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JULIA’S WORLD WAS blue. Blue was everything. Blue was safe. Blue was home. How she longed to see red.
‘Maybe we’ll fall in love. Maybe he’ll love me so much that he’ll insist the Empress makes me a Candidate, so we can be together forever.’ Trust Claud to view her new servitude as romantic.
‘I’m sure he’ll be wonderful.’ ‘And handsome,’ Claudia said, smiling winsomely. ‘I’m sure.’ And heartless, Julia thought, just like they all are.
Blood could give life in the Blue, but in the Red it was death.
CAMERON’S WORLD WAS red.
To the humans of the Blue, red was the colour of monsters.
‘What about you?’ Cam asked Viv, his brow wrinkling in confusion. She was, and had always been, Tommy’s right hand. She smiled. ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ she said, releasing Cam so she could take Tommy’s hand. ‘I’m the one who’s pregnant.’
Cam sat back down. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘I mean, congratulations. Just, wow. So, um, when did this,’ he waggled a finger between the two of them, ‘happen?’ ‘About a decade ago,’ Viv said. Cam’s mouth dropped open. Love was nearly as rare among their kind as pregnancy. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed. ‘You’ve been away,’ she added. ‘There’s a lot you’ve missed.’ ‘I guess so.’
Laila studied him for a moment. ‘I wonder if she’d even recognise you.’ ‘What?’ ‘You’re not the puppy dog she’ll remember. The Red’s changed you. You’re harder.’ He thought of the hunger, the exhaustion, the nights he’d spent sleeping in the snow until his fingers turned blue and black. Blood might regrow his flesh, but he still felt the pain. ‘We’re all hard,’ he said. ‘We’re Silver.’
It was the feature that defined their race. They had been called the Silver once, named for the colour of the shining filaments that threaded through the whites of their eyes. They could hide it so they appeared human, and they took care to ensure it was always hidden in the Blue. They didn’t need to be so careful in the Red.
‘We’re Silver, so we’re metal, right? As a race, we’re strong, but we corrode. The humans, they’re glass. They’re so breakable. They shatter, but the thing is, even fractured, they’re the ones who’ll survive for millennia, not us.’
‘You spend all your time out there,’ Tommy said, ‘so we can justify it. We’ve got some new foals anyway, and you could do with the company.’ ‘Besides,’ Viv said, handing Cam the reins, ‘he’s such a bastard that no one else will ride him.’ ‘Oh, great, thanks,’ Cam said. ‘A horse who’ll throw me at the first sign of danger is exactly what I need in the Red.’ ‘He won’t do that. He’s totally fearless.’ After a second’s thought, she added, ‘He might bite you, though, and step on your feet. Rather a lot, I’m afraid.’ As though to demonstrate, the horse leaned into Cam and lifted a hoof into the air.
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Tommy grinned. ‘He pushed Lorelei over last week and tried to trample her.’ ‘I’m amazed he’s still alive.’ Cam said. ‘I think she was impressed, actually,’ Viv said. ‘We all were.’ ‘And something about his behaviour made you think that he was the perfect horse for me?’ Cam was a good rider, but it sounded like managing Hades might be beyond him. ‘Take him or leave him,’ Tommy said. ‘Your choice.’ Hades swung his head towards Cam, but Cam ducked out of the way. On the backswing, the horse bit his shoulder. His snorting whinny sounded like a snicker. Cam narrowed his eyes at the beast. The
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He was young, around twenty, she guessed, or at least he appeared to be. His skin was pale, but everything else about him was dark: hair, eyes, expression, even the shadows that stained the skin under his lashes. The only highlights were the two small dots of brightness contained within one of his earlobes, two silver studs stroked by the locks that clustered there.
Why? she wondered, suspicion tingling along her skin. Everything he needed was right here in this self-sufficient empire. Everything except blood. He couldn’t grow that. Well, not in soil, at least. It was why she was here: to serve him.
Ritual and detachment and teeth in her skin, that was what she had anticipated.
HADES WAS NOT an easy travelling companion. Cam had made it to the cabin in time for nightfall, but that was despite the horse rather than because of him. He really was a bastard.
The truth was that people, humans, wanted to believe that there was something mystical about the site of the ancient oracle. They thirsted for the magic, until it was more vital to them than the tiny spring that sustained their growing population. They saw the Revelation as only confirming the existence of the paranormal world that they craved, and the race that were then called the Silver epitomised it. Humanity had been looking for a god, and they found one. By
The truth was that the vaccine was in the blood. The vaccine was the cure. The cure was in the blood.
The humans had forgotten about the vaccine. In those first years, blood had become a weapon. Cure one of the Silver, and they were just as mortal as anyone else. The humans had massacred them, and in turn the remaining Silver had massacred any humans who knew the ulterior use of the vaccine.
Once their transaction was settled, Ana gave Cam the news of their people from the last few years: deaths, births
and marriages. He met new arrivals, congratulated new couples and commiserated with the mourners. His joy and grief were real because he knew these people, he knew the rhythm and colour of their lives, but his emotions lacked intensity because he knew them as a whole rather than individually. They were a bunch of flowers rather than single blossoms, and together their scents were dulled into uniformity.
They were both so tall that Julia would never have guessed that one of them was female. Why was everyone taller than her?
He sighed. ‘And what about you?’ he said to Hades. ‘You wake me up to chew on my boots, but you can’t make one sound to let me know you’re being stolen?’ The horse didn’t acknowledge Cam, but there was a smug look in his eyes.
Chasing her had kept him sane for centuries, but nonetheless this was what he had become: crazed, and a murderer. This was what they all became, in the end.
He travelled faster with two horses, switching between them. Hades seemed almost affronted that Cam would prefer the mare over him, but Cam had to admit that she was easier company. She hadn’t once tried to bite him, or step on his feet, although she did seem subdued. He wondered whether she was mourning her previous rider.
How long could the Nobles go without blood anyway? She suspected that was knowledge they guarded carefully. They didn’t like to broadcast their weaknesses, which made it all the more surprising that Lucas was prepared to let himself become so impaired.
‘I’m not stupid,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe in fairytales. I’m here to do a job.’ In that second she would have said anything to distract him from his examination of her, anything to cement her conviction that she was who she had always imagined herself to be. She was not a girl who dreamed in jewel tones and kisses. She was not weak. She didn’t need to covet the constructs of the Nobles. And one day she would leave this place behind, just like her parents had done.
He looked at her for a moment, and she could tell that he knew how Rufus would treat her. His expression melted into sympathy, but instead of gentling her, his reaction just hardened her resolve. He was a Noble, the same as Rufus, and whatever the blood-taking did to her, whatever hold it had over her emotions, that didn’t change the fact that he was one of them. He’d still taken what he needed from her. He’d still cut her.
‘Is that true?’ Julia interrupted. ‘Or is this part of the fairytale?’ Lucas shrugged. ‘Maybe. If it’s happened in my lifetime, then I don’t know about it.’ ‘It sounds made up to me.’ ‘You don’t believe in magic, then?’ ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘but just because I believe in one kind of magic, it doesn’t mean I have to believe in them all.’
‘Until one day–’ ‘I thought you said this story had an unhappy ending,’ Julia interrupted. ‘Empress’s blood, Julia,’ he said, but there was no real anger in it. ‘Will you let me finish?’ ‘Fine,’ she said, smirking a little. She was almost certain he returned the smile.
‘Are you admitting that fairytales can be real?’ His smile was full now, and quickly spreading into grinning territory. ‘Not fairytales,’ she chuckled softly. She couldn’t believe in his story, but he needed to. He needed there to be something real beyond the Blue, just as much as she did. ‘Maybe something like them could be real though,’ she said with a smile. ‘Maybe I could believe in more kinds of magic.’
‘You don’t get out much, do you?’ ‘I live in a treehouse.’ He finally looked up at Cam. ‘I’m already out.’ ‘Fair point, fair point,’ Cam said, nodding. He was getting nowhere.
Lucas hadn’t taken Julia’s blood again since the night they’d gone to the temple, but Rufus drank from Claudia every day. Not much, she said, but every night she came back to their room a little paler, and with another mark on her skin. Julia suspected it was the pattern that would appeal to a sadist. Why drink
only once every ten days when instead you could take a sip every day, cutting into unmarked skin every day, every day a fresh thrill? It wasn’t about the sustenance for him. It was about the power. Whereas Lucas seemed to view the process with a mixture of dread and nervousness.
They had been soldiers. They were the elite, the best the god king could muster, tracing their existence all the way back to the Romans, fighting their way through the millennia. No wonder the Nobles made such a fuss about their history, and about everyone born in the Blue having a Latin name; it was the origin of their heritage.
This wasn’t his first encounter with zombies.
Cam had tried to explain. It wasn’t the first time for him. It had been Emmy who’d discovered it, back when she had been newly turned Silver. She’d taken down a crowd as big as a city with that vaccine, turning one Weeper human, then watching the chain reaction as its neighbours bit it, then were bitten themselves, each one dying in turn as their human bodies were returned to them, unable to survive the transition from their Weeper selves. And now it was happening again in miniature, only this time the vaccine had been contained in a living body. A contaminated human body. The bait.
There was really only one conclusion Cam could draw: someone was trying to make more Silver, and failing. That was what had started it all, centuries ago. That was what had made the Weepers.
‘So, what about you?’ he continued, trying to cover the moment with conversation. ‘You have a woman waiting for you somewhere?’ ‘No,’ Felix said, his face closing down once more. ‘Not a woman.’ ‘Ah.’ Well, that was worth knowing.
‘Oh god,’ he murmured. ‘Are you dying?’ ‘Maybe. I could die happy right now.’
What rankled most was that Julia wasn’t sure she would have been so gracious in Marcella’s place. Would she have gloated? Would she have let the privilege make her feel superior? Probably. Julia often suspected she wasn’t a very good person. Marcella, however, was.
‘Always our blood. Never theirs.’ ‘Every threshold,’ Julia murmured. ‘Every threshold.’ Every threshold purified in blood.
There was a masculine murmur in response, but the low tone rendered the words indecipherable. ‘Because I say when we’re ready,’ Lorelei replied, ‘and we’re not. Fucking. Ready. Yet.’ She didn’t sound happy. ‘Why is it that you all seem to think you should be in charge when you’re hundreds of fucking years younger than me? You think just because you have a cock you’re imbued with some kind of magical, penis-powered omniscience?’
Of course the whirlwind hadn’t been a wind at all. It had been a Noble moving at the speed only they could track, writing a message for the Empress in the blood of her citizens. Make no more Silver.
When their lips broke apart, Lucas held her face in his hands. Their foreheads bumped against each other and he smiled, then laughed softly while Julia mirrored every emotion. ‘This is what it means,’ he said, his fingers finding the stud in her ear. ‘That you claim me?’ she said, surprised by the teasing note in her own voice. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That you’re the one I would choose.’
What if… What if there was another life out there, in the Red? What if there was some way for humans to survive out there, a way that no one had tried, or a way that the Nobles knew and kept secret from them? What if they could find a way? But it was fairytales again, just more fairytales.
‘Just because one fairytale is real,’ he said, reaching out to stroke her cheek, ‘it doesn’t mean they all are.’ She smiled, but ruefully. ‘I want to believe this,’ she said, taking his hand in her own. ‘I want to believe that this is real, but that doesn’t make it true.’ ‘You need me to prove it to you?’ She shook her head, trying to dig down to the root of the unease that was shifting in her chest. ‘I think I’d rather you didn’t,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t trust me,’ he said, his expression concealing his hurt, almost. ‘You’re a Noble.’ ‘I’m your Noble.’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘you’re not.’ She
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fairytales were stupid anyway. They only existed to mollify people, and to make them wish for the unattainable. ‘You’re not my Noble,’ she said. ‘I’m your human.’ ‘Can’t both be true?’ He looked genuinely hopeful. Her laugh was quiet, and too old for her years.
A few more pieces of the Lucas puzzle slid into place. Of course he’d hate the son of the Empress, with his lineage, and of course Rufus would hate him back, with Lucas’s lack of the same. Of course he’d want to get out of this place, where he’d never be anything more than a child no one wanted, for a century of adolescence. No wonder he seemed to understand Julia so well.
