Page 66 of Whispers of Ruin

Either way, it is going to be a beautiful bloodbath.

As for me, I never had an initiation. No consecration. No circle. No blood-spattered welcome into the fold. I was dragged in, dropped at the doorstep like a stray, and thrown straight into work. No vows. Just orders.

However, I have watched them all since. Every single one. Year after year, I stood in that same shadowed circle, eyes sharp beneath my mask, witnessing the rebirth of the chosen few. Some trembled. Some screamed. Some smiled like they were finally home.

I did none of those things.

When I was younger, it used to gnaw at me—being the exception, the forgotten one. I would watch their blood-soaked theatrics and wonder why I was not deemed worthy of the same sacred sacrament.

But not anymore.

I have carved my worth in flesh and shadow, earned my place in silence and scars. I do not need some vampiric pageantry to remind me who the hell I am.

Iamthe ceremony they should’ve feared.

Somewhere between my thoughts and the slow ticking of the hour, I realize Mira has already fallen asleep.

She is sprawled across the bed without a blanket, surrendered to exhaustion—a warrior collapsing after battle. No armor. No pretense. Just raw, beautiful fatigue.

How could I blame her?

Julian’s ghost still clings to her skin. The Order’s burden now presses on her chest. And there is me—an entirely different kind of maelstrom she never asked for.

But damn, she wears it all like art.

I feel the weight in my eyes deepen, as if they alone have been tasked with carrying the pressure of this night all at once. The urge to resist sleep claws at me, but I know better. I will need what little rest I can steal if I am to be at my sharpest for her initiation—my beloved’s first step into the dark heart of the Order.

So, I take the chair. Drag it back and plant it firmly, spine to the door. If anyone wants to come in, they will have to go through me.

Literally.

Good luck.

In the dead hush of night, I jolt awake—heart pounding, breath caught—chased out of sleep by whispers creeping through the room.

I take a few heavy seconds to realize the voices are not foreign. They are hers.

Mira.

Still tangled in sleep, she is caught in another world, her voice soft and broken in places I have never heard before.

I rise slowly, crossing the space between us on bare feet, and lean in just enough to catch the words unraveling from her lips.

“Julian… sorry… Xan… love…”

I don’t quite know what to make of it and though every part of me itches to wake her—to demand answers, to pull the truth from her mouth.

I understand. Of course I do. Regret is a natural ghost to carry after what she has been through, especially when the blood on her hands is still warm.

But she’ll learn.

She will come to see that every crack I made in her world was to let the light in. That all of this—every brutal truth, every sharp twist—was to save her.

Whether or not she knows it yet.

I am snapped out of sleep by two harsh, echoing knocks—loud enough to make the walls flinch. I grit my teeth. Not at the sleep itself—Ineededthat—but at the sheer audacity of being dragged out of it.

The first thing I do is look at Mira. She is still out cold, lying sideways on the bed, hair tangled in a halo, her face soft for once. Peaceful, but not free. Not really. That piece of shit still haunts her even here, clawing at the corners of her rest.

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