I lean back, letting silk slip against Dom’s fingertips. “Careful with those matches, Blackwood.” My nail dragslightly up his wrist, satisfied by the way his pulse stutters beneath my touch. “You might not like what catches.”
His pupils dilate as our eyes meet, winter-grey eclipsing to near black. His hand hovers at the curve of my waist as he steers me toward our seats. “Darling,” he purrs, “I’ve been burning since the day I met you. What’s a little more flame between monsters?”
He pulls out my chair, fingers trailing across my shoulders as I sit.
“Would you have?” I ask, before I can reel it back as he takes a seat beside me. “Burned it all down?”
“For you, love? I’d reduce the world to embers if you asked.” His gaze finds mine, something volatile flickering behind it. “But then that’s always been our problem, hasn’t it?”
It’s only then that I fully register the tension rippling around the crescent table. Ruby’s stare hits hard, cold enough to lock me in place, as if she could freeze me mid-defiance and mount me as decoration at their next gala. Not that her husband bothers with the effort. A man like Edmund Silva doesn’t glare, he erases.
I catch Vivienne watching Dom’s wandering fingers on my shoulder with narrowed eyes, as if she’s counting every touch to dissect over tomorrow’s tea. That’s rich, coming from someone whose marriage contract probably had “affairs allowed” written in the fine print right next to “discretion required” and “heirs take priority.”
A throat clears beside me, and I suppress the urge to groan as Evangeline and Eric Vale slide into their seats, their smiles lacquered with synthetic sweetness. Of course I’d end up next to Eclipsera’s favorite gossipmongers. If I have to spend the entire dinner listening to their subtle probing disguised as small talk, I might actually prefer Alexander’s boring meeting about new security measures and ward technology.
Dom’s thumb presses into the knot of tension at the base of my neck. “Relax, love,” he murmurs, voice so low it hums against my skin. “Let them watch. It’s not every day they get something actually interesting at these corpse-stiff affairs.”
Alexander rises, and the room stills before he even speaks. His obsidian jacket swallows the candlelight, the silver fastenings refracting it in sharp, deliberate glints. Like everything else in his world, even light bends to his will.
The chamber dims, and above us an illusion unfurls: my parents, decades younger, standing in their lab. Mother’s hands sculpt raw magic mid-air while Father watches, focused and still. The image shifts, showing them with Alexander, all three bent over some groundbreaking discovery.
My throat tightens. I know this is theater, and how he’s wielding their memory as a political scalpel. But gods . . . I’d forgotten howalivethey’d looked.
“Tonight,” Alexander’s voice carries effortlessly through the hush, “we honor not just memory, but legacy. The minds that lit our way forward,” his eyes find mine, weighted with calculated warmth, “and the daughters who now carry that flame.”
Young voices rise from hidden alcoves, a choir’s haunting melody threading through the charged stillness as the projection shifts overhead. I hate how beautiful it is. Hate how he turns history into pageantry.
“Five centuries ago,” he continues, “magic ran wild and unchecked through our lands. Raw power, unfettered by wisdom or restraint.” The map of Veldrith blooms above us—Eclipsera gleaming at its center, surrounded by Helisvein to the west, the Wastes looming in the far north, and Vairen hidden in the mist-choked east. “When the Collapse came, each region made a choice. Helisvein turned to cold machinery, rejecting their heritage entirely. The Northern Wastes . . .” His lip curls slightly. “They embraced carnage, letting blood magic rule by violence and chaos.”
The images shift with each condemnation: sterile Helisvein streets, the Wastes’ brutal fighting pits. It’s the version of history I was raised on. The story written in every textbook about how unchecked power fractured the continent, dividing it into territories.
“Even Vairen, bound by zealotry, chose to bleed themselves dry in the name of tradition.” The projection shows their blood temples and crimson-robed priests performing ancient rites. “But in Eclipsera? We chose balance. Order. The fusion of discipline and innovation.”
I take another sip of wine, letting its warmth dull the chill creeping beneath his oration. Dom’s fingers continue their idle tracing along my knee, but even he seems temporarily subdued. That’s the danger of Alexander Darkmoor. He doesn’t just convince, he captivates. Makes you see the beauty in the bars of your cage.
Above, the projection shifts again. This time into a towering blood ruby, bathing the chamber in a visceral crimson glow. The light fractures in the chandeliers, refracting into thousands of glittering shards. Even I can’t deny the spectacle. It’s as if the air itself bleeds elegance.
“Look at what that vision has yielded.” Alexander gestures upward as the ruby fractures into a constellation of smaller gems, each finding its place in the illusion of Eclipsera rising around us. “While other regions scramble after hollow power, we have distilled its essence. Our children are bonded to their first rubies in sacred ceremonies, not left to bleed themselves raw in alleyways. Our magic is refined, codified, preserved. A living testament to civilization.”
Murmurs ripple through the room, low and reverent. Crystal glasses lift, light catching on their edges. I wonder how many of them remember the stories our history books glossed over. Thedark timesbefore blood rubies, when even Eclipsera’s elite carved their power from flesh. But Alexander never lingers on those chapters, they interrupt the illusion of progress.
“However . . .” He pauses, concern settling over his features, and the image flickers, reshaping itself into the undercity. The Lower Rings bloom in shadow; figures hunched in alleyways, hands slick with red, casting spells from split skin and desperate intent. A slow pressure coils beneath my ribs. My magic stirs, restless and hungry, urging me to cut, to bleed, to cast the way it was meant to be used.My jaw clenches as I grip Dom’s hand on the table, and his thumb strokes soothingly along my knuckles.
“Recent reports grow troubling,” Alexander continues. “Citizens are witnessing acts that should’ve vanished with the Collapse. Children slicing their skin open to conjure basic spells, and essence spilled wastefully into the dirt. Magic without containment. Power without discipline. A return to savagery.”
A staged gasp cuts through the audience, sharp and intentional. Old Mrs. Ashworth, matriarch of half the Silva Academy’s donor circles, clutches her chest in genteel horror. Around her, Eclipsera’s oldest bloodlines fill the hall, each one carefully selected for their influence, loyalty, and generous contributions to Founding Family ventures.
“I saw it myself,” she says, breathless with performative outrage. “A man in the market district, cutting his palm for a simple warming spell. Blood pooling between cobblestones. So uncivilized and primitive.” She shudders delicately. “One of the kitchen staff, I think. Or maintenance. They’re everywhere now, aren’t they? Bleeding between deliveries, behind stalls and service corridors. As if they can’t wait to return to the Lower Rings to cast.” She touches her ruby pendant like a warding charm. “And to think, before rubies, we all practiced such barbarism.”
The word ripples through the crowd. I catch the subtle gestures—hands drifting to rubies set in rings, pendants, cufflinks, each pulsing softly with stored power. The Vale’s chief medical investors, the Darkmoors’ most trusted military architects, bloodlines with seats carved into this table for centuries. My fingers brush the pendant at my throat instinctively. That’s what it all distills down to in the end. Ruby means control, legitimacy, and protection. Without one, you’re not a citizen. You’re a threat waiting to be neutralized.
A hover orb drifts past, its lens whirring softly, capturing everything for public record. I wonder which version of this speech will reach the Lower Rings. Part of me wants to scoff at their performance of outrage. But I remember my own first casting withouta ruby, after mine was confiscated during my Academy suspension. The blade’s sting came first, then the warmth of blood, thick and immediate against my skin. Focus was always harder that way, shaping intent through pain instead of crystal. Even now, my hand twitches at the memory.
“Let me be clear,” Alexander says. “This is not a rejection of progress. It is itspreservation. The Founding Families remain vigilant, but we must all do our part.” His smile is all charm. “New enforcer units will patrol our districts, ensuring magical compliance. It is your responsibility, dear friends, to report such unsanctioned displays. These Lower Ring immigrants we’ve so generously welcomed must learn the rules of civilization. We cannot fault them for where they came from, only guide them to where they must go.”
He lets the silence hang for a beat before softening his tone. “But we must protect our children. Our way of life.” The illusion above us ripples again, and a hush falls as he continues. “Each enforcer unit will now be accompanied by void hounds.”
The crowd shudders.
