will never come. My better judgment finds me amidst the sensations.
Why try anyway? Why even care?
My body relaxes, and I grasp onto the bigger picture of this horrible reality. It would be better if he killed me. That way, I wouldn’t have to be the one thing I never wanted to be: a human in a vampire’s world. My mind, now nearly consumed by rage and apathy, almost doesn’t register that he called me Wavorly.
So, he remembers. I slide down to my knees, nausea wracking my bones.
“But don’t worry,” he says. “I won’t kill you.”
I will myself to look him in the eye, but I can’t move. He releases my cheek and pulls back. “After all, there is no point in killing those that wish for death. If death is not your weakness, then there is something else that you fear far more.”
The invisible hold on my body suddenly breaks, and I crumple to the floor. Power play. That’s all any of this is. Anger overshoots my judgment and I meet his eyes with insubordination. As I study their glimmering silver, my gut fills to intense disgust. The malice within his platinum irises intensifies. He mumbles something, but I can’t comprehend it.
Butterflies of warmth shoot from my neck down to my toes, proving that my blood is free of his fatal hold. My mind, far too lost in recovery from such pervasive manipulation, neglects the most basic of functions.
Listening.
“Did you not hear me?” he says. ”Stand up.”
My fingers curl in over the marble below
me, my nails scratching and folding in on themselves. The sensation makes me wish I could dig them into his face. A burst of air makes itself present in my chest, yearning for release. But I bury it beneath promises of later. Now that I know he intends on letting me live, I have plenty of time to show him how I feel. I force my balance as I stand straight as an arrow, the most confident posture of my life on display for a narcissistic monster who would probably rather see me hunched over like an injured mutt. Not today.
Zein reaches for my jaw once more, insanely fast, and pulls it upward so that I am forced to look at him. He turns my face to the side, running his fingers through my hair while dropping his gaze along my neck. Then it clicks. I understand the emotion that oozes from those orbs. Blood lust. I saw it in the eyes of that vampire so many years ago, and in the eyes of all I have met thus far. I’ll never forget it. An innate fear drowns out all of my other emotions as my mind connects every dot. Right now, if Zein were to destroy his inhibitions and take my blood without a kortrastet needle, the toxic mixture from his fangs would convert me into the fallen.
But... he wouldn’t do that. There would be no point to any of this. Right?
His fingers catch in the knots of my red tresses.
“Frightened?” he asks, undoubtedly sensing my heightened reactions that have gone unchecked. “You should be. You made quite the fool of me.”
All I can reasonably think to do is manipulate my way out of this situation. It had always worked at Nightingale. The only difference is that the one willing to punish me right now isn’t some third-party babysitter... it is the one who owns me.
“I apologize,” I mutter, glancing between his fangs and his chest, keeping tabs on the former for my neck’s sake. “I didn’t know the severity of my actions.”