Page 40
T ENUOUS” WAS THE WORD FOR THIS NEW ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN Kidan and Susenyos. Susenyos would help Kidan acquire a life exchange, and she wouldn’t go to Dean Faris and accuse him. But her investigation had opened doors to places she hadn’t expected, and she still wasn’t sure how he was caught up in the 13th.
They trudged carefully around each other, almost diplomatic in the way they shared the house, waiting for the other to exit before occupying a room. Sometimes, when they’d brush past each other, she’d remember the night in the Southern Sost Buildings, and her skin would feel feverish, as if his mouth and fangs were on her shoulder. The thought unsettled her so much that she’d escape to the nearest room to get away from it. They were careful not to slip into their old habits. But it grew boring, and so, instead of leaving the study when he was about to walk in, she stayed.
Curiosity glinted in Susenyos’s dark eyes. Cautiously, he settled at his station opposite hers. “What are you studying?”
She hesitated, unsure how to navigate this new peace. “Dranacti, but I’m stuck.”
After growing desperate to decipher Quadrantism, Kidan and the others had tracked major historical moments of dranaics, following the theology and how it affected political, social, and economic changes. They were the most agonizing reads of her life.
“Slen and GK think the task is to learn more about our house dranaics.” She studied him.
He suggested she visit the Ajtaf Contemporary Library across campus, an odd quirk to his lips. “The Gojam Period, nineteenth century, should prove interesting.”
She lifted a brow, curious. Willing to try anything at this point, Kidan located the second library of Uxlay, on the northern side of its layout. Unlike the main library, this was decorated in sleek furniture and modernized with tech assistant guides.
On every white surface, a small screen, accompanied by a pair of headphones, winked black. She sat in the chair facing one of them and listened to a summarized history of dranaics through East Africa’s dark period of colonialism preceding the celebratory creation of the Pan-African movement in the twentieth century. She found some interesting facts. Ethiopian emperors were given a new, throne name upon ascension. It was customary for military officials to don a lion’s mane as a headdress. Then under a category titled Hidden History, she came across a familiar name, of an emperor who ruled Gojam Province, and shot to her feet.
Susenyos III.
“No way,” she said loudly, receiving dirty looks from other students.
Mouth agape, Kidan stared at the striking picture, the image leaking into her eyes.
When she rushed home, Susenyos was in his room, enjoying the glow of the afternoon sun. He wore his favorite shirt, taut chest muscles soaking in the rays. She hadn’t entered his room since the night of her panic attack.
“You were an emperor ?”
The question left her in wonder, and the full impact of history and what it meant to defy it hit her all at once. A deeper part of her wondered what else he was hiding.
She pulled up her phone. “Susenyos Sagad the Third. Your throne name was Malak Sagad the Fourth, which means to whom the angels bow . You’re kidding me, right?”
He stretched out on his chair, dark eyes dancing. “Well, you should have known you were in the presence of royalty.”
She studied the regal portrait on her screen, then him. Impossible. But clearly, possible.
She shook her head. “Tell me.”
He motioned for Kidan to sit, and she hesitated. This invitation marked a distinct line she didn’t want to cross. She searched for a way to justify this. More research into him would help her investigate better. It was a thin excuse, but she needed it, to justify sinking onto his soft bed.
She traced the portrait, over his hairline now missing a crown. “How did you go from being an emperor to a…”
“A dranaic? It’s a long story.”
She gasped. “Wait, the crown I took?”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “It was mine. I wore it on my coronation day.”
Kidan could hardly believe it. Would he kill her if he knew she’d fashioned a necklace out of it?
“What happened?”
“It’s as tragic as any tale, I suppose.” His forehead creased. “It began with rumors about raids, villagers crossing into other people’s properties and stealing young girls, blood being drained from animals. We had no idea what kind of plague it was, how powerless we truly were, until rogue dranaics seized my court. They wanted me turned so they could make a home in my empire.”
Kidan kept blinking. My court. But even more surprising was that his story began like hers: Vampires had attacked him, come to steal what was precious to him.
“Did you fight back?”
His gaze simmered when it rested on her, untouched by centuries. “Yes, for a while. Then I realized how incredibly weak humans were, so I joined the other side.”
He chose immortality. Kidan’s mouth soured. She’d been so caught up in the story that she nearly forgot his true nature. What had she expected him to do? Cling to his humanity and die? Only the luckiest of souls chose that dignified path.
“What happened to the rest of your court?” Kidan asked, body coiled tight.
He was silent for the length of five heartbeats, his gaze mirroring a fog.
“They’re dead. All that remains of them is what you see in the artifact room.”
An unexpected wave of guilt hit her. Those artifacts… weren’t just a collection of history. They belonged to people who once surrounded him. She’d destroyed them, and he visited each day to continue mending them.
His room morphed slightly, peacefulness streaming through the windows and scattering the darkness. She shook her head, trying to dispel the uninvited calm expanding in her chest. When Kidan returned to her room, she found it robbed of all sun, no longer offering comfort as it once did.
Table of Contents
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