Page 9 of Blood Currents
“Just a few weeks.It was new and complicated and…” My voice broke.“And then the attack happened, and he was gone, and now they’re saying he’s a traitor.But he’s not.He’s not…”
“Hey.”Lucas’s voice was steady, certain.“If you say he’s not a traitor, he’s not.”
“But the council—” I started.
“The council says a lot of things,” Raven cut in.“Doesn’t make them true.They said your father was a traitor too.Right?”
I nodded, wiping my face with my sleeve.
“Look,” Lucas said gently, “we get why you’ve been distant.But, Mari, you’re scaring us.You’re not just sad.You’re carrying too much by yourself.”
If only they knew.About Keane’s uncle, about the conspiracy my father died trying to expose.About the late-night meetings with Cyrus andmore thanmeetings with Elio.
For some reason, my mind filled with the image of Cyrus holding my wrist in the training gym, and my pulse skipped.As if I needed another relationship to balance.No, I was not going there.
I took a shaky breath.They didn’t need to hear any of that.
“I miss him,” I said instead.“I keep thinking I see him in the halls or hear him in the library.Everyone’s acting like he’s this monster, but he wasn’t.He was kind.”
“Oh, Mari,” Raven whispered, and then she was around the desk, pulling me into a hug.
Lucas followed, his arm slipping around my shoulders.His bird brushed her wing against my cheek, a rare sign of affection.
“We’re here,” Lucas said simply.“Whatever you need.Even if it’s just sitting with you while you miss him.”
“I don’t deserve you,” I mumbled into Raven’s shoulder.
“Tough,” she said.“You’re stuck with us.Necromancer outcasts forever, remember?”
I laughed through my tears—a broken sound but real.
The rest of class passed more peacefully.The whispers didn’t stop, but they felt duller with Raven and Lucas beside me.They didn’t know everything—couldn’t—but they knew enough.That I’d lost someone who mattered.That I was holding too many secrets.And that, for all my messy choices and bad taste in guys, they weren’t going to let me carry it alone.
As we packed up, Raven bumped my shoulder.“If you ever want to talk about him—the good memories, the complicated ones—we’re here.”
“Okay,” I said.And meant it.
4
Keane
Forty-seven tiles in theceiling.Or forty-nine.Numbers slipped like water through corrupted thoughts.
Cold floor.Better than the bed—beds were soft like lies that shifted under weight.Stone stayed real.Stone didn’t whisper.
Was the attack real?
Portals opening.Vampires pouring through.Mari’s face, terrified.But also—parents visiting last week.Parents dead for years.Which memory held truth?
Hands against temples.Dark veins pulsing there, spelling words in languages that shouldn’t exist.The corruption digging deeper, always deeper, searching for whatever still fought back.
A flicker of blue light.Wisp?
No.Couldn’t be.My fox left when the corruption took hold.Familiars couldn’t bear wrongness in their bonded mage’s magic.But sometimes… sometimes in the corner of my vision, something moved.Something pure trying to reach through the oil-slick taint.
Forty-seven tiles.Count again.
Footsteps below.Not guards—they couldn’t enter.Bloodline wards still recognized an Alstone heir, even corrupted.Even broken.Softer steps.Another heir passing through the halls.
