Page 21 of Thirst
I should have left. Instead, I lingered, drawn to the delicate music box perched on the mantel, its silver filigree gleaming in the candlelight. A forbidden treasure. I’dcleaned it but never had the chance to hear its song. Yet today, I took it down. I sat with it in my lap and wound it.
Music spilled from the tiny mechanism in the box as a miniature ballerina spun to the tune. I watched it with delight, wondering how such a thing was made.
Footsteps echoed down the hall as someone approached.
I shot to my feet and raced to put the music box back. Too late. Lady Lorelei entered as the song slowed, its chimes giving away my indulgence.
The vampiress flashed a knowing smile. “Is this what you do when you think no one’s watching, little roach?” Her long fingers plucked the music box from the mantel. She wound it again slowly, and the pretty melody spilled into the room once more. The sound wrapped around me like a memory I didn’t own, the only light in a place carved from shadows.
Without warning, her free hand cracked against my ear. The sharp pain blurred my vision and rang in my head. With swift, deliberate malice, she hurled the music box onto the floor.
I heard its ruin before I saw it. The delicate mechanism exploded into useless fragments with a discordant crash. Porcelain shards, tiny gears, and the broken dancer’s limbs scattered across the ground. The music died, replaced by the harsh finality of splintering wood and shattered dreams.
Twin tears escaped down my cheeks. She was just like my grandmother, ruining the nice things around her for no reason other than spite.
“Remember this moment, little half-breed,” she whispered as she towered over my trembling form. “Worthless creatures like you don’t deserve beautiful things. You only destroy them.” Her fingers dug into my chin, forcing me to confront the destruction. “Now clean up your mess.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd as the final contestant approached the testing stone. I shook off the past and looked up, expecting another stranger to catalog and dismiss.
Instead, my world tilted.
My careful posture and aristocratic facade threatened to crumble as my hands began to shake uncontrollably. I bit down on my tongue and used the pain to keep from crying out.
Silver hair caught the torchlight like moonbeams on water. Those familiar eyes, now red, swept the room with predatory assessment. She’d shown me a kind of care I rarely knew. She’d taught me to fight…to survive, not just to endure, but to rise above the misery. To hope, even when hope stung like a lie.
My chest constricted, each breath a struggle. I couldn’t fall apart in front of all these people. Carlyle told me the vampires killed her. I’d mourned her. I’d avenged her.
Razira.
How?The question screamed through my thoughts.How is she here? How is she alive? How is she one of them?
I wanted to run to her, to demand answers, to weep with relief that she had survived. Yet I remained frozen, breath caught in my throat, as she stepped forward to take her place among the contestants. Graceful and composed, she glided along with the ease of someone who’d never known the weight of a servant’s grief. As if she’d never held a broken child and promised her that everything would be all right.
Here she stood, undeniably a vampire, moving with the fluid grace that spoke of years spent adapting. Her silver hair spilled down her back in elaborate braids, gold ribbons woven through each twist, glinting with every step shetook. Where once she had carried herself like a survivor, now she moved like a player in the deadly game of vampire politics.
She lifted the chain with steady hands. The artifact flared against her skin. Her gaze slid past me, blank and unbothered, as if I blended into the crowd like smoke. Recognition never touched her eyes.
Disappointment followed closely behind my relief, heavier and colder. I stood inches from the only person who’d once embraced me as a broken child and promised safety.
What did they do to you?I studied her composed features.What did you have to become to survive?
“Accepted,” Mathias announced.
As Razira moved to join our group, I caught fragments of whispered conversations from the spectators.
“—anotherTurnedvampire gaining entry?—”
“—the old bloodlines won’t stand for this?—”
“Our house was founded by the Born, not these Turned pretenders?—”
I began to understand the undercurrents in the room. There was tension not just about the trials. The Born vampires, those who traced their lineage back to the ancient bloodlines, viewed themselves as the true aristocracy. They saw those turned into vampires, the Made, as upstarts, pretenders to power that should belong only to those with pure blood.
“The candidates have been selected,” Mathias called out, his voice cutting through the political murmurs. “Congratulations. An attendant will escort you to your quarters, where you may rest and prepare for what comes next.”
Those words should have filled me with triumph. I was one step closer to my goal, but crossing off a single name barely made a dent in thelong list still waiting for me.
The attendants ushered us out, and the procession flowed from the great hall. I slipped into place near the rear. Just ahead of me, Razira walked with coiled grace, her braids swinging like a blade at her spine.
