Page 25 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)
Chapter Fifteen
Samuel
I t was, somehow, even worse than Samuel had expected it to be.
If he was being brutally honest with himself, there was a part of him that was impressed with the sheer speed at which this had been accomplished.
The top floor of the building had been reconfigured entirely, offices demolished to create what could, charitably, be called a clinic.
There were a series of beds along the left-hand wall, ready for their patients, and the many tools of the trade were stacked in shelves along the other.
The floor had been covered over with a glaze to help prevent any spilled blood from seeping in, glistening with an unnatural shine.
Samuel could feel the buzz of the ward in the back, even if he couldn’t see it, the curtain of magic that protected all the blood they drew from their prisoners.
A pair of Blood Healers in their white robes shuffled around the space, laying out needles and tubes on trays before large glass bottles. Thankfully, there were no large vats under the tables, the prisoners would not be drained until they were dead and desiccated, but…
It was still a Blood Factory, smaller in scope and size than what Samuel had once seen in the palace dungeons, but no less horrific.
This was just the first of several, spread out through the smaller prisons across Dameral, and, eventually, all of Aeravin.
The once hidden work of the Eternal King, codified into law, and built across an entire nation.
And still, Samuel felt like he was the only one who cared that it was wrong.
Dabney stood at his side, arms crossed over his barrel chest, looking just as proud as a father watching his child take their first, fumbling steps. “It’s been hard getting this sorted so quickly, but I run a tight ship around here, my lord.”
He still drawled out the title like an insult, low and sarcastic, but Samuel didn’t pay it any mind. Dabney would never understand it, but despite his title and role, he didn’t have any more power at the end of the day. He had learned that lesson well.
“You did very well,” Samuel said, stepping aside. There was nothing for him to add or critique. Dabney had taken the basics from the King’s plans and transformed it into something that would work for this space.
Honestly, Samuel wished it was the King here instead. Tristan would be truly impressed; Tristan would have praise to give.
Samuel just wished it was over already.
“Excellent. The rest of them should be finished by the end of the week. And now…” Dabney turned, gesturing to Strickland, who nodded sharply before marching down the stairs. “Time for the trial run.”
“The what?” Samuel choked, glancing to Dabney.
“The trial,” Dabney repeated, slowly, as if talking to a simpleton. “And, after, with your approval, we can begin the real work.”
Curling his fingers in, Samuel dug the sides of his claws into his flesh, careful not to split the skin.
So that was what this was about, then. Forcing his hand, his approval, because his attempts to make this system any kinder had failed.
It felt like a deliberate snub, an unnecessary bit of cruelty, but there was nothing he could do about it.
As the Councillor of Law, this was the role he was destined. There was no winning, only various levels of losing, and sometimes he wished that Shan had never pulled him from the slums.
“Fine.” Samuel stood a little straighter, crossed his arms behind his back. He could look the part, he could act the part—it was what was expected of him, as Lord Aberforth. “Begin.”
Strickland reappeared, prodding the prisoner in front of her, a middle-aged white man who moved with his head hung low.
Samuel couldn’t get a good look at his face but chose not to press the issue.
What did it matter? The Guard had arrested this man for some crime that had barely hurt anyone.
But once Samuel gave the word, every Unblooded prisoner booked through the system would have to give one additional pint of blood to the coffers, on top of what they had to give quarterly for the sheer privilege of living in this country.
Eight pints a year, minimum—then whatever the Guard could reasonably squeeze out of them.
The rage filled him, but Samuel choked it down, trying to swallow it all as he watched the man be guided to the bed with a dispassionate efficiency.
The Blood Healer, a stern older woman with grey hair tucked away beneath her cap, arranged the prisoner on the bed while her younger compatriot unrolled a piece of cloth.
Neither of them smiled at the man, neither of them offered kind words or small talk. They positioned him like he was a doll, wrapping the tourniquet around his upper arm. Piercing the vein without a warning, dipping the open end of the tubing into the vial, measuring the blood as it flowed.
It was so casually cruel, and the worst part was the way the prisoner did not even protest. He let it be done without complaint, without ire, without judgement. Aeravin had already taken so much from him and those like him—so what was a little more blood, in the end?
Samuel felt like he was going to be sick, but turning his face felt like a bigger insult. So, he watched it all, witnessed it all, even though the prisoner would never know that he cared.
The prisoner was distinctly pallid by the time the jar was full, but whether that was from the blood drain or just the stress of the draw, Samuel didn’t know.
The older Blood Healer sealed the jar with a screw-top lid, sealing it from air and water, before carrying it back to the vault, passing through the ward without so much as a blink.
Where it would be stored in careful stasis, ready to be transported to the central treasury of Dameral at the end of the week.
And it was done. The needle was pulled from the prisoner’s arm, the tools set aside for sanitation and disposal, Strickland helping the man to his feet before escorting him out.
Not a word had been said the entire time.
“Well, then,” Dabney said, shattering the silence with his booming voice. “My office?”
Samuel nodded, letting Dabney steer him towards the stairs, eager to leave all of this behind. They trudged down the stairs in silence, slipping through the quiet buzz of the Guard at work, until they reached Dabney’s office.
It was a small space for one so important to the functioning of a city, of a nation.
It was nothing like the grand spaces where the Councillors and nobles and the Eternal King held their meetings.
It was the space of a working man, too small by far—a desk too large for the room, filing cabinets overflowing with papers, and not even the grace of a single window to ease the dankness.
Dabney closed the door behind him, and once again Samuel felt cowed by the man’s size and presence.
It wasn’t just that Dabney was a walking fortress—because he was—but the confidence with which he moved through the world.
He had an unwavering sense of righteousness, backed up by long history of laws and institutions, and Samuel had been such a fool to think he could ever make a difference here.
“Is everything to your satisfaction?” Dabney asked, hooking his thumbs into his suspenders as he waited.
Samuel swallowed hard. “I am positive the Eternal King would be proud of your work.”
Dabney merely arched an eyebrow, and Samuel realized that it wasn’t enough—this wasn’t why he was here.
He was here to give the order to begin, to start the harvest in earnest. How much blood could they drain, so quickly, shuffling prisoners through this process with all the efficiency of a brutally oiled machine?
He wasn’t enough of a fool to dismiss what would happen next, the way that the Guard would crack down on enforcement, seeking any possible avenue to increase the coffers.
It was a system designed to be exploited, just waiting to be corrupted, and Samuel had run out of time to build in safeguards. The Blood Factories were already up and running, and here he was, forced to approve while his bill sat half-drafted on his desk.
He needed help, and there was only one person he could turn to.
So, he ignored the guilt that rolled through him, forcing out the words that Dabney needed him to say. That the King expected him to say.
“You have my authorization to begin,” Samuel said, and Dabney flashed him a feral smile.
Lady Holland’s office offered something of a balm to Samuel, a place where he could discuss things in direct language and hard numbers.
Where he could figure out fiddly bits of wording and legalese without fearing judgement—Zelda might not care for the wellbeing of the Unblooded, exactly, but she cared deeply about ensuring the country ran smoothly for all parties.
And she was much less skilled at manipulating him than Shan was. Around Zelda, he could keep his head, and hells, was that something he needed these days.
Zelda welcomed him in with a quick nod, gesturing for him to take his seat.
The pot of tea had already steeped, ready to pour, and Samuel was thankful that he had not faced much traffic during the ride over, even if he did not want to contemplate reasons why he had made such good time.
The way that the streets were still mostly empty, even after all this time.
Curfew might have ended, but the Unblooded still feared to go where they weren’t wanted or needed. The fear hung over Dameral like a shroud, and Samuel worried that it would take only the smallest of nudges to tip it back over into unrest.
“I’ve had the time to consider your request,” Zelda said, cutting through his anxieties with the sharpness of a scalpel. “It is very thorough, but I have some notes.”
The thin stack of papers sat before her; his half-finished bill marked up in her nearly illegible scribble. It was the draft that his secretary had delivered to hers—ridiculous, as their offices were just a couple of minutes’ walk from each other.
But that was another facet of life as a noble that Samuel still hadn’t got used to, employing people to do work that they could very well do themselves, and still treating them lesser for it.
It soured his stomach every time he had to face their scraping bows and insincere groveling, but Lord Aberforth wouldn’t flinch at it.
He so hated the role he had to play.
“Thank you,” Samuel said as he pulled the papers towards him, squinting to make out what she had written.
Most of them were annotations, a running list of historical cases that had done something similar.
The Eternal King had been ambitious in appointing him to this role—there was so much he did not know, the formal language of law completely foreign to him, a whole history of precedents and case law that he had tried desperately to follow.
What was and was not within his purview, what should go to the House of Lords, what was reserved for the King himself.
He still felt like he was drowning, but little tips like this kept him barely afloat. If only he didn’t have to fear what would happen when Zelda called for the favor to be returned.
“You know,” Holland said, conversationally. “This is going to earn you a lot of enemies, especially in the House.”
Samuel didn’t look up. He couldn’t, unless he would falter. “I know.”
What he was doing wasn’t technically out of scope—many Councillors of Law before him had gone forward with similar measures, sidestepping the long and arduous process of running it through the House. Except they had done it to protect the rights and liberties of Blood Workers, not the Unblooded.
They hadn’t attempted to codify protections into the law, extending the requirement for warrants to all cases, establishing a new branch of the judiciary to appoint publicly funded attorneys to anyone who couldn’t afford to hire one themselves, outlined a stricter set of punishments for Guards who stepped out of line.
Holland hummed thoughtfully. “Are you sure that you do? Your name will protect you from many pitfalls, but it will not save you from the fallout of this.”
Tilting his head to the side, Samuel avoided the question. “Is the law faulty?”
“No,” Holland said, with a grimace, “but you know damn well that is not the issue.” She spoke slowly, enunciating every word as if she were speaking to a child. “Stop pretending that things are that simple, Aberforth.”
“If they have objections,” Samuel continued, completely ignoring the kindness she was trying to do him, “then they can argue on the merits of the law. Which, thanks to your help, I am confident that I can defend.”
Raising a hand to her temple, Holland cursed lowly.
“I was a fool to indulge you in this.” Samuel bristled, but she continued before he could even speak.
“You are not entirely wrong, Samuel, these are very important things to consider given the Royal Blood Worker’s new…
proposal.” She spat the word like the poison that it was.
And Samuel didn’t even feel the slightest impulse to defend her. Even Holland could see the danger they faced, the danger that Shan refused to acknowledge. That their Eternal King did not even care to contemplate.
“But,” Holland continued, “this isn’t about just protecting the workforce so they can keep the rest of Aeravin afloat. This is your bias towards the Unblooded coming through, and there are deeper politics at play—”
Samuel stood, cutting her off. “And I am ready to face them.”
Holland stared him down for a long moment, then finally sighed. “I truly hope that you are, Aberforth, because if you are not…”
“I am,” he swore, because there was no other alternative. He would bear the brunt of the hate, if need be, but he would see it done.
Because there was no other way.