Marcus's head tilted. His hand rose lazily, as though idly conducting a symphony of blood. "Perhaps you misunderstand, child. Refusal is not defiance. Refusal is weakness. And weakness in my Court—"
"—is death," the crowd finished in one voice, like a chant.
Liam coughed, blood staining his lip, but his gaze still held mine. Steady. Fierce. Alive. "Aria," he rasped. "Don't you dare give them the satisfaction."
Kaylan kicked him again, silencing him with a crack of ribs. His body crumpled but his eyes never left mine. That look tethered me even as despair clawed up my throat.
Kaylan wrenched my arm higher, the dagger poised for the plunge. "End it," she hissed. "Or I swear, I'll tear his heart out myself."
The world blurred. My pulse roared in my ears. The chamber tilted, shadows spilling like oil across the stone. They whispered, not in words but in feeling — hunger, promise, salvation, damnation.
And then I let go.
The shadows answered.
They burst from my skin in a torrent, spilling across the circle in black tendrils that snapped like whips. Gasps tore through the Court. Torches guttered as if strangled, their flames bending inward toward me. The banners of blood quivered though no wind touched them.
Kaylan staggered back, her grip ripped from my wrist by a lash of shadow that coiled between us like a living serpent. The dagger clattered to the floor, ringing loud against stone.
I rose, not with strength but with something deeper, darker. My feet lifted an inch from the ground, shadows cradling me as if the floor no longer mattered. My hair whipped around my face though no air moved.
"Forbidden," I heard Dorian mutter somewhere above, his quill frozen. "It should be impossible—"
Selene's voice cut him off, soft and mournful. "Threads long severed have tied themselves anew. The weave trembles."
Lucian only laughed, delighted. "Ah, now the play becomes art!"
Kaylan snarled, drawing her blades. "Witchcraft," she spat. "Abomination."
The shadows thickened, wrapping my wrists, my throat, my chest, but not choking — anchoring. For the first time, they didn't burn me. They obeyed. They lived with me, not against me.
I looked at Liam.
He was still on his knees, chest heaving, blood trailing down from his mouth. But his eyes widened as he saw me, not with fear — with recognition. As if he had known all along that this storm was waiting.
Marcus descended into the circle.
Shadows parted for him like water. His presence drowned mine in an instant. The chamber bent toward him, the air collapsing under the weight of his will. He studied me with that unreadable calm, hands clasped behind his back, as though I were nothing more than a curiosity on a shelf.
"Interesting," he murmured. "Very… interesting."
The crowd roared again, but their hunger had shifted. No longer was it only for Liam's death. Now they wanted mine — or my power. They wanted to see if Marcus would crush me, or claim me.
Kaylan lunged forward, her daggers flashing. "She is filth! Let me cut her down before she spreads this corruption—"
Her blade never touched me.
The shadows reacted on their own, coiling around her wrist, wrenching the dagger free and hurling it across the chamber. Another tendril lashed at her throat, dragging her back, choking her with the same leash she'd forced on me.
Gasps echoed. Some laughed. Some cheered.
Kaylan ripped herself free, her eyes wild with fury and terror.
I didn't understand what I had done. I didn't control it. But I didn't stop it either.
Because for the first time, I wasn't powerless.
Marcus lifted one hand, and the shadows froze. Every tendril stiffened mid-air, shivering, then dissolved into smoke that slithered back into the cracks of the stone. My chest heaved, and I collapsed to my knees, breath torn from me as though I had been hollowed out.
The silence was crushing.
Marcus's shadow fell over me. His hand touched my chin, cold as marble, lifting my face to meet his eyes.
"Such defiance," he murmured. "Such hunger. Such… potential."
His smile was razor-thin. "You will not kill the boy tonight. Not because you chose mercy. But because I chose curiosity."
The Court howled in protest, voices clashing like steel. Marcus silenced them with a glance.
"Remember this night," he told them. His voice was velvet wrapped around iron. "For mercy is weakness. But weakness—when sharpened—can be reforged into something far greater."
He released me, and I crumpled forward, my palms slapping stone slick with blood.
Liam coughed, dragging himself upright, his eyes still locked on mine.
Alive.
For now.
And I knew, even as the Court raged, even as Marcus's shadow fell heavy over us both, that I had done more than defy him.
I had shown him a weapon.
And weapons were never spared.
They were honed.
They were used.
They were broken.
...
The chamber still quaked with fury.
Vampires howled their outrage, hissing like serpents, claws dragging against the iron rails. The very walls seemed to pulse with the riot of voices, their bloodlust pounding through the stone floor beneath my knees.
Marcus did not silence them this time. He let the chaos build, swelling like a storm. His eyes lingered on me, still kneeling, breath ragged, shadows clinging faintly to my skin like ash after a fire.
Then his voice cut through the uproar, soft but absolute.
"The trial is not over."
The hall stilled instantly. A thousand eyes burned into me.
Marcus's gaze flicked to Liam, who still knelt shackled, swaying, blood streaked across his chest where Kaylan's dagger had bit. His breaths came shallow, ribs broken, but his eyes—always his eyes—never left me.
"Mercy," Marcus said, tasting the word as if it were foreign. "It fascinates me. So frail. So dangerous. So easily corrupted into something else." He descended another step, his cloak dragging shadows with it. "Tonight, you will learn what it costs."
He raised his hand toward Liam.
"Kill him. Not by dagger. Not by blade. With your shadows. With your teeth. Show me this mercy of yours, dressed in the truth of blood."
A ripple tore through the Court, half delight, half disbelief.
Kaylan's laugh rang loudest. "Yes. Yes, let the stray rip her pet apart herself. Let her show what loyalty truly means!"
Lucian leaned forward, golden eyes bright, whispering just loud enough for me to hear: "Do it, little star. Kill him—or claim him. Either way, I will enjoy watching you burn."
Selene's veiled head tilted. "Threads snarl. A choice not of law, but of heart. A choice that unravels futures."
I couldn't breathe. Marcus's command pressed down heavier than the collar at my throat.
Kill him.
The Court wanted it. Kaylan demanded it. Marcus required it.
And Liam… Liam just watched me. He shook his head once, slow. His lips, broken and bloodied, formed words too soft for the crowd to hear.
Don't.
My body trembled. The shadows inside me quivered, eager, hungry. They whispered again, not words but pulses of intent, a language deeper than language. Blood. Bond. Bind. Not death. Not yet.
Something twisted in me, dangerous and sharp.
A forbidden thought.
Not to kill Liam. Not to save him outright. But to blur the line so finely that Marcus himself might believe it.
The technique I had only glimpsed in dreams, whispered by the shadows when my sanity frayed. A bond sealed in blood, not claimed like a sire's mark but stolen, rewritten. Dangerous. Damned.
A trick to make death look like death while remaking life beneath it.
If I failed, we both died. If I succeeded… we would carry a secret no vampire in this Court could ever forgive.
I rose unsteadily. My legs shook, my throat dry. Marcus's gaze did not waver.
"Do it," he murmured.
The guards shoved Liam forward until he knelt before me. His blood dripped onto the stone, each drop ringing in my ears like a drum.
I knelt before him, hands trembling as I cupped his face. His skin was hot with fever, his pulse thready.
"I can't," I whispered.
"You must," he whispered back, voice raw, only for me.
I leaned close, my lips almost brushing his ear. "Trust me."
His eyes widened, confusion sparking, but before he could speak, I acted.
The shadows surged, curling around my arms, my throat, my jaw. They coiled down my wrists as my fangs lengthened, sharper than they had ever felt. My hunger raged, not for blood alone—but for survival. For him. For us.
I struck.
My fangs pierced his neck.
The chamber exploded with sound—cheers, laughter, jeers, the thunderous roar of the Court as they believed at last I had broken.
Liam's blood filled my mouth, hot, iron-sweet, searing down my throat like fire. My shadows flared, slipping into the wound, threading through him like veins of night.
And then I cut. Not into his flesh, but into the bond itself.
I severed what tethered him to life's fragility and rewove it, darker, sharper. My shadows fed him even as they drained. I took his heartbeat into me, let it falter—then pushed it back, twisted, reshaped, cloaked.
To the Court, his pulse stuttered, slowed, and stopped. His body slackened against me, head lolling as if death had claimed him.
Gasps erupted. Kaylan clapped, laughing in cruel triumph.
"Finally," she spat. "Finally, the coward learns what it means to belong!"
Marcus watched, expression unreadable.
I withdrew, blood dripping from my lips, Liam's body limp in my arms. I let him fall to the stone, carefully, tenderly—yet to all who watched, it looked like I discarded him.
The chamber roared with approval, with mockery, with blood-hunger briefly satisfied.
Marcus alone did not move. His eyes bored into me, colder than shadow, deeper than abyss. He studied the slack form of Liam, then my bloodstained mouth.
And I knew—he didn't believe. Not fully.
His voice slithered through the chamber. "So. The girl learns. Mercy and cruelty entwined, as I knew they must. Let this be remembered: even loyalty bought with hesitation ends in blood."
The crowd echoed his decree.
"Blood!" they shouted. "Blood for loyalty!"
Guards dragged Liam's body away, limp and unmoving. My heart raced with every inch they pulled him, every step closer to discovery. I kept my head bowed, shoulders shaking as though in shame.
But beneath my skin, my shadows hissed, triumphant.
He lived.
Barely. Fragile. Changed.
Not dead. Not yet.
Marcus turned, his cloak sweeping like wings of night. "The trial is ended. The girl has chosen. Now she will be sharpened."
The Court howled its approval.
And I stood there, trembling, blood staining my lips, knowing I had crossed a line I could never uncross.
I had broken law. Defied Marcus. Twisted fate.
And bound Liam to me in blood and shadow.
A secret that could topple us both.
A secret Marcus might already suspect. "BURN HIM!"