M YTHOLOGY AND M ODERNITY CLASS WAS HELD IN ONE OF THE THEATERS located inside the Qaros Conservatory of Music.

This course was another requirement for Kidan to stay in Uxlay. She had to earn a satisfactory grade for her two electives and absolutely pass Dranacti. So far, this class was the most enjoyable.

Ramyn’s absence, however, was a needle under the skin. Yusef had lost his easy smile and drew a continuous line on the edge of his paper. Slen stared ahead, unreadable as always. Kidan had found her in the Philosophy Tower late last night. They both couldn’t sleep, so they’d studied without speaking, well into the yawning dawn. Kidan usually hated such a complete silence, her skin prickling in the same way it had in her cramped apartment, but it’d felt oddly natural, warm instead of bone-chilling. In those witching hours, they grieved Ramyn without mentioning her name.

GK had reported what he saw to Professor Andreyas and the chief detective. A glimpse of brown leather shoes, and some metal bands.

He rubbed his tired face again.

“There was nothing you could do,” Kidan said softly.

“I could have reached her faster.” His reflective eyes swam with questions. “How long did you watch her struggle?”

Kidan’s ribs contracted sharply. She heard his silent accusation. Why hadn’t she shouted out the moment she saw Ramyn?

A pang of disappointment rolled through her. In less than a week, he was already seeing her differently. Perhaps he was realizing she wasn’t worth saving.

There were these people Mama Anoet had called carcasses. Her husband was one.

“They live only for themselves and die alone.”

It was such a violent thing to call a living human. Kidan and June had asked how to avoid being one, and Mama Anoet said, “Have people you care about. Otherwise, you’re not worth existing. Look at how many of you I take care of.”

Kidan heard what she didn’t say. Look at how many lives I have.

Kidan observed her study group, human and vulnerable. If someone like Mama Anoet could be forgiven by taking care of others, could Kidan be forgiven too? She had that love once—with June, her chest tight with so many years ahead of her, giddy on the edge of youth. Until her sister’s absence left Kidan hollow, close to death. Perhaps she could shelter new souls, find a way to breathe again. She’d do it even better than Mama Anoet, never punish or risk harming them. Something punctured her wrist, her bracelet digging in sharply for the selfish thought.

“Good morning, class,” Professor Soliana Tesfaye greeted them, wearing a long, patterned dress. In this class, they studied the myths that birthed the creation of dranaics and actis, the relationship between the Last Sage and Demasus, and, of course, the famous Three Binds, analyzing the effects of those stories in relation to current society. “Today, we begin with a performance, as our legends have always been passed down through oral storytelling.”

The lights dimmed. The tragic play was about the Last Sage and Demasus the Fanged Lion, from Aarac myth. It was adapted from Traditional Myths of Abyssi and loosely translated to fit the structure of Crusade of Pantagon, a war-style story, according to Slen.

The stage lit up on a group of masked people who wore curved impala horns—the hunters, Kidan realized. These were the villagers who protected their families against dranaics: blood drinkers, or as the West knew them, vampires.

The human hunters traveled to a cave and found the Last Sage dressed in a cracked mask, wearing a ruby ring, and holding twin blades. They pleaded with him for weapons to fight against the dranaics.

Demasus, leader of the dranaics, wore a lion’s mane as a crown and led armies to butcher Axum country. The next scene recounted horrible casualties as the massacre mounted.

Kidan shifted in her seat. How powerless they were against speed and fangs. If vampires chose to rise again, what hope did the rest of the world have?

In the second act, the Last Sage arrived at the battlefield. He seized Demasus by the shoulders and disappeared into a smoke of shadows. They woke inside a cave, sealed off from the world. For all his might, Demasus couldn’t break through the stone to free himself.

Years passed, marked by the seasonal changes of the tall grasses near the cave.

The villagers came to express their gratitude, and the dranaics scattered without their leader. Still, no one knew what transpired in those years.

The stage lights shuttered, focusing intimately. The Last Sage and Demasus appeared on their knees, facing each other. Demasus, in growing distress, howled and buried his face in his own hands, his crown of lion’s mane thrown aside. The entire auditorium watched the silent struggle. A blade fell between their hands, grazing the chest of one, only to be wrenched away by the other.

Kidan couldn’t tell assailant from victim. Each portrayed the role in a graceful dance, neither willing to kill or be killed, live or die. It slipped into a repetitious loop but didn’t break its power. They must have suffered, Kidan thought. Alone in that cave trying to forge a path made impossible by their nature.

The blade finally found its mark. There was a release, a puncture, in the audience as they stared wide-eyed. The Last Sage had cut into his own palm, pouring it into a scattered bowl.

“Swear loyalty to me, Demasus, and my blood shall be yours.”

Kidan was convinced the actor had cut his palm. It dropped not too quickly, like a true cut; it glided into the gold plate like forbidden water. Demasus growled like a wounded animal, eyes flickering between the growing puddle of blood and the Last Sage’s neck.

He didn’t want to harm him. What had caused their impossible friendship?

“Swear to me you will not harm another but merely ask me to quench your thirst,” the Last Sage proclaimed.

“You grant me what I seek, to torture me,” Demasus replied. “Your kindness is poison, and I should have your heart for it.”

“Let me bind you to water, sun, and death,” the Last Sage said. “Drink from those I choose for you. I will teach them to care for your kind. Abandon your strength that makes them fear you as beast. Take life only at the cost of your own, so you may know how precious it is.”

Through blinding hunger, Demasus delivered his famous line: “You riddle me with sacrifices, but can you bear what I will ask of you in turn?”

Kidan leaned forward.

“I will. And in return, you will not leave my side. You will remain as the wind by the sea and the stars by night. Your companionship, Demasus—that is what I will receive, until the day I die.”

Then, upon twin blades, a red ring, and a shattered mask, they created a bond. A bond that would be inherited by eighty families and carried down like sacred tradition. A bond that created the Three Binds of the Dranaics, also called the Water, Sun, and Death binds.

First Bind: Vampires could no longer drink from all humans, only from the Eighty Families. Second Bind: Their original strength and powers—there were rumors they could once compel, disappear into shadows, even fly—were all weakened and repressed. Third Bind: If they wanted to turn a human into a vampire, it came at the cost of their own life.

The last one Kidan loved the most. There could never be mass armies of vampires. Still , she thought, touching her bracelet. You don’t put a leash on evil. You kill it.

The scene closed with the Last Sage’s three objects scattered across the world. Those artifacts, if discovered, were rumored to have the ability to break the binds, so they were hidden, far apart. In the unforgiving seven seas, the mountains that reached the heavens, the shifting sands of an endless desert and beyond.

Finally, the two men went out to the villagers, to teach them their new way of life—Dranacti.

The actors were brilliant. She’d almost felt compassion for Demasus, and understanding instead of anger toward the Last Sage.

GK had leaned forward, wrapping his chain around his palm.

“It’s not all accurate,” he murmured. “The cave they stayed in isn’t in Axum. It’s in the Semain Mountains.”

“Those mountains don’t exist.” Slen adjusted her gloves repeatedly.

GK frowned a little. “They… exist. They’re just hidden. I hope to visit them one day.”

Yusef laughed softly. “Can I come? I’ve always wanted to scream from the top of the world.”

GK wiped his face in exasperation. Kidan’s small smile faded when she glimpsed the empty seat next to her. Ramyn’s septum piercing would have twinkled, a curve playing on her heart-shaped mouth. She shouldn’t have died. But Kidan couldn’t dwell on Ramyn or the fragile beginnings of their friendship. If she didn’t act soon, who else would die?

She focused only on the facts. Ramyn had visited the dranaic Southern Sost Buildings with Susenyos for a life exchange. It was there she overheard dranaics of Uxlay talking about June.

While Kidan waited for the blood results, she’d infiltrate the dranaics’ private building and hope she wouldn’t be expelled from Uxley.