A Tithe Of Blood

The corridor was still as Elira returned to the servants' wing, her footsteps muffled by the worn runner beneath her slippers. Lanterns flickered low on the walls, throwing uncertain light onto the stone. Most of the staff had already retired; the hush of the estate pressed in like snowfall soft, suffocating, and complete.

Inside her small room, she closed the door with a quiet click and leaned against it, breath catching in her chest.

She hadn't spoken a word since Marta's warning.

Men who carry centuries in their shadows rarely love without reason. Or without ruin.

The words clung to her skin like wet linen.

Elira peeled off her apron and folded it carefully before setting it atop the trunk by her bed. She lit the single candle on the windowsill and sat at its edge, drawing her knees to her chest. Outside, the woods surrounding the estate were a blur of black silhouettes and faint wind.

Lord Alaric. Lord Calvorn.

They were bound by blood and legacy, but entirely different creatures.

Calvorn, with his calm intensity, the way his voice held the edge of questions he never asked outright. His warning tonight had felt genuine… but genuine for whose sake? He was measured, calculating. And there was something in his eyes—like a man who could hold a secret forever and never let it rot.

And Alaric…

He made her feel like time bent around him.

Even before Marta's words, Elira had sensed it beneath the silence of his movements, the brief glances, the weight of his gaze. A presence older than the brick and bone of the estate. And now she knew: he was older. Older than memory. Older than history.

And he was starting to remember.

She touched her collarbone absently—the place where the black crescent mark pulsed beneath her skin. It had ached faintly ever since the ballroom. Ever since he touched her hand.

It wasn't a mark of harm. It didn't burn.

But it felt like something waking up.

She laid back on the narrow cot, folding her arms under her head as she stared up at the wooden beams above. The candle fluttered. Her shadow stretched long and thin across the wall. 

The dream began like a whisper.

Elira was running barefoot, breathless, lost in a jungle drenched in shadow. Trees stretched endlessly above her like twisted ribs, their roots rising like claws from the damp earth. Everything smelled of moss and blood and rot.

She could hear footsteps behind her.

Not running but stalking.

Branches tore at her arms as she pushed forward, her pulse hammering in her ears. Something or someone was chasing her. Not loudly, not clumsily. Patient. Calm. Certain.

She turned to look back and caught the barest glimpse of a figure cloaked in black, eyes burning silver.

The moment she turned back around There was a clearing. Dead center of the jungle. A ring of scorched earth.

The trees didn't grow there. The grass wouldn't.

Something old and wrong pulsed beneath the dirt.

She stepped into the clearing, and then suddenly she felt herself pulled from below, and the next moment she was falling.

Elira woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat, her fingers tangled in the sheets.

The cot beneath her felt too small. The walls around her are too close. The darkness pressed in on her like a second skin. She sat up, chest heaving, one hand gripping her nightdress as if to keep herself from shattering.

The air was thick. She couldn't breathe. The dream clung to her like smoke.

Without thinking, Elira pushed herself off the cot, slipped into her robe, and opened the door. The corridor outside was silent and lamplit and cold, but the air was clearer. Sharper. She moved without hesitation, her bare feet silent on the stone.

The adjacent tower stood at the far end of the east wing, rarely used by servants and usually locked at night. But the door yielded easily under her hand, and she slipped inside.

The spiral staircase climbed forever. Step after step, the stone grew colder, the air thinner.

And then freshness.

A window. Open. The breeze hit her face like a tide, brushing the damp hair at her temple, cooling the sweat on her skin.

She stepped forward, gripping the edge of the arched opening.

Below, the forest stretched endlessly, a sea of black and silver under the moonlight. But just beyond the thickets and the shifting trees, she saw it a clearing.Bare, unnatural. A patch of earth untouched by growth.

It was the same as in her dream.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Why did it feel so familiar?

What was buried there?

Her fingers curled on the stone sill. The wind shifted behind her, carrying the faintest sound not footsteps, but the sensation of being watched. She turned.

There was no one.

Just the soft rustle of night air. The creak of wood. The distant cry of an owl.

But then "I wonder," came a voice from just beside her, low and smooth, like velvet over steel.

"Are you planning to jump, or just admiring the view?"

Elira flinched slightly, her pulse leaping to her throat.

Lord Alaric.

He stood beside her now, unannounced, as if conjured by the wind itself. His silver hair fell loose over one shoulder, his coat unfastened at the collar, revealing a sliver of the black tunic beneath. Moonlight gilded the edge of his cheekbone, making him look almost carved from marble.

"You should not be here," he said again, the warning clear in his voice.

Elira met his gaze steadily, the memory of her dream still burning behind her eyes.

"I'm not a coward," she said softly. "And the same can be said of you, my lord."

A flicker of surprise touched his features then vanished, replaced by the faint curve of a smirk.

"Bold. Always at the wrong hour."

She didn't respond. Neither did she look away.

He stepped closer, eyes fixed on the view below. "Rules exist for your safety. Yet you're here. Alone. In the dark."

"You don't follow rules," she said. "Why should I?"

"Because I'm not the one being hunted."

That silenced her.

A long moment passed between them, filled only by the sound of wind through stone and the rustle of distant trees.

Alaric tilted his head slightly. "What were you looking at?"

Elira hesitated.

Then, quietly, "The clearing. That bare patch in the woods. I saw it in a dream. It felt… familiar."

He said nothing at first.

Then he turned his gaze toward the forest toward the clearing.

When he spoke, it was low. Sincerely. Almost reverent.

"History is buried there."

Elira's breath hitched.

He looked at her then truly looked at her, as if weighing something far heavier than her question.

"In the North," he continued, "we mark our dead with stone and fire. But in this land… the Center prefers forgetting. Pretending nothing ever happened."

"What happened there?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

Alaric's expression darkened. Not with anger but memory.

"Things the lords of this house would rather stay buried. Rituals. Betrayals. Power torn from the earth like a wound reopened."

"Was it war?"

He paused.

"No. Worse."

Elira's skin prickled.

"And now?"

Alaric's eyes narrowed, their silver sheen catching the light.

"Now the earth remembers. Even if people don't."

Silence settled between them again thick, heavy, and strangely comforting.

Elira turned back to the window, watching the trees ripple like waves under the moon.

Alaric didn't move. He stood beside her in stillness, as if guarding something unspoken.

Finally, he said, "You should rest."

"I'm not tired."

He smiled faintly.

"Then pretend. You'll need strength."

Elira looked at him this man who had haunted her thoughts, who left her feathers and notes and riddles in the dark. He wasn't smiling now. Not fully. But something about him his voice, his presence felt almost… familiar.

"I dreamed you were chasing me," she said suddenly.

Alaric didn't blink.

"Was I?"

"I don't know," she said truthfully.

A long beat passed. Then, gently:

"Maybe you were just watching."

His smirk faded.

"And if I were?"

Elira met his gaze without flinching. "Then I hope you saw everything."

For a moment, something stirred in his eyes. Not mockery. Not cruelty.Recognition.

Then he turned away from the window, his voice returning to its usual cool edge.

"Be careful where you wander, Elira."

And with that, he was gone vanishing down the stairwell as silently as he'd come, like a shadow finally claimed by the dark.

_______________

The storm did not come the next morning.

But something else had shifted.

The estate awoke to a hush not born of weather, but of watchfulness. A strange, breath-held calm stretched across its halls less like silence and more like anticipation.

Even the servants spoke softer.

As if the very stones of House Calvorn had overheard what passed between two lords the night before and now held their breath.

By the time the second bell tolled, the summons had arrived.

A royal courier armor gleaming, bearing the sigil of the Central Crown strode through the estate gates with a scroll sealed in red wax and the kind of authority that tolerated no delay. 

Word spread quickly, like sparks on parchment:

Lord Calvorn had been summoned to the Capital.

By order of the Central King himself.

It wasn't optional.

The courier made that clear. He did not rest, did not eat, and did not leave the receiving hall until Calvorn himself emerged, eyes hard, lips curved in a blade-thin smile.

"Of course," Calvorn said with false warmth, taking the scroll without flinching. "His Majesty's call is always… timely."

The courier only bowed stiffly and turned to wait.