The SSS-Rank Date

Chapter 4 I Will Protect You

The Grand Library smelled of old paper and decay. Shelves rose to its vaulted ceiling, packed with cracked leather bindings and several that looked too much like human skin. Dust hung beyond the circle of candles, hiding the upper galleries. We gathered in the open center of the room with enough space between us that no one could be pushed forward.

The featureless Majordomo waited beside an iron-bound book on a stone lectern. The book was the size of a man’s torso.

“The second trial is one of intellect. The *Codex Sanguinus*. Each player will translate a passage. Success reveals the next seal’s location. Players who fail will be removed.”

The first player, a mousy-haired boy, lasted a minute. The script shifted each time he tried to focus. His eyes rolled back, black blood ran from his nose, and two servants dragged him away by the arms. The next player refused to approach the lectern. The Majordomo turned its blank face toward her. She clutched her head and screamed until the servants took her too.

No one else argued.

Then he called my name. *Elora Vance.*

At the lectern, fear gave way to recognition. I knew the shape of those hooked letters.

Back home, I was a broke research assistant who spent most days bent over forgotten Gothic texts and obscure medieval grimoires. That work barely covered rent, but it had trained me to read damaged pages, variant alphabets, and notes written by scholars who expected to be the only person alive who understood them. The Codex used an early dialect of proto-vampiric. I had studied it.

I followed the jagged red lines with one finger. The ink seemed wet although the pages were ancient. They formed a poem about a vampire lord’s endless grief, with an instruction threaded through the verses. Once I found the repeated key, the symbols stopped shifting.

“The second seal is behind the portrait of the Weeping Countess in the west gallery. Reciting this poem will bypass the curse on the frame.”

The Majordomo tilted its blank face. Pressure gathered behind my eyes, the same way it had before the other girl began screaming.

Valerius stood in a far alcove. He looked at the Majordomo, and the pressure vanished.

The Majordomo moved aside. “Proceed.”

In the west gallery, garnets had been set into the Weeping Countess’s painted tears. Her portrait watched me from inside a black frame carved with thorns. I recited the poem exactly as written. Heat moved over the frame, stopped at my fingers, and faded. A compartment clicked open behind the canvas. The second Crimson Moon Seal lay inside.

Serena met me in the main hall with another cup of her “calming tea.”

“Elora, you’re incredible. You saved us from that book.”

I drank. The bitter floral aftertaste was familiar now, and the ache in my bones eased before I reached the bottom of the cup. I blamed the weakness in my legs on the Codex. Serena took the empty cup from me before I could set it down.

That evening, I returned to the west gallery for some quiet. Around the next corner, men were laughing.

Through a gap between two suits of armor, I saw three broad vampires crowding Valerius against a tapestry. All three had thick arms, visible fangs, and the easy confidence of men who were used to frightening smaller creatures. The largest planted a hand on Valerius’s chest and shoved him into the wall.

“Look at the pretty little servant,” the largest one sneered, his fangs glinting. “Thinks he’s too good for the rest of us, just because the Master keeps him close.”

Valerius did not lift a hand. With his hair fallen across his face and three bodies blocking the corridor, he looked badly outnumbered.

I forgot the fatality rate and the creature bowing at his feet. I saw the quiet boy from the garden being shoved by three thugs while he refused to defend himself. My dating-sim heroine took control again.

I grabbed a brass candlestick from a side table.

“Hey!” I yelled, stepping out from behind the armor. “Get away from him!”

All three turned. Their eyes moved from my candlestick to Valerius. He gave the smallest nod.

The leader found his sneer again. “And what’s a little morsel like you going to do about it?”

I swung. The candlestick struck his shoulder, and he staggered back with a theatrical groan.

The other two backed into each other when I turned on them. One caught my next swing on his forearm and dropped with a howl far louder than the impact deserved. The third folded before the candlestick reached him. Soon all three were rolling on the carpet and groaning as though a research assistant had defeated them in mortal combat.

I planted myself in front of Valerius, still holding the candlestick.

“Don’t worry. As long as I’m here, no one gets to bully you. I’ll protect you.”

The corridor fell quiet.

Valerius looked past my shoulder at the three fallen vampires, then back at me. He smiled. It was small, uncertain, and nothing like the expression I had caught near the catacombs. For the first time, he looked close to the lonely romance target I had imagined.

He stepped closer and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers were cool against my cheek.

He bent until his hair brushed my temple and only I could hear him.

“You said you would protect me?”