A Tithe Of Blood

The masquerade burned on in gold and crimson.

Laughter shimmered under crystal chandeliers, soft as knives. Servants drifted like shadows with silver trays. The nobles danced and whispered, their masks glittering with secrets, their mouths ripe with wine and deception.

Elira moved through it all like smoke seen, yet untouched.Every step she took seemed choreographed for admiration.

She hated how they stared.

She hated how Calvorn watched even more.

From across the room, his gaze stalked her. She felt it like pressure on her bare skin possessive, proprietary. She had not been invited to enjoy this night. She had been displayed.

Lord Calvorn stood at the center of it all, the black sun in an orbit of nobles.

He held court like a king in exile draped in tailored darkness, silver-threaded cuffs gleaming like fangs. Nobles bowed or curtsied as they approached, their masks dazzling in the candlelight: foxes, ravens, serpents, and wolves. Their words were velvet dripping flattery, veiled with fear.

"Your House never disappoints," murmured a duchess behind a sapphire fox mask.

"I hear your bloodmaid is a vision tonight," said another, his tone suggestive, half-mocking.

Calvorn's smile was slow and wolfish. "She is becoming."

The nobles chuckled those awful, polished laughs that smelled of power and rot.

And as if on cue, they turned towards her.

Elira.

She stood to the side of the gathering dressed in shadow and silk, the bodice of her gown laced tight to expose the bare curve of her back and the line of her collarbone. Her mask, black and delicate, concealed half her face but none of her vulnerability.

Eyes crawled over her. Some are curious. Some are hungry. Some are worse.

A minor lord approached her young, flushed with wine and arrogance, his lion mask askew.

"I hear you're the North's new obsession," he slurred, stepping far too close.

Elira stiffened. She tried to retreat, but he grabbed her wrist.

"You're prettier up close," he whispered. "What do you cost?"

A low chuckle rose from behind her.

Calvorn didn't move not stopped him.In fact, he watched.Enjoying himself.

He tilted his head slightly, as though testing how far the lord would go. A cruel amusement danced at the edge of his lips.

Elira froze. Her skin burned under a dozen eyes. Her heart thundered in her chest.

Before she could speak, the wind shifted.

The chandeliers flickered. One flame extinguished with a soft hiss.

Then the double doors burst openand a silence fell like a guillotine.

The crowd stilled. The music stuttered. Heads turned.

And in walked Duke Alaric of the North.

He wore no mask.He needed none.

There were only three dukes, ruling the north south and west after the King control the law like the order. Keeping everyone in line. It was not monarchy but the world ruled by the Dukes, the Counts, the Marquess, the Barons, the Knights and the Lords.

Cloaked in midnight velvet lined with frost, his presence moved before him l calm, cold, and commanding. His hair, dark as a storm-laden sky, swept over his shoulders. His skin bore the pallor of winter light. And his eyes

Obsidian. Endless. Alive with old knowledge and restrained violence. They roamed the hall not like a guest surveying a party but like a king returning to a stolen court.

As he moved, the air followed pulling inward, colder, tighter. Candle flames dipped low. The silk of Elira's gown stirred at the hem as if caught in a breeze.

And when his gaze landed on her, it was not an accident not curiosity but Recognition and Familiarity.

Like he had seen her before.Like he had been waiting.

A current passed through her, as if her blood surged forward to meet his. She nearly stumbled, her breath knocked loose from her lungs. Every inch of her skin prickled, and her ribs tightened.

She had never seen this man in full view yet something in her remembered him.

She clutched the on her dress tighter.Calvorn in an instant was beside her, a slow anger rising beneath his mask.

Alaric didn't speak at first. He didn't need to.

He simply stood before them still, regal, quiet and let the silence do what words could not.

Power filled the space between them like fog. Thick. Suffocating.

Calvorn was the first to break.

"You weren't expected," he said coolly.

Alaric's gaze shifted to him at last. "And yet here I am."

"You come without invitation. Without a mask. Without—"

"Pretense," Alaric cut in. "Yes. I find your theater... quaint."

Gasps fluttered around the room. A few nobles took a step back, instinctively.

Elira didn't breathe. Couldn't.

The man holding her wrist turned in surprise, about to protest —

And then went still.The room hushed, as if the walls themselves recognized him.His grip wasn't violent.But it didn't need to be.

The young lord stammered, already paling beneath his lion mask. "I—my lord—I meant no—"

Alaric said nothing.

Just one look.

And the noble recoiled, bowing so fast he nearly tripped before vanishing into the crowd.

Elira stood motionless, stunned. One moment she was exposed vulnerable beneath Calvorn's gaze and the next she felt protected.

Alaric didn't touch her.

He only looked at her, slowly. Not possessive.

And then he turned away, vanishing into the sea of masks like a shadow dissolving into deeper shadow.

Elira breathed again.

The weight of the moment the noble's hand, the sudden cold, Alaric's presence still trembled through her bones. Around her, laughter resumed, but thinner now, uncertain. No one approached her again. Not yet.

But across the ballroom, Calvorn's smile had faded.

His expression, once laced with cruel amusement, had shuttered into stillness. His eyes followed Alaric's retreat like a predator watching a rival mark his territory.

And from across the ballroom,

The war began in silence.

Elira turned away, her skin buzzing beneath the silk of her gown, her mind burning with the unspoken tension. She didn't belong here. Not among these glittering wolves, not beneath Calvorn's watching eyes.

She turned toward the open balcony, desperate for breath, for wind, for quiet, but was called to serve more drinks to the ladies in the left corner.

Elira moved between the masked nobles like smoke through flame—visible, fragrant, fragile. She held a silver tray steady in her gloved hands, upon it tall crystal glasses brimming with blood-rich wine that shimmered like garnets in the light of the chandeliers.

She kept her gaze low, steps soft, and expression blank.

But their eyes followed her.Especially the women.

Their laughter dripped with silk and venom.

"Is that the bloodmaid everyone's whispering about?" One drawled behind a gilded fox mask, lounging near the hearth with two other noblewomen.

"Such boldness," purred another, her glass lazily swirling. "To parade around in that gown with so little to offer. You'd think Lord Calvorn would keep his servants better clothed."

Elira stepped forward, offering her tray without comment.

One of the women—the one in the serpent mask, with long wine-dark hair and a jeweled throat plucked a glass with exaggerated elegance.

She stared at Elira's face. Then her neckline. Then down, where the dress clung scandalously tight to her hips.

"Perhaps he likes her half-dressed," she said sweetly. "Some men do prefer their pets marked and trained."

The others laughed. High. Ugly.Elira said nothing.

She turned to offer the next woman a glass but the serpent-masked one shifted, feigning a stumble.

And then her hand "slipped." The glass tumbled from her fingers.

And the wine hit Elira's chest.

Cold. Red. Sudden.

The liquid struck like a slap, soaking through the silk bodice in an instant.

Elira gasped. Her breath caught.

The fabric turned sheer almost instantly clinging, molding, exposing. The curve of her breasts, the dip of her navel, and the pale outline of skin that was never meant to be seen shimmered under the ballroom lights.

Gasps rippled from nearby tables.Then came the snickers.

"She's soaked!" One whispered, delighted.

"How unfortunate," hissed another. "And in front of half the court."

Elira's arms flew up too late, crossing over her chest, trying to hide what couldn't be hidden. Her cheeks flamed. Her breath trembled.

But no one helped.Not even Calvorn.

He stood just beyond the crowd, perfectly still, lips parted in a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

He watched her rather devoured her.As if this moment were a gift.As if this humiliation made her more his.

And then she felt herself drapped in a black heavy warm coat.

It fell across her shoulders like a shroud, like protection made manifest.

The inside was lined with velvet. Its scent pine and ash and the cold clarity of a mountain storm settled over her like breath. A gloved hand touched her shoulder. Not possessively. Not as a master might.

But as if grounding her to keep her from unraveling.

A low voice spoke beside her.

"I believe this belongs to me."

Alaric.

He did not look at her.

He looked through the crowd at the serpent-masked woman now paling behind her friends, at the silent nobles who stood frozen in shame, and the at Calvorn.

His presence silenced the room more thoroughly than any command.He didn't raise his voice.He didn't bare his teeth.

He simply stood there. And it was enough.

The fire in the hearth dimmed. The chandeliers flickered. And the laughter, so vicious a moment ago, died like a cutthroat.

Elira felt her pulse slow beneath the weight of his coat.

He had saved her from drowning in shame but not gently.

No, deliberately. Publicly. As a claim.

Still, he didn't touch her again.

Didn't even glance her way.

But the coat remained.

And Elira was no longer cold.

The nobles dispersed like startled birds, masks hiding nervous glances.

Elira dared to glance sideways.

Up close, he was worse—and far more than she expected. Colder. More beautiful. Timeless. His scent was winter and forest ash, cut with something older. His eyes—black and depthless—were not just watching her. They were reading her.

She gripped the edges of the coat. "Thank you," she murmured, uncertain.

He didn't answer.

He simply stepped away, vanishing into the crowd as swiftly as he'd come.

___________

Moments later Calvorn found Alaric in the shadowed corridor behind the ballroom. The music could still be heard, dulled by distance. The hall here was cold—older. Lined with portraits no one ever dared dust.

"You make a spectacle of yourself," Calvorn said flatly, voice clipped.

Alaric stood with his back turned, examining a decaying painting of a forgotten queen. "I did nothing. It was your guests who spilled their wine like pigs."

"You covered her."

Alaric turned slowly. "She was exposed."

"She was mine to expose," Calvorn hissed, stepping forward.

A long pause followed.

Then Alaric spoke, soft and low.

"You forget," he said, "I knew her bloodline before she ever bled for you."

Calvorn stiffened.

"She bears a mark now," Alaric continued. "And it didn't come from your hand."

"She is under contract," Calvorn snapped. "Her father's debt was sealed in blood."

"And what if that blood never belonged to him?" Alaric asked. "What if it was always hers?"

Silence crackled between them.

Calvorn's eyes narrowed. "You've come to steal her."

Alaric's mouth curved. "No. I've come to wait."

"For what?"

"For her to remember."

He turned, cloak billowing behind him like storm wind.