My Dying Screams Went Unheard

The silver needle slid out of my vein. Cold settled under my skin, familiar after a hundred years of daily blood draws. I had paid that price so often I no longer watched the needle go in. Cassius held the vial of crimson Sun Blood up to the lamp. It glowed against his fingers. My blood. His next day of life. He took the cashmere shawl from the back of my chair and laid it over my shoulders before he seemed to think about it. “You always get cold after a draw.” The old habit caught me off guard. For one foolish second, it felt like care. Then his pocket chimed with Victoria’s personal tone. Cassius was looking at the door before the sound had finished. “Rest.” He left with the vial in his hand. The heavy oak door clicked shut, leaving me alone in the room he had filled with gold and locked like a cage. Through the wood came the maids’ whispers. “He takes more and more every week.” “For her, of course. The Queen is nothing but a living blood bag now.” *A living blood bag.* My communicator buzzed on the vanity. Victoria had sent a picture. In it, Cassius held a silver spoon to her lips. My blood shone in the bowl while he fed her with the patience he no longer had for me. Victoria looked straight at the camera while she swallowed. Beneath the image, a single line of text: 【Soon, this castle and its Blood Queen will both be mine.】 I read it twice, then locked the screen. An ancient chest stood in the corner of my chambers. Inside, an obsidian dagger rested on black velvet. I closed my hand around it. The blade opened my palm. Dark blood welled along the cut, the same blood Cassius guarded more carefully than he guarded me. I pressed the wound to the stone floor and filled the last gap in the forbidden sigil I had spent weeks preparing. An ancient voice sounded inside me. 【The pact is sealed. Half your power has been sacrificed. In three days, the blood-bond will be severed forever.】 Three days. I put the dagger back in its chest and wrapped my palm. Three more days in this castle. Hours later, Cassius returned smelling of Victoria’s sweet perfume. He opened his arms. I stepped back. His arms dropped. “What is it?” “I’m tired.” Cassius studied my face, then stared at my collarbone. In the mirror, the ruby mark of our eternal blood-bond had gone gray. For a century it had shone and pulsed beneath my skin like a living gem. Cassius caught my chin and turned me toward the light. “Eve, what’s wrong with your blood-bond mark?”