Chapter 23

OCTAVIA

R ed is in a foul mood. She needs to dose again. We're at the point that she needs blood almost every other hour. I'm keeping her rationed to a few drops each time and dosing little and often seems to be having an effect. For now. She's built a tolerance, and though it's also lowering the urge to fuck, I have to wonder if that's because we're already bonded or because her craving for human blood has increased and is offsetting the need for mine.

Dawn edges towards the horizon as our carriage arrives outside the Church of Blood.

She huffs again as she pulls the carriage curtain aside. "We're here, and by the looks of it, so is everyone else. I wonder if they found anything useful in the last twelve hours."

We tried researching the blood monk rituals and rites, but to no avail. All the useful texts were, unsurprisingly, in the church vaults.

"I highly doubt it. The only one with insider knowledge would be Sadie. I don't think anyone other than she will have a head start on this one. But remember, she didn't score in the first trial, and no one scored in the last, so she's still in last place. Even if she won this round, she won't be in the lead unless none of us makes it out."

"We have to win, Octavia. I want that cure for Amelia. And we're not going to unless we claw points back. And we won't do that if one of us dies."

I scan Red's face. Her words are potent, but her expression doesn't match.

"Do you still want to win?" I ask.

"Of course I do," she snaps.

But I'm not sure she still believes that. Or maybe she does consciously, but her subconscious says differently.

"What if we're ambushed? What if we lose our minds? What if the trial unleashes our worst nightmares and scares us to death?" She flings her arms in the air.

"Then I won't run this city, and you won't be getting a cure for your sister. So how about we lay off the negativity and focus on getting ourselves through this? Which you won't if you have a shred of doubt about your capabilities."

I lean forward and pull her chin around so she's facing me. "I believe in you, Verity Fairbanks. You're going to get through this. As am I. And when we're on the other side of it, we'll celebrate in style. And then we'll shape this city into something magnificent. Something we can both be proud of, and we'll do it by each other's side."

Her lips part, her breathing short and rapid. My focus drops to her mouth. I want to kiss it. I want to draw her lip between mine and suck it until she begs me to fuck her. But I can't. This love that we're holding between us is so fragile, I don't want to do anything that will risk what tenuous connection we have left. She hasn't forgiven me. I know by the space she holds between us. But I'll fight for every millimetre I can gain back.

It's why I refused to bite her the other night when her emotions were all over the place, and it's why I won't kiss her now. Because kissing her will lead to fucking her, which will lead to one or other of us biting each other. And we don't have time for any of it.

I pull the carriage curtain aside and glance at the sky. The first hints of burnt ochre simmer on the horizon.

"Time to go," I say.

Red grumbles but opens the carriage door and steps into the church courtyard.

We're welcomed by monks, one for each of us. These monks don't appear to have taken a vow of silence yet. They chatter away to each of us. The one chatting with Gabriel hands him a book and presses Gabe's hands against it. Gabriel about bursts with excitement.

The monk talking to Red seems to have lifted her mood already. She throws her head back, laughing. Her eyes are bright and smiling. There's a bite in my chest, a stab of something I'd rather not confess to. She seems delighted though, as they huddle closer and natter away to each other.

The church doors open as the sky brightens and my arms itch. My siblings and I all speed inside, eager to get the gnawing sensation off our skin. The hunters waltz in behind us, and last, the blood monks follow, closing the door and sealing us inside the church.

Red was fine outside, but as I scan her up and down, I can see she's trembling. I edge next to her. "Everything okay?" I ask.

"The scent is strong in here," she says.

The blood, of course. I hadn't even thought about it. But last time we were here, there were basins filled with blessed blood. Given the state of her addiction, she's got to be overwhelmed.

"Breathe through your mouth. It will reduce the severity."

She nods and her lips part.

The nine monks stand in front of us and bow, indicating that we should follow them. Side by side, down the main aisle, we proceed through the church.

My eyes gaze up at the art that adorns the building. I'm impressed each time I see the stories told not with words but with images, and the memories painted and carved into the ceilings and windows.

It makes me wonder whether artists should really be called wizards, for the gift they have for translating meaning and emotion from one complex language into another.

We pass through a gate at the rear of the church and into an area I've never visited, down a narrow, twisting stone staircase and into the bowels of the building.

My body flecks with gooseflesh at the drastic drop in air temperature; Red and the hunters must be freezing. At the edges of my vision, the unyielding stone walls seem to pulse, and I can't work out whether it's in my head or if they're really throbbing with some mystical force.

We reach an antechamber and the monks guide each of us to stand in a circle. Red is back chatting with her monk, and whatever he's saying is engaging enough that she's smiling again. All I can say is thank the Mother of Blood for him because the last thing I want is for her to go into this trial mentally distracted and riddled with doubt.

The monks vanish and return with bowls of water and washcloths. They make us cleanse our faces, brush our fangs and wash our hands.

We're silent the whole time. The only sound is the slow, methodical beating of the blood monk's hearts and the increasingly rapid beating of the hunters'.

Next, they bring us red cloaks identical to the ones they wear, though several shades lighter.

I reach to take it, but the monk pulls it away and points to my current clothing.

You have got to be kidding me. I clench my jaw but strip off anyway, snatching the cloak out of the monk's hand a little too aggressively. Dahlia is as unhappy about the situation as I am and snatches her cloak harder than I do. Lincoln, Talulla and Keir quietly do as they're told. Gabriel cops an eyeful of Keir while he's changing but slips his arms into the cloak on request.

Once we're all de-clothed and fully robed, the monk closest to the chamber door opens it. There's a hiss as the door creaks open, and white mist rolls out of the room beyond.

"What the hell?" Xavier says.

Sadie clicks her finger to make him look at her, and she signs, "If you weren't so ignorant, you'd know they keep the Chamber of Blood at a low temperature to help with the preservation of the witch-god's blood."

"I see," he says.

But Sadie isn't finished berating him and raises her hands to continue. "It's also why you're asked to strip and wear the cloak. It's fur-lined and imbued with the tiniest hint of magic to retain heat. The magic is weak, so it only works if it's next to the skin."

The monk guiding her nudges her. She pouts with her mouth, but the glare she gives him is vicious. Sadie is normally in charge as the head of the church, so to be bossed around by her underlings must sting.

We're led to our respective stone beds, the same ones we saw in our visions. Only this time there's an obsidian basin at the head of each bed filled with a shimmering silver liquid.

One of the monks heads to the enormous glass vial containing the blood from the witch-god, our holy Mother of Blood. He holds a bowl under a faucet attached to the bottom of the vial and twists the handle, allowing exactly nine drops to fall into the bowl he holds.

Then he makes his way around the room, using a syringe to draw up a single droplet of blood and deposit it in each obsidian basin. Sadie's is first. The liquid hisses and turns black. Dahlia next, then Lincoln. The monk makes his way around until he's stood in front of me and dropping the last bead of blood into my basin.

The Chief appears beside Mother. Together they enter the circle of stone beds.

"Sit," Mother says, her voice barely above a whisper.

In unison, all nine of us take our positions, sitting on our beds facing our monks. The blood monks tilt the basins, pouring the dark gloopy concoction into a chalice.

The beating of the four hunters' hearts ratchets up a notch. I'm sure my siblings can hear it. It thuds like an inevitable countdown.

Beat. Five.

Beat. Four.

Beat. Three.

Beat. Two.

Beat. One.

The monks raise the chalices to our lips. I glance at Red one last time.

Our eyes lock. She wears the same wide-eyed, pinched look I do.

I wonder if she wishes the same thing I do.

I wish I could tell her it will be all right. That we will get through this together. But I can't because we're doing this alone, and for the first time since these trials started, I can't help or support her. I can't protect her.

I want to tell her I love her, no matter what. And last, I wish those words were on her lips for me, too.

But they're not.

The monk tips the chalice up to my lips, and I tear my gaze away from her, swallowing the strange liquid.

It tastes like starlight and gold. Like the glistening of the moonlight on the ocean surface, and everywhere it touches, it tingles.

It slides down my throat, and as it does, I have a strange, disconnecting feeling as my body lowers to the stone bed, but I stay where I am.

I blink, and the room is gone. Instead, I'm in an ethereal landscape where the boundaries between reality and dreams blur.

I wave my hand through the fog. No one else is here. The dim-lit atrium, the stone beds and everyone in it have all vanished.

The white mist flows through my fingers like sand and silk, but eventually it clears enough I spot a ghostly figure standing in the distance.

"Who are you?" I call out, but the figure just stands there, immobile.

"I guess you're my trial guide? Or maybe my trial executioner. One or the other."

I make my way through the fog towards him, but the closer I get, the further away he seems. The air around me twists and undulates with a vibration that crawls over my skin.

I stop and glance back, wondering how far I've come, but behind me now lays a field of pasture. Daisies and poppies fill the landscape as the sky clears and the sun beams down.

I gasp. I've never seen the sun in the sky. Never seen so many flowers with open blooms, not unless they're moon flowers born of night. And there are many fewer night-born plants than day ones.

I immediately scream, patting my arms and searching for shelter, but my skin isn't burning. In fact, nothing hurts, nothing even stings. I am standing in the light, gawping toward the sun, and I am still alive.

Or trying to, but it hurts my eyes to stare too directly at it.

I turn back to find the ghostly figure and my blood freezes. He is right in front of me. There is a shrouded space where his face should be. A dark hood with a hollow void that is utterly endless.

I can't look away. The vastness of it holds me in place. I writhe on the spot, desperate to escape.

A hand reaches up to my chest.

"No," I say.

His fingers slowly dig into my cloak, piercing the fabric, and then press against my skin.

I try to grab at his hand, but my body is motionless. His nails slice my flesh.

I scream as the heat of his touch sears through my body. It's like he's pouring molten steel into my body as his hand sinks into my chest.

This is how I die. A thousand years and this, finally, is how it ends, and my only thought is of not having given Red a last kiss. Not pleading with her one more time to forgive me.

Not telling her I love her over and over until my lips chap and my throat runs hoarse.

Somewhere swirling around the mist, a voice screams. I think it's mine, but I'm no longer certain. He buries his hand in my chest cavity.

I'm certain he's going to rip my heart out, but he yanks me forward and finally the pain ceases and everything goes black.

* * *

W hen I rouse, I am laid on stone cobbles in a strange place. The floor is dank and smells like iron and manure. The light casts a muted, dreary grey over the adjoining alleys. Like the sun ran out and spat the dregs of light out from the bottom of its fuel tank.

"Hello?" I call, but there's no answer.

I stand. The sky is burnt grey. Rain spatters against the cobbles. I glance around me and freeze.

"This is... This is impossible," I breathe.

I'm in Sangui City, but it doesn't appear like Sangui City. I stumble out of the alleyway I'm in and find myself in the main square near the Midnight Market.

In the distance, I can just make out the remnants of the market. I speed across the square and towards the stalls. The sellers are skeletal. Their skin stretches taut over their skeletal bodies.

Their eyes are gaunt and hollow.

The first stall I reach has a scant selection of items. Barely enough, if he sold them all, to feed a family for a week.

"What happened here?" I whisper.

"She happened," he says without even looking up. Instead, he raises his finger towards a statue in the middle of the market.

I glance at the statue, and my blood turns to ice. It's a porcelain figure of a face I recognise: mine.

"I don't understand," I say. But he's no longer responsive.

I speed around the market, and each stall I reach is more of the same. Starving humans and barely a passing trade, the market is still like death. The city seems drained of its life source. Drained of...

"No. It can't be. I would never."

I grab a woman shuffling past me. She, too, doesn't raise her eyes to peer up at me. At least the humans in my Sangui City glance up and then run away, horrified. These people are so... hopeless.

It's like someone has crushed their spirit.

"What. Happened?" I command.

She trembles against my grip but raises her other hand to the statue.

"Explain," I bark, and try to keep the anger out of my voice.

"She won the trials and became queen and then broke every promise. It was all lies. Everything she ever said was a lie. She is the monster we all feared she was."

"No. I... I mean, she wouldn't do that."

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I know this can't be real, that I don't belong in this city. But this city seems solid. The air is cool in my lungs, her arms wrinkled and leathery under my touch. Is this real? Did I fuck everything up?

I was certain the plans I had would help. We'd have a fair city that welcomed everyone. Where did I go wrong? Why can't I remember what I did?

The woman's gaunt face twists into a snarl.

"But you fucked up, Octavia. You ruined this city. You drained it of life and love and let your siblings drink us dry. Well now, we're all going to die because there isn't enough blood."

Her eyes widen. She grabs me and shakes me. "Are you listening, Octavia? There's never enough blood."

She screams, shaking me by the arms, gloopy spittle flecking my chest and face. She shakes and shakes until she shakes her skin away, and all that's left of her are her bones that clatter against the cobbles.

My skin prickles like I'm being watched. Every market seller has turned to face me.

"Monster," they whisper in unison.

Faster and faster, they repeat it until someone screams the word, and another follows.

Louder.

Louder.

Until I fall to my knees, clutching my ears.

"I'm not a monster." I rock myself forward and back, saying it over and over until a scream silences the market.

Then every single market seller and shopper runs. They all head out of the square. And I'm up and running and screaming at them to wait. To tell me what's going on. To beg them to tell what they are running from.

"She's coming," someone shrieks.

"The monster is coming."

"Demon."

More voices shriek until they're all running and pointing at me.

I'm running after them and shouting back that it's not me. I wouldn't do this. But they're leading me through a maze of streets and alleys. And none of it looks like my Sangui City.

Everything is derelict and broken. Bricks scatter the ground. The streets are narrow and dark. Everything smells like stagnant water and faeces. Windows are cracked or smashed. A layer of filth and grime covers the doors and curtains.

There are no children. Where are all the children?

The deeper I run into the city, the more lost I become. This isn't my city. I didn't do this.

Did I?

But the voices fill my head even as I lose sight of their figures. I hit a dead end, double back on myself only to reach another dead end.

Where am I? Is this really what will happen if I win? If I take over the city?

Am I just the monster they all think I am?

I wanted to protect the city, make it a space where everyone was welcome. What happened to me to destroy the thing I wanted to call home?

A tear falls down my cheek. I wipe it away as a piece of my heart wipes away with it.

Perhaps I should bow out now. Perhaps I shouldn't run this city, maybe I can't make it a better place after all.

I turn and catch sight of myself in a shard of broken mirror. My face is twisted and aged. The only signs of life are my blood-red eyes staring back at me. They burn hot and soulless. My fangs have elongated and sharpened to razor points.

I am a monster. That's all I ever was. All I'll ever be.

The ghostly figure who sent me here reappears at the end of the alley.

"You," I snarl. Ready for him this time.

"You did this," the faceless hood says.

"I did..." But my words falter as I catch my reflection in my periphery and it falters. For one brief moment, I see me the way Red sees me—not with eyes the colour of death, but the colour of love and life.

And that's when I remember. None of this is real. This is all just a test. One designed to try to break me. I run my fingers along the cobbles and through a grimy puddle. They come away wet.

A test that feels real. Perhaps in another universe this is what I did.

But I am better than this.

"No," I say, standing. "I did not."

The world around me dissolves and when it reforms, I'm in my bedroom. A figure lays in the shadows of my four-poster bed, a muslin layer shrouding them from view.

But I know that body. I know that figure.

It's Red.

"Did you win? Are we out of the spirit trial?" I ask.

"Yes," she says. "Come here."

So I do. I push the curtain aside and climb onto the bed. She's naked. Splayed ready for me to take her.

She beckons me forward with the curl of her index finger.

I climb up the bed until I am millimetres from her lips. "Gods, I've missed you," I breathe.

She brushes her lips against mine.

Something is off.

I slide my hand up the back of her neck and draw her to me until our mouths meet. She kisses me.

But it's forced. Cold. Empty.

The heat of our bodies nonexistent.

I pull back, frowning.

"What's—" I start, but she cuts me off, her face contorting. Her chiselled jawline becomes sharp and harsh. Her green eyes cold and icy.

I don't recognise her.

"I've seen the truth. I know who you are now, Octavia," she snarls.

"What do you mean? You've always known who I am."

"You're a liar. A thief. You ruin everything. You ruin me. Ruined my sister."

"No. I… I saved Amelia. She would have died. You know that."

"You're everything I hate. How many memories did you take? How many times did you take my free will away, Octavia? I'll never love you unless you let me go. Unless you let me be free. Unless you tell me what really happened that night."

"No. No. You made me promise. You begged me."

"So now this is my fault?"

"That's not what I…" I'm crawling back off the bed. I need to get away. I can't do this. This city is killing me. Everything is wrong and twisted and broken. And it's all my fault.

"Yes, Octavia. It's all your fault. You're a fucking monster, just like they all said you were."

I look up at her, my eyes welling as I scramble back.

"You don't mean that," I cry.

"I mean every word of it. You disgust me. You've always made my skin crawl. You will never be enough because you'll never be anything but a filthy fucking monster."

"No," I whisper, my voice cracking. "Please," I hold my hands out towards her. But she shoves me back.

I tip off the edge of the bed…

… and I land in a new room.

I stare up at the ceiling, recognising where I am. My mother's throne room. I roll onto my stomach and push myself to my feet only to stumble backwards until I hit Mother's throne and collapse down into it.

The seat is odd; not the soft, plush leather of normal but like I'm sat on someone's lap. I stand up, wrench around and scream.

Mother's body rests on the throne. Her skin is grey and desiccating. Her mouth hangs slack, her eyes vacant and staring through me.

Pieces of her flesh flake off and drift into the air until a thick smog of decaying flesh swirls around me. The door swings open, and my siblings stumble through, each of them desiccating in the same way Mother is. Only they're still standing and walking.

Dahlia falls first. A long sword driven straight through her, front to back. She points a finger at me. "You did this."

"I didn't. It wasn't me, Dahlia, I swear."

Gabriel crawls on his hands and knees, his eyes already rotten to black orbs still stare at me like he can see. "Your fault. You ruined us."

Xavier appears now, stepping over Gabriel, but with each successive step he takes, his legs crumble more. His beautiful face is marred and shredded, scars gouge through his cheeks and mouth.

He opens his maw, his jaw disconnecting and hanging low as he chokes out gravelly words. "I thought you were better than this. You really are the freak everyone says you are."

My mouth falls slack, a silent scream ripping from my lungs.

Last, Sadie appears, only she is intact, the same Sadie I recognise. She floats up to me. He fingers caress my cheek. She tilts my forehead down to kiss it, like the sweet caress of a child to a doll.

"I just wanted you to realise," she says aloud. She speaks with words and not her hands. I don't understand.

And that's when I remember this isn't real. My Sadie can't speak. I desperately cling to the knowledge that this isn't real. But it looks real, it sounds real, it feels like home.

I wipe a hand over my face.

"Realise what?" I ask, gripping her by the shoulders.

But her eyes widen. Her mouth falls slack, and she tilts to look at her chest where the hilt of a blade protrudes, the shaft buried deep in her heart.

Her skin ripples, her hair trembles, a wash of black shivers through it and vanishes. Her veins darken beneath her skin, purple squiggles appearing all over her body.

"Why did you kill me?" she says and then she explodes in a burst of skin and bone and flaking life. The blade clatters to the floor at my feet.

"No," I scream. But no sound comes out.

I slide to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking back and forth. All of my siblings are dead, their bodies rotting around me. My mother desiccating behind me.

How did I do this? Why did I kill them all? I love them, I didn't mean to make this happen. Whispers ricochet around the throne room, "Your fault. You're not enough. You ruin everything."

Over and over.

Louder and louder.

I don't want to hear it. I don't want to believe it. But maybe they're all right. Maybe I should desiccate myself. I reach forward, and my fingers skirt along the blade.

A single voice cuts through the noise of all the other accusations.

"Stop," it says.

The voice is familiar. I know it. It's like it's coming from deep inside me. It's like the voice is part of me. Or a part of who I was.

It's so faint I can hardly hear it.

I reach a little further forward, my fingers curling around the hilt as I bring the tip to my chest, right over the scar Red gave me. This time there will be no missing.

"Octavia. Stop. This isn't you. I'm here for you."

That's when I recognise who the voice belongs to. Red. Only not the Red from the bedroom a moment ago. The Red bonded to me. It's like the piece of her soul attached to mine is protecting me the way I always protect her.

Her words curl around me, wrapping me in comfort.

"They're the colour of love and life. I see you, Octavia. I love you for you. And you will always be enough. Now get out of here. I need you to come back to me," she says.

My fingers tighten around the blade, but instead of pushing it deeper, I pull it away and grip it like a weapon.

I will fight my way out of this because I AM ENOUGH.

I have always been enough, and now I'm ready to face anything this fucking challenge can throw at me.

I draw my body into a fighting stance, but the room is already dissolving.

The mist is sweeping back around my feet. My siblings' bodies dissolve, the throne behind me gone, and I am stood back at the beginning. The ghostly figure in the hood stands before me.

Only this time, he kneels on one leg and holds out a hand, palm up.

I glance at my hand holding the blade, but it too has vanished. So I lay my hand in his. There's a tingle between our palms as we grip each other.

"Congratulations, Octavia. And now, your reward. The gods have decided to bestow upon you a single piece of information. You've always wondered what happened to your birth mother. This is her story…"

The ghost vanishes, and instead I am standing in a quaint little cottage a thousand years ago, the sun setting, showering the cottage in beams of orange and burnt yellow. I try to move, but I'm pinned in place. The kettle simmers on the stove. A woman with long hair is facing away from me.

"Mum?" I say.

But before she can answer, dusk settles, and the light vanishes.

There's a knock at the door.

The vision drags me to the far side of the room. I try and step closer, but I'm stuck at the entrance to the living room. My birth mother moves constantly, so I can never quite see her face. I want to scream in frustration. What gift is this if I can't see her face, if I can't discover who she really is?

Her hand slides to the door handle, and she twists it open as a small whimper comes from behind me. I gasp, as I find a cot nestled just behind me in the entrance to the living room. It's a baby?

Not a baby.

Me. As a baby. I reach down to pick myself up but my hand brushes through my body as if I'm an apparition.

It doesn't matter. The door opens and the air cools to ice, gooseflesh prickles my birth mother's arms, and as I glance up, I gasp.

"Cordelia."