“Where are you going with that?”
My voice sliced through the stillness of the council hall like a blade.
Aldric froze mid-step, his back to me, shoulders jerking as if I had struck him. He clutched a small leather pouch to his chest so tightly that his knuckles blanched white. The flickering light of the wall sconces caught the sweat beading at his temples, making his usually neat hair stick damply to his forehead.
Slowly—too slowly—he turned to face me.
Moonlight streamed through the tall arched windows behind him, casting his shadow long and thin across the cold marble floor.
“Lady Celadra,” he stammered, bowing so quickly and awkwardly that it barely passed for proper etiquette. His voice trembled in a way I had never heard before. “I was… ah, attending to some last-minute preparations for tomorrow’s ceremony.”
I descended the dais steps one by one, my gown trailing behind me like spilled ink.
“Using the garden passage?” My tone was smooth, almost amused, but my gaze was sharp enough to cut. “And carrying something as if it were your own beating heart?”
His throat worked as he swallowed. “It’s nothing of importance, my lady.”
Nothing of importance.
The words stank of lies.
Aldric had served Luceris’s family faithfully for decades, a model of composure and discretion. I’d watched him countless times during gatherings, silent and precise, anticipating his master’s needs with uncanny efficiency.
Never had I seen him like this—pale as bone, hands trembling, eyes darting like a cornered animal.
He must have been trying to hide something. Typically from me.
-
Behind me, faint sounds floated from the distant great hall: servants hanging crimson banners, polishing ceremonial chalices, arranging the bloodline seating charts under my father’s relentless supervision.
Tomorrow, all of Veytharis Castle would gather to witness the binding of my life to Luceris’s.
A union carefully arranged, negotiated like a treaty.
My future had been signed and sealed months before I was even asked for my thoughts.
And yet here stood Aldric, threatening to unravel it all with his secrecy.
I stopped only a few paces from him, close enough to see the tremor in his jaw. “Show me,” I said softly. “Open the pouch.”
His gaze snapped up, wide with alarm. “My lady, please. I cannot.”
The nerve of him—refusing me, a daughter of House Veytharis, in my own hall. Anger flared hot beneath my ribs, but I kept my voice low, dangerously calm. “Can’t… or won’t?”
For a heartbeat, he looked as though he might yield. His fingers twitched on the leather ties.
Then, with a sudden burst of motion, he turned and bolted toward the narrow garden passage.
“Aldric!” My shout cracked through the air like a whip.
I surged after him, my feet silent on the stone. Years of training under Father’s spymasters had taught me to move like a shadow, and now that skill served me well. But Aldric ran with a desperation that lent him speed I had not anticipated. His boots pounded against the floor, echoing ahead of me.
The corridor twisted and narrowed, forcing me to duck beneath low beams slick with moss. The air grew cooler, carrying the earthy scent of wet stone and night-blooming herbs.
When I burst out into the gardens, the moonlight was blinding for an instant. I crouched low behind a stone bench, scanning the hedgerows.
There—his silhouette darted between rows of lavender and rosemary, the leather pouch still clutched to his chest. He was no longer the panicked servant from the hall. His strides were sure now, purposeful. He knew exactly where he was going.
Father was right, I thought bitterly. Those closest to power harbor the sharpest knives.
I slipped from shadow to shadow, keeping pace without drawing notice. The scents of the garden mingled in my senses: lavender, rosemary, damp soil… and something else.
A sharp, metallic tang.
Blood. Fresh. Wrong.
The hairs at the back of my neck rose. Whatever Aldric carried, it wasn’t meant for tomorrow’s ceremony.
He reached the garden’s edge where an old iron gate loomed, half-hidden by overgrown vines. That gate should have been locked tight at this hour. Yet Aldric shoved it open with practiced ease, as though he’d passed this way many times before.
He paused at the threshold, glancing back toward the castle. His face was caught in a shaft of moonlight, and for a moment I read the war in his features: fear, guilt, determination—all tangled together.
Then he vanished into the darkness beyond.
I waited three slow breaths before moving.
If he was running messages to a rival house, or worse—to humans—on the night before my wedding, it could jeopardize not just the union, but the fragile balance between our bloodlines.
The thought of Luceris’s cold, calculating eyes flashed in my mind.
The wedding wasn’t a love match; it was a treaty sealed in blood. If the alliance fell through, it wouldn’t just be my heart broken—it would be our kingdom plunged into war.
I stepped through the gate, my slippers sinking into damp earth.
Beyond the gardens lay the moorlands, a stretch of wild, fog-draped terrain that separated our estate from the nearest human settlement.
That village had always been considered insignificant—a hunting ground, nothing more.
But if Aldric was risking everything to reach it tonight, then perhaps it was far from harmless.
I kept low, my breath steady, my eyes locked on the faint blur of his figure ahead. The moon hung high above, pale and cold, lighting the path just enough for me to see where I placed each silent step.
As I followed, my mind churned. Father had drilled vigilance into me since childhood, warning that trust was a luxury no leader could afford.
Tomorrow, I would be bound to Luceris before the council. My every move would be watched, weighed, judged.
And yet here I was, hunting secrets in the dark while the future of our people teetered on a knife’s edge.
Tracing down my husband-to-be.
Aldric disappeared over a rise, swallowed by the fog.
I hesitated at the crest of the hill, the castle behind me glowing faintly in the distance like a lantern fading into the night.
My pulse quickened. Tomorrow, I was to pledge myself to Luceris before the entire vampire court.
But tonight, my path had already diverged, and there would be no turning back.
