Page 19 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

Chapter Twelve

Isaac

T he hunger returned, driving Isaac to consider leaving the safety of the safe house.

An endless rumble in the pit of his stomach, dryness in the back of his throat that wouldn’t abate.

His mouth ached; jaw clenched as he fought the urge to sink his teeth into something.

What he hungered for, he knew but dared not name, and whether it was a blessing or a curse, he knew that he couldn’t find it here.

But he was used to suffering, so choked it down.

He dressed himself in the simple clothes he found in the closet—plain dark trousers, a white shirt that hung loose around his throat, a binder that thankfully mostly fit, snug enough to compress but not tight enough to hurt.

It did not leave him quite as flat as the ones he used to have, especially tailored to him, but he had endured worse.

A lot of people like him had endured far worse.

Still, it left him feeling oddly bare, vulnerable in a way that he had not felt in years.

These were a working man’s clothes, not the fashion of a Blood Working adept, the plain grey robes the Academy gifted to students who did not have the funds for more.

It certainly wasn’t the clothes he had worn as the Royal Blood Worker, when he had to find a tailor who would work with him, despite his lack of pedigree.

The man in the mirror looked nothing like the man he had been.

Isaac was thinner, graver, almost sickly, wrapping his arms around himself and feeling just how slight he had become.

His skin was paler than it had ever been after months indoors, and his dark hair hung lankly against his scalp.

There was the beginning of his beard unevenly filling in—he would have to ask Anton for a shaving kit, the next time he saw the man—but, still, Isaac could hardly recognize himself.

And to think, Samuel had still touched him, in spite of the absolute wreck he’d become. Without knowing the monster he was becoming.

He pulled back his upper lip, staring at the point of his eyeteeth, thankfully no sharper than the last time he had looked. And yet, there was something predatory about him, with that inhuman hunger that just would not fade, a constant ache in the back of his throat.

He needed help, and there was only one person he could even hope to trust with this. And things between them were already so fragile.

The door crashed open, and Isaac jumped away from the mirror, but his heart settled when he heard Anton call out, impatient and brash as always. “De la Cruz? Are you still here?”

“Where else would I be?” Isaac huffed as he entered the main living space, small as it was. “Did you really think me that much of a fool?”

“Do you really want my answer?” Anton grinned at him from where he stood behind the small table, sorting through the bags he had brought. It wasn’t a cheerful smile—it never was with him. No, Anton treated every one of their interactions like it was a battle to be won, even after all these years.

“I don’t know what Samuel had on you,” Isaac continued, ignoring the little slight for what it was, “to get you to agree to this, but it must be something particularly dark.”

Anton placed his hand over his chest, miming a harsh blow. “And do you really think so little of me? That I would not do the right thing?”

“Not for my sake,” Isaac admitted, and his directness seemed to startle Anton.

“Well, that is not unfair,” Anton replied, just as carefully.

The sudden shift in terrain seemed to throw the both of them, and neither knew what do with honesty when they were used to carefully designed barbs dipped in poison.

But Anton broke the silence first, cursing lowly under his breath as he pulled a bottle of amber liquid from the bags.

“This is actually what I came to talk to you about, but I am not getting through it sober.”

Isaac huffed a laugh. “Smart thinking.” The smile Anton gave him was a little more true, and Isaac felt the tension in his shoulders ease, bit by bit.

“Take a seat, de la Cruz,” Anton said as he turned towards the kitchen, “I’ll be right over.”

Isaac didn’t bother responding, already heading towards the small seating area by the window.

The drapes were still closed, as they had been the night he arrived, but he took the time to pull them back, wanting to see the world beyond.

The street below was so different from the world he had lived in.

Here, there were no private carriages or hackneys, no ladies in their fine day dresses or lords with their walking sticks.

No, they were just people, heading home in the last fading light before the day’s end, with gentle, fat flakes of snow falling only to melt the moment they touched the cobblestones.

Cloaks were pulled tight around shoulders as people moved with a strange bit of urgency, a frantic tension that he did not recognize.

Anton appeared beside him, pressing a healthy glass of bourbon into his hand, but his attention was down on the street as well. “Curfew may have been lifted, officially, but people are still nervous.”

Isaac’s voice came out rough. “Curfew?”

Sending him a sidelong glance, Anton gestured for Isaac to take a seat, and though it was difficult to pull his attention away from the city he had risked so much to save, Isaac did as he was told. “How much do you know about what happened after you were captured?”

“Not much,” Isaac admitted. “Shan is Royal Blood Worker now.”

“That she is,” Anton said, staring directly at Isaac, refusing to let him look away. “And Samuel is the Councillor of Law, taking up the position that you saw vacated.”

“Yes, Shan mentioned that as well.”

Anton rubbed his temple, looking suddenly exhausted. “Then I take it you don’t know about the laws the Eternal Prick saw enacted?”

Isaac took a sip of his drink at last, the bourbon burning down his throat as he braced himself. “I do not.”

Leaning in, Anton quickly sketched out the changes to the law that Isaac had missed, all those months in prison.

Curfew and doubled Blood Taxes and the universal tightening of control around the Unblooded, the creation of a new bit of law around sedition literature and treason.

The growing instability as the blood coffers of Aeravin steadily drained to the point where rationing had been exacted.

Isaac drank his way through the conversation, thankful that the drink was at least good, so that by the time Anton finished, so had he.

“I didn’t mean for it to go like that,” Isaac said, and whether it was the bourbon or the simple shame that prompted him so, he would never know.

“I know,” Anton said, with more kindness than Isaac deserved.

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, let out a dramatic sigh.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I misjudged you, Isaac.

I thought you were just like the rest of them.

Just like…” He trailed off, and Isaac didn’t need to ask whose name went unspoken.

Isaac had thought the same thing, in the end.

Brilliant, daring, incomparable Shan—she could bring the world to its knees, if she so dared. But instead, she played the careful game of politics, attempting to change things from within, as if her only enemy was the Eternal King.

What would it take to convince her that some things needed to burn?

“I do not regret my actions,” Isaac said, pulling Anton’s attention back to him, “but I do regret the consequences of them.”

Anton didn’t respond, only nudged the bottle of bourbon closer. Isaac took the hint, refilling his glass before he continued on.

“I don’t know if Shan ever told you,” Isaac began, running his finger along the rim, “that she saw the Blood Factory. The King showed her—how it worked, what we did to people.” From the furious glint in Anton’s eyes, Isaac had his answer. “Ah, I see not, then.”

“That’s the thing about my twin,” Anton said, with a smile that became more of a grimace. “She has convinced herself that she is the only one who can protect us and has twisted herself into a web of lies to do so.”

“Yeah,” Isaac replied. The truth was a double-edged blade, and he had cut himself on it for years. “But we still love her anyway.”

Anton held out his glass. “To Shan, the best and worst sister I could have asked for.”

Isaac clinked his glass against Anton’s. “To Shan, love of my life, even though she may kill me yet.”

They both drank deeply, and Isaac relaxed, some of the old animosity smoothed over.

He might never call Anton a friend, but they both shared in Shan’s life, they both had visions of a better Aeravin, and for that much, they could learn to tolerate each other.

It was more than Isaac had ever hoped for when they were young.

“So, Shan knew, then?”

“Only towards the end,” Isaac said, and it felt good, sharing the truth, even if it was with Anton.

“When the last of them had been killed, when there was only Dunn left. It horrified her. For what we did, for what those suppliers ,” he spat out the word like it was acid on his tongue, “did, they needed to die. And I think that deep down, Shan agrees with that.”

Anton let out a sigh of relief, and Isaac realized that the man did not know where she landed on it.

If her dreaded pragmatism would have overridden her brittle sense of morality.

“That is good to know. Sometimes I worry.” He rocked back in his seat, studying Isaac again.

“All right then. I have an offer for you, de la Cruz.”

“An offer?” Isaac echoed, suspicious.

“I know what my sister wants to do with you,” Anton continued, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “I know she wants to get you out of Aeravin, for your own good. But you don’t want that, do you?”

There was a bitterness there, and Isaac had the sudden feeling that he wasn’t the only one to have gotten this particular offer. “I don’t. I have unfinished business left in Aeravin.”