CHAPTER 6: THE WITCH-KING'S BLOOD

The blood on my knife isn’t mine. 

It’s Rook’s. Again.

He leans back against the stone wall of the training pit, grinning with a split lip and a fresh cut across his collarbone. The one I gave him five minutes ago. It’s already clotting, skin knitting back too fast to be natural. Too fast to be dead.

“Again,” he says.

“No.” I flip the blade and sheathe it at my thigh. “Grace period or not, I’m not your whetstone.”

Day 2. Twenty-eight days left to choose. Twenty-eight days until three of them have to die.

Rook clicks his tongue. “You killed me yesterday, little Luna. Don’t get shy now.”

“I didn’t kill you,” I say. “You got back up.”

His grin widens. “Exactly. So what’s one more cut?”

The Fifth Law hums under my skin. Until Day 7, no blood is lethal. That’s what the priests said when they shoved me into the arena with him. Bond them. Bleed them. See their deaths. Then choose.

I haven’t seen anything yet. Just Rook bleeding and laughing like death is a joke he’s in on.

The pit doors groan open. 

Silas doesn’t knock. He never does.

The Witch-wolf King steps into the torchlight with his coat still smoking from whatever hex he walked through to get here. His eyes are black to the lid, no white, no iris. Not his eyes.

Hers.

“Playing with your food, Necro?” His voice is Silas’s, but the cadence is wrong. Older. Female. “The Law wants bonds, not bruises.”

Rook doesn’t get up. Doesn’t need to. “The Law can wait. She’s mine for seven days.”

“She’s no one’s,” I snap. “I’m not a prize.”

Silas’s head tilts. A spider crawls out of his sleeve, down his wrist, onto the dirt. He doesn’t notice. Or he does and doesn’t care. “You’re the prize, the judge, and the executioner, Nyx Varrow. Don’t act humble now.”

He crosses the pit in three steps. The air turns cold. Magic smells like copper and rot.

“Rook had his turn,” Silas says. Or his mother says, using Silas’s mouth. “I want mine.”

I step back. My spine hits Rook’s chest. He’s standing now, boxing me in. Trapped between a dead man and a possessed one.

“Back off,” I tell Silas. 

“Tsk.” The spider on the ground twitches, then splits in two. Then four. Then eight. “You need to bleed us all, little Luna. That’s the rule. Or did your Alpha Draevor forget to mention that part when he sold you?”

Draevor. My fingers curl into fists.

“He said I had to choose,” I say.

“He said you had to bond,” Silas’s mother corrects. “Bleeding is bonding. Bleeding is seeing. How else will you know which of us to kill?”

Rook’s hand lands on my hip. Possessive. Warning. “She’ll bleed me again. She doesn’t have to bleed you.”

“Day 2, Necro,” Silas murmurs. “You’ve had Day 1. Day 2 is mine. That’s the rotation. Unless you want to tell the priests you’re breaking Law protocol?”

Rook goes still. Even he doesn’t argue with the priests. Not yet.

Silas holds out his hand. Pale, long-fingered, with a silver ring that wasn’t there yesterday. “A cut, Nyx. One line. That’s all the Law asks.”

I look at his palm. Then at Rook. Then at the spiders multiplying in the dirt.

I don’t trust either of them. But I trust Draevor less. If I don’t play by the Law, he’ll use my sister as leverage. He said it at the Claiming. Choose faster, or your sister takes your place with all four.

I pull my knife.

Silas smiles with teeth too sharp to be his. “Good girl.”

I drag the blade across his palm. Shallow. Fast. 

The blood wells black. Not red. Black and viscous, like oil.

The moment it touches air, the world drops out.

---

I’m not in the pit anymore.

I’m in a throne room. Banners with Silas’s crest — a crescent moon split by a dagger — hang in tatters. The air smells like burnt hair and iron.

Silas is on his knees in the center. Younger. Maybe twenty. His eyes are his own, wide and gold and terrified.

Behind him stands a woman. Black hair. Black dress. Black eyes. His mother. Her hands are in his chest.

Literally in his chest. Between his ribs. Gripping his heart.

“You’re weak,” she hisses. “A King who won’t kill isn’t a King. You let them take your throne, you let them take your Luna, and you did nothing.”

“Mother, please—”

She rips.

His scream cuts off as his heart comes free in her hand, still beating. She brings it to her mouth and bites.

Silas collapses, dead before he hits the marble.

The last thing I see is her black eyes turning to me, as if she knows I’m watching.

“You’re next, little Luna.”

---

I slam back into my body with a gasp. 

I’m on my knees in the dirt. Rook’s hands are on my shoulders, holding me up. Silas is standing over me, his cut already healed, his eyes his own again. For now.

“Welcome back,” Silas says softly.

“What the hell was that,” I choke out.

“Death-memory,” Rook answers. His voice is quiet. No grin now. “Told you. Bleeding us shows you how we died.”

“She killed you,” I say to Silas. “Your own mother ripped your heart out.”

Silas’s jaw ticks. “Twenty years ago. I got better.”

“Because of her?” I ask. “She’s possessing you. She’s still in you.”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. The spiders at his feet are watching me with too many eyes.

Rook hauls me to my feet. “Enough. She’s seen. Rotation’s over.”

“Is it?” Silas’s head tilts again. That wrong cadence slips back in. “She hasn’t bled Theo. Hasn’t bled Kain. Two more days of grace period. Two more Kings.”

“And then what?” I shove Rook off me. “I just keep cutting you until Day 7? Then what? I pick one and carve the rest?”

“Yes,” Silas says simply.

“No,” Rook says at the same time.

They look at each other. The air goes tight.

Silas smiles. “The Necro-wolf doesn’t want to share. How predictable.”

“Theo’s next,” Rook says, ignoring him. He looks at me. “Blind Prophet. He’ll see you coming. He sees everything.”

“Good,” I say. “Maybe he’ll see me walking out.”

Rook’s eyes darken. “You won’t. Not until Day 30. Not until you choose.”

“Or until three of you are dead,” I say. “That’s the Law, right? Three must die. One becomes consort.”

Silas laughs. It’s a horrible sound. “She’s learning.”

A horn blows from the castle walls. Three short blasts.

All three of us freeze.

That’s the summons. All Kings to the throne room. Now.

Rook’s hand finds my wrist. Not gentle. “That’s Draevor’s horn.”

My blood goes cold. “Why is he here?”

“To check on his investment,” Silas murmurs. His eyes are black again. “He wants to see if his little hybrid is bonding properly.”

Rook tugs me toward the doors. “Move. Now. Don’t let him see you bleed.”

“Why not?”

“Because if he thinks you’re favoring one of us before Day 7, he’ll use it,” Rook growls. “He’ll tell the priests. He’ll force the choice early.”

“And if he forces it?” I ask.

Silas answers. “Then your sister gets dressed for her Claiming.”

The pit doors slam open before I can respond. Two guards in Draevor’s colors — red and bone — step in.

“Alpha Draevor requests the Luna’s presence,” one says. “Immediately.”

Rook steps in front of me. “She’s with me.”

“Not anymore,” the guard says. “Alpha Draevor says her rotation with you is over. Day 2 belongs to Alpha Silas.”

Silas smiles. “See? Even Draevor respects the Law.”

Rook doesn’t move. His hand tightens on my wrist to the point of pain.

“Let her go, Necro,” Silas says softly. “Or I’ll let Mother say hello.”

Rook’s lip curls. But he drops my wrist.

I don’t wait. I walk past both of them, out of the pit, into the corridor where Draevor’s guards fall in behind me.

Day 2. Twenty-eight days left.

I’ve bled two Kings. Seen one death. 

Theo is next.

And Draevor is here to make sure I don’t forget what happens if I fail.

My sister’s face flashes behind my eyes. Seven years old. Braids. Missing tooth.

Choose faster, Nyx, Draevor said at the Claiming. Or she takes your place with all four.

I walk faster.

Three Kings must die. One becomes mine.

But the Law never said I couldn’t crown myself.

Not yet.