There’s a ruckus echoing through the castle when I level onto the main floor. Shouts of anger and questions. As I turn the corner for the main entry, I see Alivia standing there, someone on their knees before her.

There’s a crowd standing just outside the doors to the castle. It’s still evening, and the sun has not yet set on this summer day, so every one of them wears a set of sunshades.

“The crown cannot treat us like this!” someone shouts. “After all these years of loyalty, she treats us as if we are traitors!”

“The king was beheaded!” Alivia shouts back. “There are obviously traitors among you. What did you expect?”

“I’ve been a member of court for over three hundred years, and never has the crown jumped to the conclusion of anarchy.”

I step out of the shadows, and immediately, the crowd shuts up. Wary eyes watch me walk forward, take note of every move I make, of the set of my shoulders and the lift of my chin.

They each take half a step backward.

“She’s right,” I say, stopping in front of them. “I am thankful I was not here to witness it, but I know many of you saw it. When that man cut our King’s head from his shoulders. When he murdered Cyrus. Roter Himmel is supposed to be a safe and peaceful place for us. Some are trying to change that, to ruin our entire world. So I beg of you, be patient while I sort out who it is we can trust.”

I take note. Of those who look at me with understanding, of those who nod in agreement that we have to do everything we can to take down the betrayers. And I note those who look at me with disdain. Of those whose eyes are ignited red and whose lips are set in a thin, tight line.

“You,” I say, pointing to a man with platinum blond hair and anger on his lips. “You,” I move onto a woman whose fists are curled. “You.” Another man. Another woman. One more man. All obviously upset with the way I am handling things. “Inside.”

But they haven’t entirely forgotten who I am. Their expressions falter. The look in their eyes goes from angry, to uncertain.

But they each step forward.

“Wait there,” I say, pointing to the wall that leads to a passageway further into the castle. “Don’t move.”

They shuffle to where I tell them, but I don’t watch them. I listen, straining my ears for sounds of movement and betrayal. But I turn my eyes to Alivia, who watches me with respect, and the man kneeling before her, with a blade pressed between his shoulder blades.

“He was attempting to leave?” I ask as I walk around to stand before him.

“He was,” Alivia confirms. “I caught him trying to slip into the mountains, a bag over his shoulder.” Her eyes slip up to mine. “Ian ran into two Born trying to leave as well. They’re dead.”

I nod, a sense of relief. The man in the prison told me there were five other Born in on this plot. Now there are only three left to worry about.

I look down at the man on his knees before us. He’s a handsome man, young looking. Thick red hair covers his head, accompanied by a well-maintained beard. He looks up at me with piercing green eyes.

“Did you not receive word that the Queen commanded no one was to leave Roter Himmel?” I ask. Again, my voice is calm, even. Confident.

He doesn’t say a word, only stares up at me with cold eyes.

“Give me your arm,” I say.

He doesn’t move until Alivia digs her knife into his back. His face winces in pain and he bows away from the blade. His eyes are angry and hard when he opens them again and looks back up at me.

He raises his arm.

My fangs lengthen and toxins pool in my mouth. I take his wrist, and raise it to my lips.

I bite into his flesh, and draw in his blood.

A taste is all I need. Just a second later, I release him.

Royal, a descendant of Dorian.

“Tell me,” I say as I release his arm, blood dripping to the floor as his arm hangs at his side. I lick his blood from my lips. “Are you simply a coward, terrified of what was to come now that your King is dead? Or do you have more sinister motives? A message of success to deliver? Were you looking to betray your kind?”

“I am not a coward,” he says. His accent is heavy, but I can’t quite identify it. German. Irish. Something else. “But I do recognize that our world is about to change beyond recognition now that the King is dead.”

We stare at one another. I wish I were better at reading people. I wish I could see it in his eyes if he is telling the truth or not. But he just stares at me blankly.

I want to have mercy. I want to just send him to the prison, to interrogate later. But I feel eyes on me, dozens of them. I feel their judgment. I can sense their doubt.

The Queen made a promise as to what would happen if anyone tried to leave Roter Himmel.

I have to set the example from the very beginning.

“Take him to the prison,” I say. “We’ll ship him off to the desert tonight.”

“No,” the man says, his eyes widening. Panic licks into every crease of his face. “You must forgive me! I was afraid.”

I turn to leave, but look over my shoulder. I feel sick. Like a heavy, wet stone is slowly sliding down my throat before dropping into my stomach. “I warned you. You made this choice.”

Alivia grabs him roughly by the back of the neck and drags him up to his feet. He tries to fight her, but she jabs a needle into his neck. He howls in pain, his steps faltering, before he falls flat on his face, moaning and crying in anger and pain.

“You remember where to take him?” I tentatively ask Alivia as she drags him over the floor.

“I’ll never forget,” she says without looking back up at me, or anyone else.

She makes her way down the passageway, dragging the man, until they are out of sight.

“I mean it when I tell you this: Do not leave,” I say, turning back to the crowd outside. “We need to keep our kind safe, and the only way we can do that, is by figuring out who is trying to betray us. You’ll be rewarded for your cooperation.”

I’m grateful for those who nod in solemn promise. I’m grateful for those who bow, and mutter, “Yes, my Queen.”

I turn back to those six I lined up against the wall. “Follow me,” I say.

I know the danger I’m putting myself in as I lead them down the hall. As we descend these stairs, it would be so easy for them all to gang up on me and take me out. A quick stake through the heart, the quick snap and pull of my neck, my head would be gone, and I’d be dead—again.

But no one steps out of line as we step down to the fifth floor. We work our way through the dim corridor and then I turn into a room. A bench dominates the center of the room, and against the far wall, is a door.

I incline a hand toward the bench, indicating for them to take a seat. They seem wary, but each of them does.

“I’m not going to give a speech and try to convince you I’m doing the right thing,” I say, standing beside the door. “I don’t owe any of you an explanation. You.” I point to the woman on the end of the bench. “Come with me. The rest of you wait here if you value your immortal lives.”

The woman gives a backward glance at the rest of the crowd, but she does stand, and tentatively follows me through the door and into the room.

It’s a small room. Ten by ten. In the center there is a simple table and a chair on either side of it.

“Please sit,” I tell her. I do not do so myself however.

She sits and I take her arm. “Considering how long it has been since I last was able to get to know the inhabitants of Roter Himmel, I can’t rely on facial memory to identify the Royals,” I begin to explain. “And since Cyrus is not at my side to assist me, I have to rely on the only test I can trust.”

Her eyes widen for just a moment before I raise her arm to my lips and sink my fangs into her wrist.

Royal. A descendant of Dorian.

I immediately release her.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” I say, though I’m pretty sure I sound disingenuous. I round the table and take a seat across from the woman. “What is your name?”

Her brows narrow and she wipes the blood on her wrist onto her pants. “Diana.”

“And how long have you lived at Court, Diana?”

She leans forward, bracing her forearms against the edge of the table. Her features are hard, her face angular. I think she just permanently looks angry. “For about three hundred years.”

“And you were born here, yes?” I prompt.

She nods.

I smile, nodding. “I would like to tell you a story, Diana,” I say, mirroring her posture. “A story of when our kind very first came into being. When my husband made himself into the ultimate hunter, but also cursed himself with the craving of blood.”

Diana’s eyes widen a bit and her entire body tightens slightly.

“I watched in horror as he hunted down his first human. I saw his tears as they fell down his face in remorse. Cyrus, the first vampire, like yourself, craved blood and he could not resist the urge to drink. So people went missing and the rumors began to spread in our town.”

I can picture it all. Every detail. Every memory. The beginnings when I wore the face of Sevan and had never died a single death.

But in this moment, I pay exact attention to my words. I control every line and every thought.

“And then when there were two of us, the whisperings grew louder. Dark eyes turned our direction. Our lives were torn apart. We had to leave, or we knew they would turn against us.”

I shiver as I think of that first night in the forest.

“We lived like animals in the woods,” I continue. “And every night, we moved, because always during the day, they hunted us through the forest. With knives and primitive weapons. We didn’t know how they would hurt us. For months and months we were driven from place to place, constantly pushed by fear.”

Diana sits there, very, very still. Frozen. She’s hardly even breathing as she listens to my story.

“After I gave birth, we were once more on the run. One of us would always kill, and most of the time we were not discovered, but the times we were…” I shiver, remembering the terror. “We were strong, we could defend ourselves, but it was the two of us against the entire world. A population of billions.”

I look up and meet her eyes. I lean forward slightly, our faces only a foot apart.

“Roter Himmel was a god-send,” I say. “After years of living in fear and uncertainty, we had somewhere safe. Somewhere we did not have to hide what we were. We grew our family here. We loved and cherished here.”

I sit back, my eyes darkening. “There are over eight billion people in this world, Diana,” I say straight and blunt. “There are roughly fifty-thousand vampires, Born, Royal, or the few Bitten left, throughout the world. There are forces at work in this moment that are trying to destroy Roter Himmel. They would expose our kind to the world, perhaps to change the system. To create a new monarchy. Perhaps to attempt to take over the world.”

I sit forward again, locking my eyes on hers. “Fifty-thousand of us, eight billion of them. I’m not willing to take on those odds and lose the peace and protection of Roter Himmel. Are you willing to take that risk, Diana?”

Her expression has been going slack, slowly, over this entire story time. Her eyes are open, her lips slightly parted.

“We all look the same, loyal or betrayer,” I say. “This may take some time. But if even one of them slips through the cracks, it could mean the end of us all. Are you ready to take the risk, Diana?”

She blinks five times, as if clearing the fog of my story from her brain. “No,” she whispers.

“Do you want to be hunted one day, 160,000 to one?” I ask her.

“No,” she immediately says.

“Do you understand why I must be careful and thorough?”

“Yes, my Queen.” She says it with a little bow of her head.

“Do you swear fealty to the crown, and to protect Roter Himmel and everything it stands for?”

She meets my eyes, and the change is astounding. She rises to her feet and then kneels before me. “I swear it, my Queen.”

A small smile forms on my lips. I take her hand in mine, and pull her to her feet as I stand. “Then go. Bring them into the castle. One by one. Test their blood for Royalty. Tell them the story I have told you. And rely on your instinct to know if they can be trusted and believed when they swear allegiance to our kind.”

“Yes, my Queen,” she says once more.

I cross to the door with her. Her face is pale white when she looks back at me just once, and I understand: it’s a terrifying possibility of what could happen if we are not careful.

The others watch her closely as she walks past them, and then their eyes jump to me.

“You,” I say, pointing at the man on the end of the bench.

---

It takes two hours, but one by one, I test each of their blood. They’re all Royal, as I was quite confident they would be, but not entirely certain considering the circumstances. One by one, I tell them the story of the early days of running, fearful for our lives. I add more and more detail with each retelling. By the time I finish the story with the last woman, she is tearful and trembling.

I lay out the numbers for them. Explain how few of us there are, how we are just little specks in this gigantic world.

I watch them closely as we speak. I rely on my gut, search deep down for the answer to the question: will this person betray me?

But I see it in their eyes—they may not have been happy with me just hours ago, but they understand now.

One by one, I send each of them out of the room to assist in the interrogation of the four hundred residents of Roter Himmel.

What they do not know is that this is not enough for me. Words are only words, they mean so little.

I’m going to need proven proof of loyalty.