The day before the wedding, I wandered the deserted halls of the castle on my own. It was eerily quiet, after the near-constant flurry of activity these last two weeks. On the eve of the wedding, the work had been done. Everyone was holed up.

I relished the quiet of these hours.

I wandered into various libraries, sitting rooms, meeting rooms, studies. Places I had never been allowed when this place was really my home. All were empty—until I rounded a corner into one of the libraries, dimly lit with the faintest dregs of sunlight beneath the velvet curtains, and stopped short.

I immediately backed away, but a smooth voice said, “You don’t have to leave.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

The scent of cigarillo smoke pooled in a room this small. Vincent would’ve been appalled to have it staining the pages of these books.

Septimus gave me a pleasant smile. The fire was lit, backlighting his silhouette, making his platinum hair seem downright golden.

“Not at all.” He gestured to the other chair. “We haven’t gotten to catch up in a while. Join me.”

I didn’t move, and he chuckled.

“I don’t bite, dove. I promise.”

It wasn’t exactly Septimus’s bite that I was afraid of. Actually, the days when teeth were my biggest worry now seemed a little quaint.

His clothes were disheveled, his shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal a hint of darkness at his chest. His eyes seemed more golden than usual, more threads of amber in the silver, though perhaps that was just the reflection of the fire and the darkness that bracketed them.

“You look tired,” I said.

“Does Raihn like you because you have such a way with flattery?” He gestured to the chair again. “Sit. Soak up the quiet before this place becomes a hellscape of peacocking nobles tomorrow.”

I hated to agree with Septimus, but—ugh.

Still, it was my curiosity more than anything that brought me across the room. And, fine, maybe it was a little craving for mortal pleasures that led me to accept when he offered me a cigarillo. I turned down the match, though, lighting it myself with a little spark of Nightflame.

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Impressive.”

“You watched me fight in the Kejari and lighting a cigarillo is what impresses you?”

“Sometimes the little things are harder than the big things.”

He slid the matches back into his pocket. I watched his hands in the movement. Watched the tremble of his little finger and ring finger on his left hand. Constant, now.

Bloodborn curses. Was that a sign of his? The symptoms varied. Some were near-universal—the red eyes, the black-scarlet veins underneath thinning skin. The insanity, of course, at the very end. Everyone knew that the Bloodborn turned into little more than animals—like demons, stuck in a perpetual state of frenzied bloodlust, incapable of thought or emotion. But even that was often whispered about. The Bloodborn were protective and secretive. They hid their weaknesses well.

“It’s nice to see you wandering about on your own,” he said. “Out of your cage, for once.”

“I’m not caged.”

“Maybe not now. But you were. A pity. Raihn is the only one around here who recognizes what he has in you. Vincent certainly didn’t.”

Strange, how so much of my own mental narrative lately had been stewing in anger over Vincent’s behavior, but even the slightest comment against him from someone else, and I was biting back defenses in my teeth.

“I have a blunt question for you,” I asked, and Septimus looked a little delighted.

“I love blunt questions.”

“Why are you here? Why are you helping Raihn?”

He exhaled smoke through his nostrils. “I told you what my goal is.”

“God blood.” I let the words drip with sarcasm.

“Oh, such venom. Yes, dove. God blood.”

“So you can what? Flaunt your power to all the other Houses? You’d risk fucking with the gods for that?”

At that, he laughed—a sound like a snake slithering through the brush.

“Tell me, Oraya,” he said, “how did it feel to grow up a mortal in a world of immortals?”

When I didn’t answer, he took another drag of his cigarillo. “I’ll guess. Your dear father always made sure you knew exactly how weak you were. Exactly how good your blood smelled. Exactly how fragile your skin was. You probably spent your entire short life cowering in fear. Yes?”

“Watch it,” I hissed.

“You’re insulted.” He leaned forward, eyes glinting amber in the firelight. “Don’t be. I respect fear. Only the foolish don’t.”

I scoffed, inhaling my cigarillo, enjoying the burn through my nostrils.

Septimus’s brow twitched. “You don’t believe me?”

“I’m not so sure you believe you.”

He chuckled, his gaze slipping to the fire. “I’d like to tell you a story.”

“A story.”

“An entertaining one, I promise. Full of all the darkest pleasures.”

Despite myself, I was curious. He arched his brows at me, taking my silence as tacit approval.

“Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a kingdom of ruin and ash. The kingdom was beautiful once, a very long time ago. But then, some two thousand years ago, the people of this grand kingdom pissed off their goddess, and… well, that’s not the sad tale I’ll tell you tonight.”

The smirk faded from his lips. With the firelight reflecting so harshly on the cut panes of his face—hollower, maybe, than they were a few months ago—he resembled a statue.

“No,” he said. “I’ll tell you a tale of a prince of the House of Blood.”

Oh. About himself. That figured.

“The kingdom of the House of Blood had suffered for two millennia now, its people destined to die early deaths that afford them little dignity,” he went on. “The Bloodborn are a proud people. They don’t allow outsiders to witness the ugliest parts of themselves. But trust when I tell you that the death of a Bloodborn curse is an ugly one. While the other two vampire kingdoms thrived, building empires on the backs of their goddess-gifted immortality, this kingdom clawed its way along, trapped in a cycle of endless life and eternal death. Surviving, but little more.”

I took another drag of my cigarillo. Septimus’s was untouched now, dangling between his fingertips.

“But,” he said, “some time ago, the king fell in love. The king’s lover was young and optimistic. Despite the woes of her kingdom, she believed that things could change. The king… he was no romantic. It’s no easy task, understand, to rule over the dust of a crumbling nation. He was a powerful man, but power could not stop his people from dying or his kingdom from withering or the other vampires from spitting in his face.” A wry, humorless smile twisted his lips. “But love. A powerful drug. Not enough to convince him. Not enough to make him the optimist his young wife was. But enough to make him think a dangerous word: Maybe.

“So the king married his lover, and not long after, she was with child. It is during this time that, as is often tradition with royal families, the king and queen visited a seer.”

I leaned forward a little, curious. I’d heard that the House of Blood often employed seers, though not much about what they often learned from them.

“But insight from seers, as you might know, can be a bit… spotty. While it’s tradition for expecting highborn women in the House of Blood to visit a seer, the results of those sessions are usually vague, ego-stroking affairs—predictions of great skill or loyalty or intelligence, that kind of thing. So this was, perhaps, what the king and queen were expecting when they visited the seer that night. Instead, what they got was a prophecy.”

I scoffed. I couldn’t help myself. Septimus laughed and raised his palm.

“I know. They have quite a reputation. But this seer was trustworthy—while her predictions were somewhat vague, they were never untrue. When she completed her ritual, she was shaken. She told them that their son would either save the House of Blood, or end it. The king was troubled by this news, but the queen was ecstatic. She barely heard the foreboding warning, only the hope for the future. Her son was destined to save their kingdom.”