I Sold My Blood to Pay My Sister's Debt, and the Vampire King Who Bought Me Swore I'd Be His Queen or His Ruin novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Burning Law

Isadora names it dawnblood and demands the burning, Kaelen claims Aveline for the crown, Emmeline walks off with the purse, and in his tower Kaelen admits he burned the last woman who tasted like her.

"Cursed," Kaelen said.

He didn't let go of my wrist.

"Our mother had it." Emmeline rose from her curtsy with her hands folded. "It made men strange. It made them sick. I prayed my sister didn't carry it."

"Emme," I said. "What are you doing?"

She wouldn't look at me.

She looked at the king, and her eyes were wet and wide and perfectly sorry.

"I'm protecting you, Majesty. Someone has to."

Isadora laughed.

It was a light, pretty sound, and it went through the hall like a knife through silk.

"It isn't a curse, you silly girl," she said. "It's dawnblood."

The word moved across the benches.

Lords stood up. A woman near the front pressed a fan over her mouth.

I didn't know the word.

I knew what the room did when it heard it.

They all leaned away from me.

"A thousand years," Isadora said, "and one of them climbs the hill and offers herself on Tithe Night." She turned to the court with her arms open. "We all know the law. Any dawnblood found is burned at sunrise."

"At sunrise," a lord called. "Now."

"Burn her."

"Burn her before he drinks again!"

The guards' hands tightened on my arms.

Kaelen didn't move.

"Isadora," he said quietly. "Who wrote the Burning Law?"

The shouting thinned.

Isadora's chin lifted. "You did, Majesty."

"I did." He let go of my wrist at last and rested my hand on the arm of the throne, casually. "So I know what it says better than anyone in this hall. It says the dawnblood is burned. It doesn't say who decides when."

"The law is plain."

"The contract is plainer." He nodded at the herald, who was still on his knees picking up the scroll. "One year of her blood belongs to the crown. Property of the crown is judged by the crown. I'll hear the matter at the new moon."

"That's seven nights," Isadora said.

"Then you'll have seven nights to prepare your arguments."

She took one step toward the dais.

Two of his guards moved, and she stopped.

"You've tasted her once," she said softly, "and you're already a fool."

"Sit down, Isadora."

She sat.

I didn't hear the rest.

I was watching my sister.

The steward of House Montcalm had come up the aisle with a leather purse.

He tore the debt scroll in half in front of her and dropped the pieces at her feet.

Then he held out the purse.

"The surplus," he said. "One thousand crowns. Next of kin."

Emmeline took it.

She weighed it in her palm once, the way she used to weigh a melon at the market.

Then she tucked it into her bodice, turned around, and walked out of the throne hall.

She didn't look back.

Not once.

"Emme!"

My voice cracked across the whole room.

The great doors closed behind her.

Kaelen's hand settled on my shoulder.

It was still cold.

It wasn't as cold as before.

"Captain," he said. "Clear the hall."

They took me up a stair that turned and turned until I lost count.

At the top was a round room with tall shuttered windows and no bed.

There was a desk. A chair. A cold fireplace.

On the wall across from the fireplace hung a curtain of black velvet.

Kaelen shut the door and stood by it.

"Sit," he said.

"I'd rather stand."

"You're about to fall."

"Then I'll fall standing."

The corner of his mouth moved.

It wasn't a smile. It was the place a smile used to live.

"What's dawnblood?" I asked. "And don't tell me it's a curse. My mother wasn't cursed. She sewed shirts and sang off-key and died of a fever when I was twelve."

"Did she."

"Yes."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he crossed the room and pulled the black velvet aside.

Behind it hung a painting.

It was old enough that the varnish had gone the colour of tea.

A woman sat in a white gown in front of a window full of sunrise.

Red-brown hair. Freckles across the nose. A small crooked mouth.

It was my face.

It was my mother's face, and mine, and it had been painted a thousand years before either of us was born.

"Who is she?" I whispered.

Kaelen didn't look at the painting.

He looked at me.

"I burned the last woman who tasted like you," he said.

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