Page 118

The specifics didn’t matter, though. Their intent was clear. Their anger was palpable, and it was being held back by only the thinnest of threads.

A couple of Guards stepped forward, flexing their claws, but Isaac threw up a hand. “No, they are right, after all. We don’t know what it has been like to be you. To be Unblooded in a time like this. You have been scared and ignored and mistreated, and we—the Blood Workers, the nobles, those who have sworn to lead and protect you—have done nothing about it.” The crowd quieted suddenly, confusion spreading as Isaac stared at them with something like pain in his eyes. “We have abused you in ways that you have never known, but it is time for that to change.”

He snapped his fingers, once, and the Guard hesitated only a moment before pulling their ropes. The thick curtains around the dais fluttered, and like a shimmering curtain of blood they flowed to the ground. But where there was to be a statue of their king—Eternal and proud and strong—there was something else. A scene of horror.

A metal table where the statue should have been.

A dead man strapped to it, brutalized and mutilated.

A glass vat of blood underneath, the last drips of blood filling from the tubes in his arms and legs.

It was the exact image of a victim of the Blood Factory, and all of Aeravin stared on in shock.

Samuel’s heart came to a stop. They had been wrong. They had been so terribly wrong.

“The Blood Taxes you pay are a lie,” Isaac said, his voice carrying over the sudden silence. “The Blood Workers demand far more than you give for their magics, and it has been my duty to ensure that needs are met. The Royal Blood Worker sees that the coffers of blood are filled, and the murders that have plagued this city were those who saw that we were supplied with the people—the poor, the unwanted, the criminal. And Lord Kevan Dunn has been kind enough to model what we do with them.”

He turned to face the people. “And for my part in this, I know I can never be forgiven.”

The silence shattered, the crowd suddenly surging forward. The combined force of them knocked Samuel off his feet, sending him crashing into the fence, which then tumbled to the hard cobblestones below. He caught himself awkwardly, skinning his hands on the rough surface, but a quick check showed though his hands were roughed up, there was no blood.

He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Even in a moment like this, old habits died hard.

Staggering to his feet, he immediately looked for Isaac. But he was already fleeing, his blood-red robes fluttering behind him as he ran, covered by the indistinct figure of a Guard.

So he had an accomplice, then.

Samuel tried to follow, but they were moving too fast, disappearing into the chaos. Something like relief fluttered through him—something he knew he shouldn’t feel—but he didn’t have time to focus on that now.

Instead, he moved with the flow of the crowd, keeping an eye out for the Guards. They had thrown themselves against the press of the Unblooded, trying to hold them back at points where the fence had fallen through, holding the line until their reinforcements arrived. Good: if they were focused on the Unblooded that meant that Isaac had a chance.

What was he thinking? Isaac wasn’t a damsel to be rescued. If this demonstration made anything clear, he was the very one they were looking for. The murderer they had to bring before the King if they had any hope of surviving. The one that they needed to capture if they wanted to keep peace in Aeravin.

But peace was already lost, and it was Isaac. His Isaac. The kind, proud, broken man who had only ever tried to help him. Who wanted to protect him from the horrors of the Blood Workers, all while being forced to commit the worst of them in the shadows.

In that moment Samuel hated like he had never hated in his entire life, the rage and darkness in him twisting into something new, something ugly, something true. While chaos raged around him—a cacophony of shouts and screams and cries, the press of bodies knocking against each other, the scrabble of madness unleashed—Samuel found a place of pure calm.

“Out of my way,” he called, his voice low and threaded with power. The crowd immediately parted around him, allowing him to pass straight through to the dais.

Despite the riots around him, spreading through the square and the gardens, this place was left untouched. Perhaps the Unblooded were too afraid to approach it, the gruesome and raw display of Blood Working. But Samuel wasn’t afraid, not anymore, and he stepped closer to Dunn, reaching out to check for a pulse.

There was none. Of course not. Isaac was smart enough to ensure that. One to go—and Isaac would not fail in that. Whatever his plan had been, he had achieved it.

And then left them to deal with the aftermath.

“My lord!” Samuel didn’t turn to a Guard who had run up beside him, who stared down at the tableau before them for an uncomfortable long moment before speaking. “We need to get you out of here.”

Turning away from the Guard, Samuel looked out over the riots. More Guards were starting to appear, coming in from the side streets and pressing in from the other side, pincering the Unblooded between two fronts. So far, Samuel hadn’t felt the brush of Blood Working, but it was only a matter of time. The magic would come, the Guards would take them in, and arrests would be made.

Unless someone did something about it.

He glanced up towards the balconies, where the nobles were supposed to be, but they were already gone. Emptied. They had fled at the first sign of trouble, leaving the people to riot and the Guards to handle it. What cowards.

So be it, then.

Ignoring the look of disbelief on the Guard’s face, Samuel shoved Dunn’s legs aside, wincing at the clammy feel of his skin. Hauling himself up on the metal table, though careful to not touch Dunn’s corpse, Samuel stood tall over the crowd, throwing his shoulders back as he played at strength.

Summoning his power—just a breath of it—he shouted one word. “Enough!”