Page 109 of Eternal Ruin

“Why didn’t Mahlet tell me?” Temo demanded. The way he used her first name made Kidan tense. Grow protective. What right did these strangers have to form such intimacy with her mother when she never got the chance?

Her forefinger pressed against the wooden table in a triangle.

“Tell you?” Adjoa’s voice was nothing but knives. “Why would she trust you?”

His large face darkened. “I was loyal to her to the end. I reported what Daric did. Ididmy duty.”

Kidan knew what they were talking about from the articles. On the night Kidan’s parents were murdered, Mikhail Temo had gone to Adane House to deliver some documents. He had witnessed the entire act through the window and raised the alarm.

Then he’d testified in court.

Daric was arrested immediately after he’d taken out their hearts. Grief swelled around her. Six weeks later, he was murdered. No one knew who did it. Susenyos had taken his revenge quietly.

“What were you doing there? At that hour?” Adjoa’s cold tone pulled Kidan to the present. “You had motive to kill her parents more than Daric.”

Kidan’s head snapped up in question.

Adjoa blinked, realizing she’d said something she shouldn’t have. But her eyes were carved of stone. “Mikhail’s brother died because of Dranacti. We’re not allowed to disclose who took whose life but it’s no secret the year your mother graduated there was only one death. Star athlete Rashil Temo.”

Kidan sucked in a sharp breath. She’d wanted to know whom her mother had killed and here it was. An ordinary student, who had a brother, a family.

Her mother, the murderer.

Kill all evil.

The words burst across her skull painfully. After all these weeks, they still felt impossibly right. A holy command she could follow. But Kidan didn’t know what evil meant anymore. She was without a compass, adrift, and now she knew why. It was her ancestry. Their roots were soaked in blood and every generation followed the ritual. She’d hoped they were saviors, martyrs, but perhaps they were monsters. Had these three words haunted her mother? It must be why she’d been desperate to stop Dranacti.

Kidan drew her squares for fear. She hadn’t felt this alone since before Uxlay,the dark months between searching for June and eating cold noodles in her sweltering apartment.

Adjoa was studying her closely, a shift in her expression. Almost sympathy. “You can’t trust the Temos with this.”

A fist came down, jarring all their drinks. Veins tightened on Mikhail Temo’s thick arm. “I forgave Mahlet for what she did long before that. Do not sour our friendship. It was pure. We both understood Dranacti was evil. It couldn’t be a way of life. Not for our children. What Daric did—”

“He did not do it!” Adjoa shot to her feet, yelling now, startling them all. “He had no cruel bone in his body. He was no traitor.”

Their side of the bar rang with the emotion in her voice. And Kidan saw the woman clearly for the first time. Calm and collected except when Daric was brought up. Aseracti called it the devil’s snare—companionship—and Kidan was beginning to agree.

“I saw him, Adjoa,” Mikhail repeated. “I saw him carve out their hearts.”

“Daric has betrayed us before.” Osa Rojit spoke, silver Afro cloaking her like a cloud. Her attention drifted to Kidan. “When he was human and ill, he received a life exchange from one of my house vampires. He swore to serve House Rojit. Yet the moment he received his vampirism, what did he do? He swore companionship to House Piran.”

Daric was… human. Kidan was surprised by that. Like Ramyn, he must have paraded in front of the dranaics, hoping for a like exchange and gotten it.

Adjoa’s angular face was prominent when she became furious. “He did not do that out of a calculated move. Why do you always bring it up?”

“Because every vampire Rojit House loses, yours gains.” Osa’s face was hard. “You continue to rob us.”

“Wait,” Kidan interrupted. “If Daric had been acti like us, which house did he belong to?”

Only his first name showed up on Uxlay’s database.

Silence extended between them.

Osa answered, “His house was Temo.”

Mikhail Temo squared his jaw, looking away. “He was my younger brother. Rashil was the oldest.”

Shock gave way to sour understanding. If Mahlet killed Rashil Temo, Daric must have murdered her in revenge.