Before I could find a suitably icy remark to drop on Levin, heavy footsteps scraped against the flagstones behind us. I pulled my sleeve away from his fingers with a sharp twitch, turning to face the intruders. Two senior members of the court, wrapped in heavy velvet cloaks of midnight blue, stood in the corridor with their heads bowed. Their silver brooches glinted in the blue firelight, catching the harsh angles of their gaunt faces. They looked less like rulers of the lower domain and more like children caught stealing plums from a convent garden. The tallest one, Lord Vane, cleared his throat with a dry, rattling sound that usually preceded a long list of grievances.
“We came to offer our apologies, Your Majesty,” Vane murmured, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the wet stone between my boots. “The marriage nonsense was out of line, though Barnaby always did lack judgment when the cider barrels were full. We misjudged the value of this endless brew. It keeps the bloodlust down better than any hunting party we've sent north in a century.”
I crossed my arms over my dark velvet gown, letting the silence stretch until Vane's shoulders twitched with nervous tension. In the old days, apologies from the aristocracy usually meant they had hidden a dagger behind their back or poisoned the wine pitcher. I remembered the cold stone of the execution yard from three winters ago, where I had ordered the absolute purge of anyone who harmed the innocent human villagers. I had always given a strict pass to those who hunted only monsters, believing hunger could be redirected. Yet these elders weren't here just to grovel over old political slights.
“Get up, Vane, before your knees lock and I have to pay someone to carry you back to your quarters,” I said, my voice dropping into the flat, clinical tone I reserved for sentencing. “You didn't crawl all the way down to the treasury just to praise my housekeeping. Spit it out before I decide you're missing the proper energy for court.”
Vane exchanged a nervous glance with his companion before stepping closer, lowering his voice to a hiss that echoed against the damp walls. “It's the eastern alcove faction, Your Majesty. They've been gathering in the shadows since the third bell. They are whispering among themselves that your new synthetic blood actually tastes better than pure elf blood, and they're using it to rally support against your crown. They claim an elf shouldn't hold sway over our domain's food supply.”
Levin went completely still beside me, the faint scent of spring flowers sharpening into something cold and metallic. He reached into the small leather pouch at his belt without a word, pulling out an ordinary glass bottle filled with dull, brownish cow's blood. His fingers moved with practiced grace over the glass, tracing a jagged rune into the stopper with the tip of a silver nail. A faint violet shimmer rippled through the murky liquid, turning it the color of bruised plums. He handed it to me without looking up, his expression entirely unreadable.
“ Veritas serum,” Levin said softly, his voice barely carrying over the distant drip of water from the vault ceiling. “Ordinary bovine base, but I added a drop of the high-altitude distillation we tested last Tuesday. Anyone who drinks a sip will speak nothing but absolute truth for five minutes, no matter how much they want to bite their own tongues out. It wears off quickly, but it leaves a rather ferocious headache.”
I took the vial, feeling the cool glass bite into my palm through my leather glove. I looked from Levin's pale green hair to the nervous elders waiting for my verdict. “Keep the northern border sealed, Vane,” I told the old vampire, turning on my heel without waiting for an answer. “If I find out you knew about this faction and let them fester, your next apology won't be spoken.”
We marched down the winding stone stairs toward the lower vaults where the eastern alcove stored their stolen wine barrels. The air down here smelled of damp earth and old iron, thick enough to coat the back of the throat. Hunter materialized from the shadows beside a massive oak pillar, his tailored black coat blending seamlessly with the dark stonework. His jaw was set so tight a muscle ticked near his ear, breaking his usual silent composure. He didn't look at Levin once, which meant he was currently thinking about three different ways to throw the elf into a freezing river.
“You're walking into a hornets' nest with a bottle of cow's blood and a bad attitude,” Hunter said, his gravelly voice cutting through the damp air as he fell into step behind my left shoulder. “Cassian's smugglers were spotted near the outer gate three hours ago. They aren't just drinking synthetic brew down here; they're trading information about your laboratory to the northern clans.”
“Let them trade,” I replied, my boots clicking sharply against the floor as we rounded the final corner into the torchlit vault. “Information without the recipe is just expensive poetry.”
A group of six vampires sat around a scarred wooden table in the center of the vault, leaning close over empty clay mugs. They went silent the moment my shadow fell across the threshold, their eyes darting nervously toward my crown. The ringleader, a burly brute named Greaves with a jagged scar across his throat, stood up slowly and wiped his mouth with the back of a dirty sleeve. He had been one of the ones I spared two years ago when he promised to hunt only cattle instead of villagers, a mercy I was rapidly beginning to regret.