Page 131 of Eternal Ruin

UXLAY’SHOUSE VOTE

DELARUS HOUSE

81 DRANAICS

DELARUS HOUSE HAS DELIBERATED AND DECIDED BORDER HOUSES SHOULD BE OFFERED THE POSITION OF DEAN. THEY SUPPORT THE IMMEDIATE REMOVAL OF ADANE HOUSE FROM THE MIDDLE POSITION.

Declared at the Mot Zebeya Courts on Thursday the 14th.

45.

KIDAN

Susenyos led Kidan past Uxlay’s golden northwestern gate. It opened up to thick, dense trees that were determined to swallow the campus whole.

Kidan wished he’d say something, give her some indication of what he planned to do but he marched with purpose, turning into the leaves. She winced as branches scratched at her sweater, and a twig nicked her cheek.

She swallowed the burn and asked in a small voice, “Where are we going?”

Silence.

When she tried to slow down, the rope between them extended taut. Susenyos pulled on it, making her stumble into following him. Wings of apprehension flapped inside her.

Within Uxlay, Susenyos was careful, allowed himself to move alongside the laws and regulations. But out here, alone, there was an intensity to him, like a dragon free from its cage.

“I’m sorry I told him,” Kidan repeated, trying to get him to turn. Her words remained trapped under the canopy of the trees, sinking back into them. “It was a mistake, Yos. And now Etete is dead and I…”

He stopped.

Her heart was in her ears, thundering like hooves. They were in a small clearing with a few stone houses erected around the circle. One of them was collapsed as if a creature had torn it from the very ground.

Susenyos walked to her, and the steel in his eyes made her step back.

“I want you to stay still,” he ordered.

There was no trace of his usual amusement.

“Yos—”

“Don’t speak.”

She nearly flinched from the snap of his tone, the firm line to his brows.

“There is no such thing as companionship. No equal footing when one’s fate is to be the lamb, and the other the lion,” he said, staring at her, but instead of the usual warmth she felt, he appeared to seethroughher, right past her face and heart to her hidden shame.

He was quotingAseracti. Hard lines marred his face, grief and anger intertwined.

“The only true power actis have is their house. Inside their walls, they are no lamb, but a dragon. And a dragon doesn’t give away its blood without a price. There is a hierarchy, older than time itself—the human serves the vampire and the vampire serves the master—”

“What are you—”

“Any deviation from this results in catastrophe. The true test of a master is how many laws they can take on. How easily they can force vampires to their knees. How their will commands all wills.”

“Yos, please—”

“Are you the master or the vampire?” He spoke louder, harder. “If you’re the human, you’re already dead.”

Cold stone plummeted in Kidan’s gut. She understood then how truly dangerous books were. How easily they could bring two souls together, poetry and confessions of wicked love luring her in like withThe Mad Lovers, but also how they might write themselves carefully, insidiously, to break apart her relationships and everything good likeAseractihad done. In both cases, she hadn’t known how deeply she’d been changed until it was too late. Until she closed the last page.