The light strikes hard against my closed eyelids, a sharp intrusion that forces me awake. My eyes flicker open, unfocused, the world nothing but blurred shapes bleeding into each other. Three hands hover in my vision, each with its thumb positioned to the left.
I blink slowly, trying to make sense of it, and as my brain begins to stitch together shapes, the blurriness fades. The afterimage of darkness clings to my vision, like the lingering shadow after an eclipse. It takes half a minute for my eyes to truly focus, for the haze to burn away.
The three hands begin to shift, merging into two, then into one. It belongs to no one but Arthur. Steady, unshaking Arthur. The only person I might ever call a true friend.
The others—yes, they are good men too, even Eriksson. Though if it weren’t for his infuriating way of barking orders during a fight, I might count him among my closest companions. These past days have blurred together like a fleeting moment in the span of my life, but Arthur’s presence remains... anchored.
Pain blooms suddenly at my temples, a deep pulse that spreads and sharpens toward the base of my skull. I growl under my breath and try to push myself up, but the pain digs deeper. My second growl is louder, ragged.
“You good?” Arthur’s voice is calm, unchanging. His eyes—stoic as mine—watch me without judgment. He doesn’t smile often. I rarely do either, perhaps that’s why I trust him.
“Y–yes.” The word comes out half-breathed, half-forced. My right eye stays half-closed against the stabbing ache, and cold sweat drips from my brow, stinging my open left eye.
Arthur stands, and with the faintest trace of deadpan humor, mimics my words. “Doesn’t look like y–yes.”
It catches me off guard, fumbling my thoughts. A joke, from Arthur. I glance up at him, pressing my aching right hand against my left shoulder. The bandages there are still fresh, and beneath them the bruises burn. It will take at least a day for them to mend, even with high-grade herbs.
But soon, there will be more blood, more green, for me to heal.
I push myself upright. My veins already hum with the mingled energy of green and orange blood. Not too much; too much green, and I’d lose my mind. Orange is safer, but the green must be taken with caution. The human body is not meant to carry it in abundance. Especially mine—flooded with blue, but these are things Harmon had told me, so I don’t know if they are true.
Harmon calls me that often. Blue, as if it’s all I am, noble. As though I carry the sins of the entire caste in my veins. Perhaps I do, and perhaps that’s why I hate what we are. Nonetheless, it was Harmon’s blood I consumed to survive these days, his gift—if you can call it that—that thickened my skin, sharpened my vision, and gave me the ability to catch scents from afar, or burst forward with dangerous speed now, driving my foot into the ground like a hammer blow.
But again, these abilities are nothing extraordinary, and certainly not enough to justify the cost.
Arthur is already at the door when I finally steady myself. He pauses, glancing back over his shoulder. “Go to Harmon once you feel ready. You’ll get another dose, and tomorrow, we start.”
We. In Arthur’s language, that usually means me.
When his back vanishes past the doorway, I’m left staring at the wall. My thoughts circle, inevitably, back to the blood. Too much power, too quickly, would only hasten my corruption. My body can’t sustain it—not yet.
I lower my gaze to my hands, the blood pulsing faintly in my fingertips, each beat a reminder of what I am. I draw a long, heavy breath in, then release it sharply. My fingers curl into fists, the knuckles whitening before I ease them open again. The rest of my skin carries a bluish tint.
To be in this skin, to be blue. To be red.
I wonder what it would feel like to have red blood coursing through me. Would I feel weaker? Stronger? Or no different at all? I suspect the latter. In the end, we are all just human, fragile, mortal, and some claim to be superior; they ought to protect the weaker, not crush them underfoot. It’s not the order by sense that makes the world such a place, but rather the people whose blood flows higher.
Perhaps that’s a fairytale I tell myself to soften the truth but I’m just another blue-born who resents his nature, pretending to be virtuous. I don’t have the answer, I merely know what feels right.