“I was brought into this world as Aston, but I shall leave it as the King Killer, who freed the people without hope and voice.”
I study myself in the hand mirror, and the face staring back is still mine, not Lieben’s or anybody else’s. A sharp nose, high cheekbones, brows with an elegance that softens nothing, lips set in quiet defiance. No beard. Eyes are the clear, unyielding azure of my bloodline. Three strands of hair have fallen over my forehead, and I don’t bother pushing them aside.
“Handsome boy. Handsome boy.” Eriksson watches me from his seat, saying something oddly out of the blue across the carriage. He leans back, arms spread casually along the separation to the driver’s seat, his right leg crossed over his left. His gaze is all mockery at first—piercing, almost amused—but when he speaks again, his tone sharpens. “Are you afraid?”
“No.” The word leaves my mouth short and clipped, though inside, my knees feel as unsteady as snow at the turn of seasons. The truth is, I am afraid. The first winter snow should fall in a matter of weeks, and the air already carries that promise.
I glance between him and my reflection, listening to the steady rhythm of the carriage wheels over asphalt, the synchronized beat of the horses’ hooves. “The plan,” I say finally, eyes still on the mirror. “Let’s go through it again.” I consider adding, but leave it unsaid.
“Sure.” He shifts his gaze toward the small carriage window. “You’ll enter the banquet of the Elisia family in disguise. It’s a gathering to unite the noble houses of the Kingdom of Zentria, plus a few families from the nearer regions of Avelor and Elitra. You’ll live another man’s life for the night.
“When the clock strikes midnight, the king will leave the hall for his chambers alone. That’s when you move. Until then, work yourself under their guard. Talk. Laugh. Do... whatever it is you nobles do. And the rest following after your kill is simply changing the blood, which you have to give in your entrance.”
He leans forward now, losing his earlier nonchalance. The carriage begins to slow, and the driver raps on the glass partition—thin hair plastered under a hat that’s far too small for his head.
“But before any of that,” Eriksson says, opening the door and stepping out with practiced ease, “you’ll need your disguise.”
I follow him, careful to avoid a muddy puddle. His strides lengthen with each step, pace quickening as though the air itself is pushing him forward. The air is damp, heavy with the smell of stagnant water. Before I can get my bearings, he’s already slipped into an alley.
The air in here is worse—thick, almost choking, and laced with the stench of rot. Full sacks of human waste line the narrow path, knotted together in grotesque piles. Above us, the sky glows with a dull magenta, tinged faintly with violet, the kind of beauty that doesn’t belong in a place . Raindrops fall from warped eaves, cold against my hair and neck, but I keep my pace, following Eriksson’s back as we weave deeper into the alley.
We turn corner after corner until he stops abruptly. If not for the need to watch my footing among the filth, I might have collided with him as if that would bother him in the slightest.
I move to his side—and freeze.
A muffled scream cuts through the damp air. Grim is here, the scars across his face thrown into harsh relief by the dim light. His hand is locked around the throat of a blue-blooded. Next to him stands another kind of mine, one I’ve never seen before in our team.
The blue speaks with grim detachment while Grim tightens his grip. Flames that had briefly flickered along the captive’s form die out under Grim’s iron hold. “Maximilian von Uhr,” the stranger announces, voice flat, as though this were no more remarkable than reading a market ledger. “Mid-thirties. Male. Family of little renown. Clockmakers for three centuries.”
The name means nothing to me—a small fish, irrelevant in the vast sea of our kind. Yet man’s fate is sealed here, in this reeking alley.
The blue stranger holds a bundle of folded clothes in one hand. I take a cautious step forward, eyes drawn to Grim’s crooked smile. The man in Grim’s grasp is blue—my blue—but his hands shake violently, and I would swear his eyes are bulging from the strain.
One heartbeat, and the sound shatters the stillness. His neck hangs at an unnatural angle, head drooping like overcooked asparagus. My throat tightens, but I keep moving forward.
“Drink his transcendent blood.” The hazel-haired blueblood—different in shade from the corpse’s darker tone—speaks the words as though that could make the act palatable. It doesn’t. It never will.