Page 164 of On Wings of Blood

“Is he nice?” I ventured. “Handsome?”

“He’s nice,” Florence said, after a pause to consider. “I’m not sure about handsome. I have to admit, I was surprised when he asked me. I hadn’t thought about him that way. He’s brilliant though. We’d have a lot to talk about.”

“It might be nice to have someone in your field to go with,” I said cautiously. I was hoping the other invitation wasn’t from a highblood. “And the other?”

Florence waved a hand. “It was just Naveen.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to say. Not without revealing anything. “Well, Naveen is a good friend. He’d be fun to go with. He’d make you feel comfortable, right?”

“That’s what I was thinking, too.” Florence sighed. “I should probably give Ebbot an answer one way or the other tomorrow.”

I hoped she’d pick Naveen. But I wasn’t sure I should say that out loud. It might sway her the other way.

“Well, no one’s asked me yet,” I said, throwing my head back down on the pillow. “And they probably won’t.” I grinned ferociously at her. “Because I’m the weirdo redhead blightborn dragonless dragon rider girl.”

Blightborn students seemed scared of me half the time. And highbloods were just plain nasty.

I thought of something horrible. “Wait. Please don’t tell me I’m locked into going to this thing with Blake and Regan.”

Florence shook her head and relief flooded through me. “You don’t have to attend with them. Not if Blake hasn’t specifically asked you.”

“He hasn’t. Thank goodness.” But the irrational part of me felt offended that he hadn’t. Which was ridiculous. Despite all that Theo had claimed at the bonfire that night, I knew Blake would go with Regan.

“But you will probably have to dance together at least once,” Florence went on. “It’s tradition.”

“I guess I can manage a single dance.” I tried to imagine slow dancing with Blake Drakharrow and couldn’t quite manage it. “I tried to ask Naveen about the Frostfire Festival but he told me to ask you. He thinks a lot of you, Florence. What’s it like having a friend who adores you so?” I decided to risk teasing her a little.

She laughed. “Naveen is silly. He probably could have given you just as good an answer. What did you want to know?”

I thought for a moment. “So far Frostfire seems so... I don’t know. Sweet? Cozy? Not like a highblood tradition at all. Although Naveen did mention we’d have to visit the Temple of the Bloodmaiden.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Florence bit her lip. “We’re expected to make a blood offering.”

I frowned. “Like on your name day? Why didn’t you ever tell me about that tradition?”

“I guess I never even thought to. Sometimes I forget that you don’t know anything about Sangratha, Medra. Even the most minor things like how we celebrate our name days are new to you.”

“Giving the highbloods some blood on your name day doesn’t seem like much of a celebration to me,” I said with a shudder.

“Well, we’re not giving it to one highblood specifically. We’re offering it to the Bloodmaiden,” Florence replied.

“I still don’t understand what the Bloodmaiden really is. A goddess of some kind?”

Florence nodded. “The story goes that when our world was new, a demigoddess–half mortal, half divine–sacrificed herself and let her blood be spilled to save the world. But her family were determined to avoid her fate. Her mother and father and siblings dipped their head into her blood and drank. She saved them and they were granted immortality.”

“They stole her blood, cheated death because they were too selfish to help her save the world, and were turned into vampires,” I translated.

Florence grimaced. “That’s one way of looking at it. Not an interpretation I’d ever bring up in Professor Hassan’s class.”

I laughed. “I’ll remember not to.”

“Anyhow, some of the demigoddess’s brothers and sisters refused to drink her blood.”

“I don’t blame them,” I chimed in unhelpfully. “Gross.”

“Gross but powerful,” Florence countered. I thought of what Naveen had said. About how Florence harbored great ambitions and might have been happy to be selected as a highblood’s consort. I wondered if it was true. “The brothers and sisters who did not drink remained mortal. A lower life form.”

“Blightborn,” I supplied.

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