Page 42 of Eternal Ruin

A private note was scribbled inside.Use this to master your house quickly. Don’t tell anyone.

A chill skittered down her spine. It could have been from Samson, or her dead aunt Silia again? She did say she had a trusted member in Uxlay. Whoever it was wanted to help her from the shadows. Why? When Slen returned and asked her what she found, Kidan said nothing. If Aseracti could truly help one master a house, she needed to be the first person to do it. Even if Kidan didn’t like it, an unspoken air of competition lingered among the three. This wasn’t Dranacti. They didn’t need one another to master the house. And the first one to do so would dictate the tone of their friendship. And that had to be Kidan. Slen’s gaze remained for a beat longer, but she didn’t push the matter.

Kidan took the opportunity to return to the book, careful to keep its contents private.

Lesson one: Dranacti teaches that the house echoes the soul, the mind, and the body. Master those, and master the house. It is a foolish, intangible notion. And wastes years of your life. You do not communicate with a house. You break it in.

A draft played at the back of Kidan’s neck, though the heaters were on. There was always a warm glow to the library, a safe haven from the chill usually stored in old, castle-like buildings. She quickly lost herself in the morbid titles, flippingthe pages quickly.Three Pillars of Need. House Locking. On the Hierarchy of Vampires, Houses, and Humans. Resurption. Something about the topics sounded wrong yet incredibly powerful, like leashing a dragon with a muzzle to take to the skies.

Aseracti was… a philosophy. Just like Dranacti but darker, if that was even possible.

When their phones buzzed, Kidan jumped, shutting the book with a snap.

Calm down, she told herself.

Slen raised a brow. Yusef stirred from his sleep. He rubbed his eyes, squinting at his phone.

“Shit,” he said, straightening up.

Kidan reached for her phone. An alert from the Mot Zebeya office.

UXLAY’SHOUSE VOTE

FARIS HOUSE

124 DRANAICS

Faris 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 15th.

Slowly, Kidan rested the phone. A steady, menacing pounding filled her ears. Dean Faris… voted for Adane House to lose its ability to cast its own laws. Was this punishment for not telling her about the current law? Why the hell would she open deanship to all houses when it served her most to keep things as they were? The empathy Kidan had felt earlier quickly dissolved.

Yusef was speaking quickly. “This doesn’t mean the others won’t vote your way. It’s just one vote. Don’t let it get to you.”

“It’s the dean’s house,” Slen said, voice clipped. “It holds more power than just one vote.”

Yusef shot her a hard look, but if Slen noticed it, she did not react. For a moment, Kidan wanted to ask Slen a dangerous question, a question aboutherloyalty. The words rose in her throat and remained stuck on her tongue, sour as blood. What if Slen’s answer mirrored June’s? Kidan couldn’t bear to hear it. Instead, her fingers curled aroundAseracti, holding on to it like a life raft. There was already a quote from the book she liked. It said loyalty was for starved children and blind men—those who could see and were well-fed never bothered with it.

A Founding House had voted against her. Kidan had to start opening her eyes, and stop fucking starving.

17.

SUSENYOS

Susenyos was in agony.

He needed blood.

It reminded him of the vicious hunger cycles the Nefrasi would enter every decade or so, when the actis bound to them eventually died or left. Arin had not tried to attack him again after burying him alive, most likely because he looked like hell. But Susenyos also knew it was a matter of time. He had to act quickly and sway her to his side.

The one thing the Nefrasi always needed, above revenge, was blood. The Sicions were vigilant in maintaining perfect control over the flow of blood. One error and the whole campus would descend into lockdown.

So Susenyos bartered.

For three blood bags, it had cost him his precious collection of first edition books, two months in Rojit hospital service—which meant offering his body to science to be poked and prodded at like a piece of meat—and a contract with a mousy Delarus vampire to take on his challengers during Cossia Day.

Along with Taj and Iniko, Susenyos waited for Arin in a run-down motel, a cooler of bags full of blood ready.