Page 130 of Eternal Ruin

I understand, Kidan thought dimly.I get it now.

The knife sliced, vicious, soundless, and as always, blood sprayed. It missed her chest on purpose and found her palm, a searing pain cracking the skin.

June scrambled back, her eyes expanding into huge pools.

“It’s okay.” Kidan gritted her teeth through the pain. “June—”

Her sister ran out of the room, twisting into the shelves, her skirts whipping at her ankles. Kidan stood to follow, swearing. By the time she made it into the lounge room, there was no trace of her sister.

She shut her eyes, fisting her stinging palm. Kidan staggered down the hallway to the broom closet. She did not know what she was doing until she was kneeling, pushing aside the bucket to find the symbol—a delicate circle drawn in her own blood. Her fingers scrambled for a rag and detergent, before scrubbing at it. It smeared and in the next swipe, it was gone. She wiped at her neck too. The point of desire and joy.

Pure, unfiltered light bathed down on her, warming her skin. Finally, chasing away the numbness. Tears leaked out of her as she breathed heavily.

Stumbling out of the broom closet, Kidan found the worn carpet of the hallway, peeled it back to see the bloodied square. She erased it as well. The lights flickered and the carpet turned to water, bone-chilling, beautiful fear making her alive.

She dragged herself to the observatory, her tears falling as she moved the corner vase aside. Her knees crashed to the marble, and inhaling deeply, she cleaned away the pentagon, surrendering herself to pain.

But she wasn’t alone.

A plume of black smoke was waiting for her, and inside it, Susenyos’s grief. It lingered in the house long after he left. War drums exploded louder and louder, signaling the presence of something soul crushing. The house—echoing the truth. How his heart had been broken.

Susenyos’s pain spread in the house, with a perpetual haunting sound, the humming of a mournful song. Kidan curled up where she was, a single tear gliding down her cheek.

Thirty years. He’d known Etete for that long. Always the woman who rescuedhim from the observatory room, and Kidan sobbed for her. The only woman who cared for Kidan. She didn’t stifle herself or repress a single sound. Kidan screamed her grief, letting it pulse through every inch of the house, magnified to the point of no return. All the light bulbs of the house sparked out of life, the curtains slammed shut one by one, and the domed glass shook, threatening to shatter.

This must be Obsculion—the process of feeling each and every emotion and letting them flood the body. The opposite of House Locking, as written in her mother’s journal. For a second, her mother’s ghost appeared, more vivid than ever, gentle. She seemed to guide her to her feet, down the hallway, and outside.

Kidan staggered forward, wiping her running nose.

She had to see him. Apologize. In a trance, she floated out of the house, not feeling the ground beneath her. There were people staring at her as she crossed campus, whispering something about her hand, but Kidan had only one goal.

Vampires hissed at her as she entered the gilded corridors of the Southern Sost Buildings, past the spine-curling spikes, and turned twice.

Kidan knocked on the door to Susenyos’s quarters, and Taj opened the door, looking pained. “Now is not the time.”

“Please.” Her voice broke.

Taj’s chestnut eyes ran over her figure and he stepped aside.

Susenyos was sitting on the edge of his bed, head bent. Iniko, a formidable look on her face, stood by the window.

“I’m sorry,” Kidan gasped out. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I told him. I told him to hurt Etete.”

Susenyos’s head lifted slowly, face etched with sorrow. His eyes trailed down to her hand. It was still bleeding from June’s cut, but the burn was nothing compared to her regret. His jaw hardened when he focused on her face. Her heart broke further. Susenyos came to stand over her, every feature carved into a merciless angle. An old panic swam to the surface, drying her throat.

This was it—the moment he would discard her fully. She’d been most afraid of this and here it was. Her eyes scanned his desperately, but there was no forgiveness to be found.

Susenyos reached into the shelf beside her and lifted the long red rope sitting on the wood.

No, not a rope. A band from the Red String task.

His face was a stone wall, entirely unreadable as he took her wrist and latched the band. He secured his own hand as well, binding them together. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed needles.

“Yos?” she tried.

“Don’t.”

Revenge—that was the only thing she could read in the silence that followed.