Mara's bloodmark makes her a servant of the Royal Court of Vampyrs - until the King accidentally marks her as his mate. Meanwhile, dark unrest stirs among the royal vampyrs, with Mara caught in the crosshairs.
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My hand touches something slimy and cold, and I resist the urge to gag. After shoving aside rotten food and heaps of cigarette butts, the crinkle of paper rouses a sigh of relief. I pull the newspaper out of the trash and check the date: only a week old.
Careful to keep the hood of my ratty cloak in place, my feet scurry to the mouth of an alleyway. I crouch down to scour through the contents of the newspaper.
The main article features the royal vampyrs in Trichov. It mostly consists of gossip: which vampyrs have Marked; which ones continue to wear a glove on their right hand, a symbol of their chastity and remaining unMarked. Lesser districts treat the royal vampyrs as celebrities: where they go, when they attend the nocturne markets, who accompanies them. This article, in particular, seems taken with the current King of the Court. The illustration shows a young vampyr with a strong jaw and full lips—he is as beautiful as a fairy tale, just as they would have you believe.
A few of the surrounding articles discuss opinions of any policies declared by the Court. The political columns have never caught my attention. It strikes me as childish squabble: no one can agree, not even on something like ethical factory practices. My understanding of the political workings of the Court is limited. I know they enact policies in areas such as crime and safety, the regional budget and worker wages, and anything dealing with the wellbeing of the districts.
However, it is difficult to believe that the Court has a practical, political purpose. The way the newspapers paint the monarchical figureheads, the vampyrs appear to simply be celebrities entrenched in luxury. As far as I know, that is all they truly are: figureheads, pretty faces for the districts to fawn over. After all, my destiny with the Royal Court has no political reason.
My mother's voice comes from the alleyway: "You're the property of the vampyrs, Mara. That's why you have that disgusting eye."
The heel of my palm digs into my bloodmark. My open eye notes the advertisement at the bottom of the front page. "Are You Registered?" glares bold and big.
In Lred, Bloodmarks belong to the noble vampyrs. We are supposed to register, to fulfill our purpose of serving them in Trichov. But those like me hope to evade the mandatory registration and ensuing culling. Some of us desire lives beyond servitude to gluttonous, celebrity vampyrs.
"If you're culled as a Sierv," growls the echo of my mother, "consider yourself blessed."
Shaking my head, I dash away the thoughts and the reminders. The articles about the beautiful vampyrs and their glittering lives in Trichov, the articles about registering and the promise of a better life outside the gray of Lred, the articles about the soaring rates of mugging in the lesser districts—any article that does not snag my interest, I rip from the newspaper. Soon, only the articles that fascinate me remain: the current fashion trends and their accompanying illustrations; submitted artwork that, this week, portrays an enchanted archer shooting arrows at cursed bears. It reminds me of happy childhood moments.
