Chapter Thirty-Nine Samuel

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Samuel

T he morning of the summer solstice dawned warm and hazy, and Samuel wished he didn't have to attend this event, wished he didn't know what he could do, simply with the power of his voice.

Hells, he didn't understand why it was still happening at all. Isaac's safety aside, it was still a terrible idea. Sure, the Eternal King had spent a lot of time and money renovating the central square of Dameral, but with everything that had happened in the past few months—the murders and demonstrations and the growing unrest in the country—continuing with it just felt ill-advised at best and a snub at the worst.

Though most of the park was already there to see—with its fountains and benches and endless weaves of rose bushes—the central dais was still hidden behind high cloth barriers that covered it from top to bottom, waiting for the Royal Blood Worker to unveil it. And he was in danger.

Because they hadn't found the murderer. Because—both thankfully and regrettably—it wasn't Anton.

That meant that they had no leads, save the chance that Isaac would be a victim. And so he was here. Praying that he wouldn't need to step in and command something heinous. Again.

The man's death lingered with him. Samuel kept seeing it—when he tried to sleep, when he allowed himself to stop for even a moment. The way he had gone rigid, how he had stopped breathing, choking on nothing as his heart gave out. He had at least died quickly, but Samuel would never forget it. Would never let himself forget it.

He was at last the monster he had feared becoming.

A monster hoping that today would somehow end in peace.

But the same couldn't be said of the others, the Unblooded who had turned out to watch in disgust and frustration. He could sense it in the crowd around him, simmering with an undercurrent of rage that frankly revitalized him. The crowd was divided into sections—most of the nobles watched from above, sitting on the balconies of restaurants and cafés and clubs, but Samuel had turned down the invitation that Shan had offered him. She would be watching from above, but he would be here, feet on the cobblestones and shoulder to shoulder with those he wanted to save. There was something about being with the people he had grown up with that was just so grounding, despite the changes the last few months had wrought.

No amount of finery or money or magic would ever take that away.

Besides, if he was to save Isaac, he couldn't do it from so far away.

But he was still here not simply as Samuel, a man, but as Lord Aberforth. Dressed to the nines in his fine suit, in his cravat and tails, with his hair neatly pulled back into a queue and the soft hint of cologne wafting off him. He tried to ignore the stab of pain that came whenever he caught a sneer from the corner of his eyes, or when someone leaned pointedly away from him.

He wanted to scream, to yell that he was one of them, that this farce wasn't who he really was. But he knew that wasn't true, not anymore, so he just kept moving forward through the crowds, not having to fight his way to the front where the Guards kept watch. The Unblooded parted for him, giving him ample space—not out of respect or deference, but because they did not want to be near him.

He wished he could have accepted Shan's invitation after all.

It was too late for that, though, so he just wrapped his bare fingers around the cool metal fence in front of him. At least he didn't have claws. He might dress like one of them, might have their blood and their money, but he still had this. They hadn't made a Blood Worker out of him.

The crowd quieted, but it wasn't the respectful, reverential silence that he expected. No, there was a fragility to this, a tension that was ready to break. Samuel looked up to find that Isaac had appeared, and suddenly it felt like no time had passed at all. It could almost be the spring equinox again, when he had been caught in the crowd before the Eternal King's annual sacrifice, and if he closed his eyes none of this would have happened.

But he couldn't close his eyes. There was no sacrifice to be killed, no Eternal King to scorn. There was just a man—Isaac—who looked just this side of broken, trapped in a position that Samuel couldn't even imagine.

Four months ago, Samuel wouldn't have cared about the lines around his eyes, about the tension he carried in his shoulders. But four months ago, he didn't care about him, and watching him now, his heart broke.

Knowing what he knew now, about what the King expected of him, what the King made him do, Samuel wondered how he functioned at all.

Isaac crossed in front of the hidden gardens, taking his place front and center as members of the Guard took theirs, standing by large, decorated ropes as they awaited their cues. When Isaac gave the signal, they'd yank on the ropes and the curtains would fall, revealing the new park that the Eternal King had commissioned.

Any other year, it would have been a lovely ceremony. But not a single person wanted to be here, not the Royal Blood Worker who hosted it in place of a King who never could be bothered, or a people who were tired of dying.

"My friends," Isaac said, not with a smile or cheer, but with a solemnity that rooted Samuel where he stood. "My fellow citizens. Thank you for coming out this morning, especially in such dark times. I know that we have been living under a veil of fear, some of us more than others, but I believe that is why we need this more than ever." He took a deep breath, letting the moment sink in. "For even in this, there are still moments of hope to be found, and we cannot lose them all to darkness."

"Easy for you to say!" a voice cried out, somewhere to the back and right of Samuel.

"You're not the one dying!" another called out, this time just to the left.

It was enough—the final drops that overpowered the dam and released the flood. All around Samuel more and more voices cried out, their words growing confused and muddled as they blended together.

The specifics didn't matter, though. Their intent was clear. Their anger was palpable, and it was being held back by only the thinnest of threads.

A couple of Guards stepped forward, flexing their claws, but Isaac threw up a hand. "No, they are right, after all. We don't know what it has been like to be you. To be Unblooded in a time like this. You have been scared and ignored and mistreated, and we—the Blood Workers, the nobles, those who have sworn to lead and protect you—have done nothing about it." The crowd quieted suddenly, confusion spreading as Isaac stared at them with something like pain in his eyes. "We have abused you in ways that you have never known, but it is time for that to change."

He snapped his fingers, once, and the Guard hesitated only a moment before pulling their ropes. The thick curtains around the dais fluttered, and like a shimmering curtain of blood they flowed to the ground. But where there was to be a statue of their king—Eternal and proud and strong—there was something else. A scene of horror.

A metal table where the statue should have been.

A dead man strapped to it, brutalized and mutilated.

A glass vat of blood underneath, the last drips of blood filling from the tubes in his arms and legs.

It was the exact image of a victim of the Blood Factory, and all of Aeravin stared on in shock.

Samuel's heart came to a stop. They had been wrong. They had been so terribly wrong.

"The Blood Taxes you pay are a lie," Isaac said, his voice carrying over the sudden silence. "The Blood Workers demand far more than you give for their magics, and it has been my duty to ensure that needs are met. The Royal Blood Worker sees that the coffers of blood are filled, and the murders that have plagued this city were those who saw that we were supplied with the people—the poor, the unwanted, the criminal. And Lord Kevan Dunn has been kind enough to model what we do with them."

He turned to face the people. "And for my part in this, I know I can never be forgiven."

The silence shattered, the crowd suddenly surging forward. The combined force of them knocked Samuel off his feet, sending him crashing into the fence, which then tumbled to the hard cobblestones below. He caught himself awkwardly, skinning his hands on the rough surface, but a quick check showed though his hands were roughed up, there was no blood.

He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Even in a moment like this, old habits died hard.

Staggering to his feet, he immediately looked for Isaac. But he was already fleeing, his blood-red robes fluttering behind him as he ran, covered by the indistinct figure of a Guard.

So he had an accomplice, then.

Samuel tried to follow, but they were moving too fast, disappearing into the chaos. Something like relief fluttered through him—something he knew he shouldn't feel—but he didn't have time to focus on that now.

Instead, he moved with the flow of the crowd, keeping an eye out for the Guards. They had thrown themselves against the press of the Unblooded, trying to hold them back at points where the fence had fallen through, holding the line until their reinforcements arrived. Good: if they were focused on the Unblooded that meant that Isaac had a chance.

What was he thinking? Isaac wasn't a damsel to be rescued. If this demonstration made anything clear, he was the very one they were looking for. The murderer they had to bring before the King if they had any hope of surviving. The one that they needed to capture if they wanted to keep peace in Aeravin.

But peace was already lost, and it was Isaac . His Isaac. The kind, proud, broken man who had only ever tried to help him. Who wanted to protect him from the horrors of the Blood Workers, all while being forced to commit the worst of them in the shadows.

In that moment Samuel hated like he had never hated in his entire life, the rage and darkness in him twisting into something new, something ugly, something true . While chaos raged around him—a cacophony of shouts and screams and cries, the press of bodies knocking against each other, the scrabble of madness unleashed—Samuel found a place of pure calm.

"Out of my way," he called, his voice low and threaded with power. The crowd immediately parted around him, allowing him to pass straight through to the dais.

Despite the riots around him, spreading through the square and the gardens, this place was left untouched. Perhaps the Unblooded were too afraid to approach it, the gruesome and raw display of Blood Working. But Samuel wasn't afraid, not anymore, and he stepped closer to Dunn, reaching out to check for a pulse.

There was none. Of course not. Isaac was smart enough to ensure that. One to go —and Isaac would not fail in that. Whatever his plan had been, he had achieved it.

And then left them to deal with the aftermath.

"My lord!" Samuel didn't turn to a Guard who had run up beside him, who stared down at the tableau before them for an uncomfortable long moment before speaking. "We need to get you out of here."

Turning away from the Guard, Samuel looked out over the riots. More Guards were starting to appear, coming in from the side streets and pressing in from the other side, pincering the Unblooded between two fronts. So far, Samuel hadn't felt the brush of Blood Working, but it was only a matter of time. The magic would come, the Guards would take them in, and arrests would be made.

Unless someone did something about it.

He glanced up towards the balconies, where the nobles were supposed to be, but they were already gone. Emptied. They had fled at the first sign of trouble, leaving the people to riot and the Guards to handle it. What cowards.

So be it, then.

Ignoring the look of disbelief on the Guard's face, Samuel shoved Dunn's legs aside, wincing at the clammy feel of his skin. Hauling himself up on the metal table, though careful to not touch Dunn's corpse, Samuel stood tall over the crowd, throwing his shoulders back as he played at strength.

Summoning his power—just a breath of it—he shouted one word. "Enough!"

His voice carried over the square, his power flowing over the crowd, sweeping over them as everyone turned to him. Samuel forced back the urge to flee, terror creeping up the back of his neck as he realized the precarious position he was in, but as he caught the Guards shaking off the moment of stillness he had bought, he knew that he had to do something.

"Please," he said, words coming fast and unfiltered. "I know that this is a shock, that this injustice cannot stand. But rioting is not the answer. There are those of us who will see this corrected. Do not throw your lives away."

For a moment silence reigned, and he thought that just maybe it worked. But then he felt something cold and wet collide with his cheek, sending his head snapping to the side. Raising his hand, he pressed it to the mess dripping down his face.

It was rotten fruit.

"Fuck you, Aberforth ," a voice hissed from the crowd.

Samuel used the back of his hand to wipe away as much of it as he could, trying to avoid grimacing. Trying to fight the spike of anger that rose in his chest, tempting and insidious. "Please," he began again. "Give me a chance. I am one of you—"

"You are not one of us!"

Another fruit was lobbed at him, this one striking him hard in the chest, sending him staggering a couple of steps back.

"Traitor!"

"Blood Whore!"

"Coward!"

More insults and projectiles came his way, and Samuel crossed his arms in front of his face as the Guard helped him off the table. The crowd had erupted again, even more incensed than before, but Samuel didn't have time to dwell on that. He reached for the body—wanting to do something, anything, to keep Dunn from being overrun—but a cadre of Guards had appeared around him, forming a protective triangle as they pushed their way through the rioting crowd, shoving people to the ground and stomping over them as they ferried Samuel to safety.

There was the great heaving sound of the table being overturned, followed by the harsh sound of glass shattering. Screams filled the air, and as he tried to turn around one last time the Guard on his left just shoved him forward and out of the square, away from the violence that he had been unable to stop.

Quiet and a little bit broken, Samuel stopped fighting. The people were right—he wasn't one of them, not anymore.

No, he was Lord Aberforth, protected by his own personal group of Guards as he was guided to a carriage that he did not recognize. The same Guard who had found him pushed him into the carriage, gave it a quick once over, and then shouted something to the driver.

And he was off, carried swiftly to safety.

Samuel slumped in the seat and cried.