DUSTA SEORANG SUAMI

I only understood my sister's hatred after she killed me. Lydia Vale did not hate me because I had taken anything from her.

When we were sixteen, the Blood Ledger appeared before us on the night of the red moon. Lydia stared at the crimson light first. The man smiled.

"The Glamour Gift," he said. "Beauty that can bend a room before you speak. Desire, attention, invitations, worship." Then he looked at the silver light.

"The Scholar Gift. A mind sharp enough to read forbidden blood-script, solve ancient formulas, and rise where your family name cannot carry you." Lydia barely let him finish. "I choose Glamour." And for a while, she was right. But beauty was not rare in the courts. Not for vampires.

By the end, Lydia was no court beauty. She was a starving vampire in the lower district, hiding her face beneath a veil.

I had chosen the Scholar Gift. It did not make my life easy or hand me fame. It gave me sleepless nights, bleeding eyes, and a mind full of truths most vampires were too afraid to name. But I endured it.

Even Adrian Blackthorne, heir to the oldest vampire house in Ravenshade, began seeking me out. He was the one man Lydia had never managed to win. To her, that was the final insult. She decided I had stolen the life that should have been hers.

So she arranged my death. Not with a knife. Lydia was too careful for that. The last thing I saw was her standing in the shade, watching me burn.

When I opened my eyes again, I was sixteen. The locked library stood around me. The red moon glowed beyond the windows.

The man in the black coat stood at the table, with silver light in one hand and crimson light in the other.

Before the man could finish speaking, she shouted, "I choose the Scholar Gift!"

The man slowly turned his half-shadowed face toward her. "Strange," he said gently. "A moment ago, your heart called for Glamour."

"No," she said quickly. "I want the Scholar Gift. I want the mind. I want the title. I want Night Academy. I want everything." The man studied her.

"The Ledger answers desire," he said. "Not words. Are you certain this is truly what you want..." "Yes!" Lydia snapped. "Beauty is useless. Power belongs to the clever." Her eyes flashed as she looked at the silver light. The man in black turned to me. "And you..."

Before I could answer, Lydia lunged. She snatched the silver light from his palm. The moment her fingers touched it, the Scholar Gift sank into her skin like liquid moonlight.

Lydia gasped. Then she laughed. "It's mine," she whispered. She looked at me with the same smile she had worn on the day she killed me. "This time, Sister, I'll be the genius. I'll be the one they praise. I'll be the one Adrian Blackthorne follows." The man did not stop her. He only smiled a little more softly.

"Then the remaining gift is yours," he said to me. The crimson light drifted toward my chest. The Glamour Gift settled inside me, warm and dangerous.

The library windows rattled. The red moon dimmed. The man's body began to fade into mist. "The gifts have been delivered," he said. "May each heir pay what she owes."

"You had your turn in the last life," she said. "This one belongs to me." I looked at my sister and smiled back.

Poor Lydia. She still believed the Scholar Gift had made me great. She had no idea what it had taken from me. And she had no idea that every gift from the Blood Ledger came with a bill.