A Tithe Of Blood

The wind had long chased the warmth from the stone terraces, but Elira didn't feel the cold.

Not with his coat wrapped around her.

Not with her pulse still thunderous in her ears.

She had stayed longer than she should've.

The masquerade was thinning nobles departing in small flocks, laughter turning slurred, and the enchantments beginning to fade. Calvorn had disappeared.

But he was still here.She could feel him.

Some part of her kept hoping he'd return Alaric, with his eyes like winter storms and voice like an echo from a dream.

Instead, it was a servant who came.

Not one of Calvorn's.

A pale man with silver-threaded cuffs and no expression. He bowed once, low and precise.

"His grace would like a word," he said. "Privately."

Elira hesitated.

The servant said nothing.

____________

She followed.

The corridor stretched into a part of House Calvorn she'd never entered. Older, colder. The stone beneath her slippers felt ancient, worn smooth by footsteps long since vanished.

Tapestries hung lifeless on the walls depicting wars and winter gods, eyes stitched in thread that seemed to follow her.

The coat around her shoulders remained heavy, grounding her as they stopped before a tall door carved with thorns and ravens. The servant opened it without a word.

"He waits."

Elira stepped inside.

The chamber was vast, but the air felt close. Moonlight spilled in through tall windows veiled in frost. Candle flames guttered low in wrought-iron sconces, casting trembling shadows on old books, mounted relics, and cold, beautiful weaponry she couldn't name.

Alaric stood at the window with no mask and coat. Just silence and stillness, like he'd been standing there for hours. Perhaps days.

He didn't turn.Not right away.

"I'm sorry," Elira said, though the words came from a place she didn't recognize.

"For what?" His voice was low and distant.

"I… I don't know," she whispered.

Now he turned.

The light caught him silvering his pale hair, throwing sharp contrast across his high cheekbones. His eyes were dark, unreadable. Something in between. Something colder. Older.

He looked at her like a puzzle half-solved.

Then, he spoke.

"You saw the mark."She nodded.

"What is it?" she asked.

"A warning," he said slowly, "a promise that depends."

"On what?"

"On you."

She stepped forward before she realized it drawn in by the pull that always seemed to stretch between them.

"You knew it would appear."

"I suspected." His gaze dropped to the coat still on her shoulders. "It only shows itself when something… forgotten stirs."

"What have I forgotten?" she breathed.

He didn't answer.

Instead, he stepped closer.

Close enough that she could see the faint ring of silver around his pupils. Close enough that his presence overwhelmed her senses frost and fire, winter and wine, the ghost of something tender curling beneath all that power.

"You would't want to know," he said at last.

Her breath caught.

"That's not an answer."

"It wasn't a question."

The space between them vibrated tense and quiet. Neither of them moved yet the air tilted rather thickened.

Her pulse drummed in her ears. The moon shone full behind him, casting its cold light over his shoulder, turning his outline ethereal.

"You shouldn't look at me like that," she whispered.

His voice was velvet-wrapped steel. "You don't even know how you're looking at me."

She took a step back. He took one forward.

"You're dangerous," she murmured.

"Everyone here is dangerous. I simply don't hide it."

She didn't speak.

He stepped even closer.

Now he was in her space entirely. She could feel the whisper of his breath across her cheek, the impossible stillness of him like the moment before a blade drops.

Elira looked up at him, heart wild in her chest.

"I have questions," she said.

"I know."

"Then answer me."

"Not tonight."

She clenched her fists. "Why not?"

His eyes flicked over her face, throat, and the coat still wrapped around her body. Slowly, reverently. Not like a man admiring a body, but like someone memorizing the edges of something lost.

"Because the answers would change you," he said quietly. "And you're not ready to become her yet."

Her breath trembled.

"I don't understand," she whispered.

"No," he said. "But your blood does."

From the far end of the house, the faint strains of music drifted up the masquerade still alive with glitter and shadow. The violins trembled in the air like nerves.

Alaric extended a hand.

"Dance with me."

She stared at his hand, then back at him.

"Here?" she asked. "Now?"

His lips curved just barely.

"I can hear the music. Can't you?"

She nodded.

He stepped forward again, took her hand, and drew her in slowly like drawing a moth to a flame. He placed her hand on his shoulder and held hers in his own.

There was no ballroom or audienc here.

Just the flickering candlelight, the moonlit floor, and the violin song from far away.

And in that moment, with his hand warm around hers, Elira didn't feel like a servant or a girl stripped bare.

She felt like a memory that hadn't happened yet.

They moved in silence.Her heartbeat filled the spaces between notes. His eyes never left hers.

They danced slowly, the kind of slow that bent time around it.

Elira didn't know how to move, but somehow she followed. His steps were precise, effortless like he'd done this a thousand times, with her or with someone who looked like her. His hand pressed lightly against the small of her back, guiding her gently but never forcing.

The candlelight trembled.The moonlight pooled at their feet.

And in that quiet room of cold relics and ancient memory, Elira forgot everything her servitude, the watching eyes, the stain on her dress.

There was only him.His gaze locked on hers, unwavering. Searching. Not hungry but curious, reverent, like she was something sacred he had no right to touch but couldn't help approaching.

Her breath came too fast. Her throat ached.

And then he moved closer just enough.

Enough to feel the warmth of his breath ghost against her cheek, to feel the tension strung taut between them, a thread that trembled in time with her heartbeat.

Her fingers curled slightly into his shoulder.

She felt it, the nearness. Her body stilled and her fluttered shut but like a cold bucket of water washed her making the realisation seep within her. She stepped back. Just one step.

But it broke the moment.

Her heel caught on the hem of the coat and it slipped from her shoulders, sliding down her arms and pooling at her feet like fallen night.

She stared at it, her breath shallow.

Alaric didn't look frustrated. Or disappointed.

Only still.He bent slowly and picked up the coat.He shook it once, delicately, and held it out.

Not to take it back but to offer it to her again.

"Keep it," he said simply.

Elira hesitated her fingers twitching, caught between impulse and restraint.

The coat lay between them like a boundary, like a question.

Then, slowly, she reached out with both hands, accepting it. Drawing it around her shoulders again, she wrapped it tightly like armor against the storm that hadn't come yet but was building all around her. The lining was still warm from his touch, still carrying that unfamiliar, impossible scent of pine and frost and something ancient she couldn't name.

"May I leave, your grace?" She asked softly, her voice little more than a breath.

It was't defiance or obedience just the quiet plea of someone standing at the edge of something vast and unknown.

Alaric looked at her and without a word nodded.

A flicker of something passed through his gaze something unreadable, restrained. As if he'd had more to say but chose silence instead.

His eyes followed her as she turned, not possessively, not pleadingly just watching. Like a sentry standing over a memory.

But he didn't move or try to stop her.And that, somehow, made it harder to walk away.

Elira stepped to the door. Her fingers curled around the cold handle, hesitated for a heartbeat longer. And then she opened it.

The ancient hinges whispered open, the sound too loud in the breathless quiet.

She stepped into the corridor. The air beyond was cooler, emptier.

The walls seemed to narrow around her, their silence pressing in as if the house itself had been listening.

The heavy coat clung to her like a second skin, its weight not burdensome but grounding. She clutched it tighter, arms crossed over her chest, not just for warmth but to hold something in.

As if something had awakened in her bones and hadn't yet decided whether to rise or burn.His presence lingered behind her like a breath she hadn't finished exhaling.

And as the door closed with a soft click behind her, the world felt quieter

Like the moment just before a storm.

She turned left and didn't see Lord Calvorn standing in the alcove just beyond the shadows. But Alaric did. He stepped through the doorway just as the hem of Elira's gown disappeared down the corridor.And their eyes met.

No words passed between them.They didn't need them.The space between them crackled with old history, unspoken threats, and a storm that had only just begun to break.

Alaric's expression didn't change.But his presence surged forward like the tide.

A silent challenge between them.