Page 94 of Eternal Ruin

Swearing internally, Kidan followed the crunching path of the spindly trees. She should have grabbed a coat because the branches cut at her arms. They walked for a long time, long enough for her apprehension to reach a limit.

“Hey!” Kidan called, trying to catch up. “I’m not going any farther.”

Adjoa stopped at a small clearing, looking to her vampire. On cue, Sacro circled the space, once, twice—searching for threats.

“All clear,” he said.

Adjoa put her hands inside her long furred red coat, the collar of which sat like a fat cat. “You look like her, you know. Mahlet. Except for your hair.”

Before, Kidan would have felt uncomfortable, but she straightened a little. She was done being judged and labeled as less than her legendary parents.

Adjoa’s eyes traveled to the silver house pin fixed to Kidan’s chest. The twin mountains twinkling on a sea of red.

Deep sorrow eclipsed the woman’s face. “I’m sorry you’re wearing a silver pin.”

“Most people would say ‘congratulations,’” Kidan spat out.

“Would they?” Adjoa’s eyes grew cloudy. “What’s there to celebrate about what you have done?”

Adjoa’s fingers tightened on her own house pin. A golden symbol of a crown. “Who would have thought Silia would succeed out of all of us.”

Kidan wasn’t sure what she’d heard. “My aunt?”

“She took you and your sister away from Uxlay. Gave you a chance at a normal life.”

This woman had no idea what kind of life Kidan had led. In third grade, June and Kidan would wait in the park for hours after school finished. Mama Anoet wouldn’t be home until six and they weren’t allowed in the house without her. So they’d wait on the broken bench, backpacks tight around their shoulders, watching other parents pick up their children. Some stayed in the park, letting their kids play while others barely stopped the car, honking noisily, in a hurry. Kidan didn’t mind the angry ones really. At least they showed up. When the sun set and it was clear Mama Anoet had forgotten to pick them up, June would be asleep, mumbling and fighting off her nightmares. Kidan would carry her on her back and walk home quietly.

That wasn’tnormal. They hadn’t gained anything by their parents’ deaths, they were only damaged by them. And anything alluding to the idea that their life had been good made her teeth ring.

Kidan put ice in her words, cutting to the chase. “Did you order your vampire to kill my parents?”

Adjoa’s face grew thunderous, her nostrils flaring. “Your mother was my friend.”

“Your house vampire killedthem.”

Kidan’s ears rang with anger, and the wind picked up, disturbing the leaves at their feet.

“Please,” Sacro said, voice gentle. “Be patient and she will explain all of it to you. This isn’t easy for her.”

“Easy forher?”

Adjoa must have sensed Kidan was ready to face down a vampire because she stepped forward. “Go on. Ask your questions.”

Where to begin? Kidan’s breath was forming a fog before her, small quick puffs.

“Why would my mother risk prison to tell you the truth about Dranacti?”

Adjoa took her time lifting her gaze from her pin. “I was not the first person your mother told. After she graduated Dranacti, Mahlet was upset with an institution designed to push students to kill. She was motivated to find a better way. She couldn’t accept the fact that an acti must kill of their own free will to share their blood.” Her eyes grew haunted. “Knowing the risk, each year she told a select group of us, warning us away. She gave me an option: join her society and fight to have a better system implemented or leave Uxlay. Only in my case, she told me a day too late. I’d already taken a life and couldn’t be spared.”

True sorrow circled her tone.

Her mother had her own society… that stood against Dranacti.

Out of all things, Kidan hadn’t expected this.

“My father discovered she told me, and they arrested her for Dranacti disclosure.”

The guilt in Adjoa’s voice leached all the moonlight from the clearing. She fished out a photo from her pocket and gave it to Kidan, who accepted it tentatively. The picture was faded, showing a group of at least fifteen students crowded around a bar, smiling. Kidan’s father was there, glasses framed his brown face and he wore a university sweater that had “Addis Ababa” printed on it. He looked almost shy. Her mother raised a drink, grinning wide, hair worn naturally in thick, loose curls. Kidan recognized three of the students. They were now adults from Temo, Rojit, and Piran Houses. Adjoa was there too. All young and bright eyed.