“Are you committed to this cause or not?”

I hesitated. I’d seen the cruelty of vampires firsthand, at every turn in my life. Raphael had condoned their actions.

I owed him nothing.

But still, I hesitated.

A folded piece of parchment fluttered to the floor in front of me, the royal seal stamped on it. I picked it up and opened it. The sprawling script, the golden ink. Exactly as I’d seen it in childhood.

“A pardon, Samara. All your sins forgiven.”

A royal pardon. I could go home.

Wherever that is, part of me chastised.

But that louder part of me craved this. To finally be absolved of guilt and welcomed into the land of humans once more. Once I helped Titus, I would flee with the book and scour the Witch Kingdom without the threat of imprisonment.

The parchment disappeared again as Titus snatched it back. In its place, he set another item.

A card.

Not just any card. The purple edges said this was made by a toximancer, a witch specialized in poisons.

“What am I to do with this?” I made no move to pick it up.

Titus let out an aggrieved sigh, as though he could hardly believe he was still talking to me. “And here your one redeeming feature is you were thought to be clever. It’s a poison card.”

Obviously. “And what do you expect me to do? Use it on Raphael?”

“In a manner of speaking. Such a card would never work on a vampire. Their bodies are too strong. But if he were to ingest it directly, even the demon king himself couldn’t withstand the toxins.”

When he drinks from me.

This was why Titus had seen such an opportunity in me being the king’s Chosen. With me, Raphael was vulnerable in a way he was with no other.

He hasn’t drunk from the source in hundreds of years, Thea had said.

Yet he was to drink from me, just as Thea had seen. He was always meant to. If he was going to take my blood, as so many vampires took from humans in his kingdoms, he deserved this reckoning. Or was I always meant to betray him? Was that why she had seen it? My stomach churned, and I desperately wished for five minutes to think this through. Titus gave me no quarter.

“Besides. Just think what would happen if their kind knew who you really were. They’d hardly be so quick to welcome you, don’t you agree?”

My stomach rolled again. I snatched up the poison card. Such a light thing, between my fingers. Barely the width of my palm. Yet the magic in it was deadly. The symbols on it left no doubt of that.

“What happens after?” I said quietly. “If I help carry out this plan, how will I escape?”

“I’ll help you, of course,” he said soothingly. No doubt that syrup of his voice was meant to make me look past the fact I didn’t trust the spymaster one iota.

No, once I did this, I’d need to find my own way out. I glanced at the grimoire’s hiding spot. I’d need to take that with me. Returning to my rooms would be a foolish move, but there was no other choice. I didn’t trust Titus with it. If the necromancer really could stand against the vampires, they’d need all the help they could get.

“Tick-tock, Samara.”

I activated the card.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Forty-Six

Raphael arrived at my door a scant hour later, and when I opened it, I thought I might cease breathing altogether.

He wore a black silk tunic draped over his shoulders in a wide vee, a stark contrast to his alabaster skin. Red jewels ornamented his skin—his fingers, his shoulders, his chest.

The same, glowing red of his eyes.

The same red as my dress.

An iron crown settled on his brow, menacing spikes that reminded me of vampire fangs. Its fierce, unyielding shape served as a contrast to the luxurious tailoring that engulfed him.

He was otherworldly.

And yet, my dress made me the perfect extension of his outfit.

“Samara. You look…” He trailed off.

I had never known Raphael to be at a loss for words. But there he was, staring at me like he’d never seen me before.

“I’m ready,” I said, covering the fact his appearance had rendered me similarly speechless.

“Are you?” Raphael asked.

It was a good thing I was a human and could lie. I nodded.

Raphael extended an arm, and I just stared at it. I’d never actually hooked arms with a suitor. Not that Raphael was anything of the sort to me, not that he could ever be… but just that crook of an elbow made me ache for the life I could have had.

A life I could still have. With the pardon.

“I don’t believe this tradition is any different in the Witch Kingdom,” he prompted with dry humor.

Despite everything, I wanted to smile at the jest.

I slipped my arm around his and that was all it took. Raphael strode down the hallway, keeping to a pace I could manage in heels. No doubt he heard every fluttering beat of my heart as we grew closer to the ballroom. I hoped he continued to think it was simple nerves, not a warning bell of my betrayal.

Act normal, I willed myself. Just go along with everything and let him bite you when the time is right.

We didn’t go the way I expected. The hallway wrapped around and around as we rose to the very top of Damerel.

The ballroom was different than the one from the welcome ball. There was no staircase to descend from, only two massive twin doors, ornately carved from stone that were thrust open at our arrival, an abrupt trumpet cutting through the din that emanated from the room.

“His Majesty, King Raphael, First of His Name, Chosen of Anagenni, Ruler of the Vampire Kingdom of the West, and Lady Samara, the king’s Chosen, have arrived!”

All eyes were on us at once, then quickly cast down as everyone bowed low.

For Raphael, of course.

He stepped forward, as was his right, and I followed along, helpless.

The room itself rose to a peak at the top. A grand chandelier, the size of my bed, hung from a massive chain, with crystals and candles that filled the space with light. It was a feat of engineering it held up. Parts of the mountain were cut away to reveal the outside world. A glimpse at the three red eclipses.

If I’d thought the last ball had prepared me for a crowd, I was sorely mistaken. The ballroom was larger than the other one, but it was even more filled with vampires and humans alike. There were many, many humans. Not just the ones who disguised themselves wistfully as vampires.

No, when I looked at them… I saw myself.

It took everything in me not to pull from Raphael’s grip and run. “It seems I’ve complied with the dress code.”

I ran a sweaty palm over the red full silk of my skirt. The humans were easy to identify—each of us wore red. Sleeveless dresses, vests with no undershirts. Pulse points exposed nearly everywhere. The fashion was ornate on humans and vampires alike, with the others cloaked in darker shades of gray and black.

Many wore black, but only Raphael was fully cloaked in the color—save the red jewels embroidered into his tunic.

“It is… symbolic,” Raphael said carefully. His voice was quiet, but in a room full of vampire hearing, I doubted there was such thing as a private conversation.

Symbolic of the blood they would spill? My poisoned blood.

On some silent signal, the bows came to an end. Everyone watched us.

Oh gods, now? “Is this the part where you drink from me?” Why had I refused to let Thea tell me any more of what was expected?

Raphael adjusted and moved so he was directly in front of me without relinquishing our interlinked arms. His large frame blocked my view from the others.

“Now is the part where we dance.”

He didn’t break eye contact while he gestured to the band, and a fresh song started. I could hardly hear the first notes over the invisible cotton that clogged my ears.