Page 32 of House of Lilith

Especially now that we have my family’s future hanging in the balance. I don’t want anyone else get unnecessarily hurt, but what happens if they really cancel the Games? If I don’t get the Professorship, I won’t be able to move them to the Academy. And then what, I think with a frown. Will they be forced to watch their landdieright in front of their eyes? And where will they go once it does?

“Dahrian,” I hear someone call out. “Hey, Dahrian.” My head snaps back and I see Fiona rushing to where I’m sitting. I jump up and I turn around to face her.

She’s a little breathless when she grins at me. “It’s done,” she says in an excited voice.

I nudge her to speak.

“They won’t be canceling the Games.” She flashes me a smile. They’re unpausing them.”

My mouth cracks into a grin. “Well, isn’t that grand?” I say as I come clap her on the back.

And it is. It gives me the chance to fix everything. Right now, there are sixty four players left in the Games. Forty two of ours and twenty two of theirs.

I only have to make sure we keep winning like that.

Chapter 7 - Nyx

“MissRomanov,”Uncle’sraspyvoice calls out, making my eyes snap up from the book I’m reading.

He’s standing in front of the pulpit in the classroom lit solely by the fading afternoon sun, the shadows making his frown appear even deeper. “It’s the first class of the year and you’re already not paying attention?”

Quickly, I close the book shut and pop it on the shelf under the table. “I apologize, Professor Schwarz,” I say, suddenly aware of everyone’s eyes on me. Sadly, Uncle’s class, Blood Magic Level Three, is a popular one so there are a lot of them.

I press my lips tight and I take my pen in my hand to pretend to take notes in the open notebook before me.

“That’s more like it,” Uncle says and goes back to pacing the room, talking about the influence of the purity of a vampire’s blood on the efficacy of Blood Magic.

I shrug the momentary embarrassment off and I smile, my eyes lingering on him for a second. It’s something I’ve always liked about him. How he doesn’t let our blood bond deter him from treating me like everyone else. And he’s right. Yesterday, we had the Game, but today, the actual classwork is starting.

But my mind stays on Uncle. it makes me frown, wondering what he’d say if he knew why I wasn’t paying attention. If he knew what book I had under the table and why. Would I be able to explain to him that it’s nothing personal? That I just have to be careful, especially considering no one else in the family seems to be willing to put in the effort?

And I know this is neither the time nor the place for this, but I’m having such a busy day. Max will be picking me up almost right after class and we’ll be forced to spend the evening with the Viscount and his sons in some blatant attempt at sucking up.

Which means I really have to do this now, I think as I very subtly slide my hand under the table and crack the book open again, resting it on my thighs.

The book has one of those long, dry titles,The Romanov Dynasty from the 19th to the 20th century,but it’s anything but boring.

It tells the tale of our family from the time of Catherine the Great to Mother’s time and it’s full of stories of coups, incest, assassinations, mental illness and religious fanaticism.

But it’s Uncle I’m focusing on right now. And there’s nothing tying him to the Games or the Fiáin Academy in any meaningful way other than him being the Guardian of the Obscura. He seems to have devoted his life to teaching Blood Magic here, corresponding with professors from across the world. Not exactly the profile of someone preparing to destroy said Academy’s attempts to renew old alliances.

I frown as soon as it occurs to me. Could it be the issue of ‘real’ Romanovs?

I look up from the book and straight at him, observing him as he keeps teaching his class.

I was told the story many, many times. The story of Katerina Romanova and her love marriage. It was the seventeenth century and families,oursin particular, were a lot more conservative than they are today. Her decision to marry for love angered the family so much, they ended up trying to kill her. They failed, but they did succeed in disinheriting her. It was only in the late 18th century that they took her family under their wing again.

The Schwarzes.

And over the centuries, they did end up getting recognized as part of the extended family. But you only need to see Hilde’s face when the topic gets broached to realize how fickle that status is.

She’s never said anything, but I could always tell she’s not indifferent to not being a ‘real’ Romanov.

I frown as I watch Uncle walk up to the blackboard to write something in his elegant, but entirely illegible handwriting.

He’s never shown any signs of being butthurt about it all, but who knows what hides inside a person’s heart?

Maybe now that he’s getting older, it’s starting to bother him. Maybe he wants to write another page in our history books so that he may seal his legacy as a ‘real’ Romanov.

---