Page 67 of Blood Day: Part Two

I hope this influx of sensation is because of you,I thought at him.I hope this means you’re alive.

Maybe I’d been worrying over nothing.

It’s time to focus,I told myself.Focus on today.

Because this wastheday I’d been waiting for. The graduation I’d worked toward all my life.

Except the glamour of it had been erased as a result of Cedric’s truths. I would never become a Vigil. I would never qualify for the Immortal Cup. So where would I go?

“Welcome to this year’s Blood Day,” a feminine voice greeted, one I knew well from my lessons growing up.

The Goddess Lilith.

“This is a glorious day of celebration, one that will brighten the futures of many,” she continued. “Who among you have been selected for this year’s Immortal Cup? There are only twelve coveted spots. Are you one of those hardworking few? Our marvelous Magistrate will tell you.”

“I will,” a deep voice confirmed. “I have the assignments right here in my very hand.”

“Oh, how exciting indeed,” the Goddess cheered. “Then, without further ado, I present to you all our top one thousand prospects from the year one hundred seventeen.”

A few murmurs could be heard in the distance, but nothing more.

No standing ovation.

No excited commentary.

Just a few soft words meant for immortal ears alone.

Is Cedric among them? Whispering to Prince Khalid? Watching me?

The Magistrate cleared his throat, his lycan heritage coming through in that deep sound alone.

“As always, we’ll begin with the statistics,” he announced. “Year one hundred seventeen initially began with twenty-one thousand three hundred and seven prospects. Success rate for the class as a whole was seventy-three percent, which is down two point nine percent from last year.”

My brow furrowed.

Does success rate equate to those of us still alive?

And if it does, then does that mean over five thousand humans from my class have died over the last year? Or was that number taken over time? Meaning twenty-seven percent of my class died over the last twenty-one years of training?

The latter seemed more accurate based on what I’d observed.

Prospects went missing all the time, but not five thousand of them. More like a few hundred at most.

However, they were often replaced with new prospects.

And there were ten universities.

So maybe it was closer to that five thousand—nearly six thousand,my math brain corrected—figure.Goddess… so many lives…

The Magistrate cleared his throat. “That leaves a total of fifteen thousand five hundred and fifty-four prospects for sorting, of which they have been divided evenly between supernatural type and region.”

“Thank you, Magistrate,” the Goddess replied. “We appreciate your hard work and due diligence.”

The lycan male grunted in response. “Then we can begin with the formal sorting of the remaining one thousand.”

He made another noise, this one reminding me of a growl.

The hostility of it caused the hairs to dance along my arms, something I suspected was the point, as his next words were for us—the prospects.