I don't fall.
Everything in me wants to, but I stay standing. Locked knees, clenched jaw, fingers curled into fists at my sides even as blood continues to drip from my left wrist.
I don't fall because Soren fell. I had time to imagine the pain, to steel myself against it, to accept what I was about to do. He had nothing.
No warning. No preparation. I blindsided him the way he blindsided me.
And now, looking at him collapsed on the stone floor—I feel something unexpected push through the numbness.
Pity.
The same pity he said he felt for me when we met. The same pity that made him offer his hand to a failing vampire from a dying house. The pity that started everything and ruined everything.
Because pity isn't love, isn't respect, isn't anything real or lasting.
It’s just a pity.
I turn toward the chamber doors and the crowd of assembled nobility parts before me like water. No one speaks. No one reaches out. They simply move aside, creating a clear path from the ceremonial circle to the exit.
Some press back against the walls as if I might touch them. As if what I've done is contagious.
Maybe it is.
Or maybe they're just afraid of what I've become in the space of a single cut—a vampire who destroyed her own blood bond in front of witnesses, who chose devastation over humiliation.
I walk through the parted crowd, my steps steady despite the weakness spreading through my limbs. The chamber doors loom ahead.
Behind me, I hear Diana's voice, sharp with command, calling for healers. Calling for Soren.
I don't look back.
My hand reaches for the door just as it slams open from the other side.
Sylvia stands in the doorway, her face twisted with fury. Behind her mother with an expression that mirrors Soren's sister's rage. But underneath the anger, I see something else in both their faces.
Fear.
"What have you done?" Sylvia's voice is a shriek that echoes through the corridor. "What have you done to him?"
The satisfaction that floods through me is dark and vicious and utterly consuming.
For all these years, I've been on the receiving end of their cruelty. Their mockery. Their disdain. Every cutting remark, every dismissive glance, every moment they made me feel worthless—it all surfaces now in a single, crystalline thought:
Good. Let them feel this. Let them hurt.
"What was necessary," I said quietly.
"Necessary?" The Dowager Countess moves forward, her power radiating outward like heat. "You've nearly killed him! You've destroyed a sacred bond! You've—"
"I've freed myself," I interrupt, and my voice is hollow. "That's all."
"Freed yourself?" Sylvia laughs, high and brittle. "You've destroyed yourself, you stupid, selfish bitch. You think you can just walk away from House Ravencrest? You think there won't be consequences?"
"I don't care about the consequences."
And I realize, as I say it, that it's true.
I don't care.
About consequences, about their anger, about any of it. The part of me that would have cared, that would have been afraid, died when I drew that blade across my wrist.
"Oh, you will." Sylvia's hand shoots out, grabbing my arm.
Her fingers dig into my flesh, right above the still-bleeding wound. Pain explodes up my arm but I don't cry out. Won't give her the satisfaction.
"You've humiliated our house!" Sylvia shouts, shaking me. "You've made us look weak! You've—"
"I've done exactly what you wanted!" I say, and something in my voice makes her stop. Makes her really look at me. "You wanted me gone. You wanted me erased. You've spent years making sure I knew I didn't belong here. Congratulations. You win."
For a moment, something like uncertainty flickers across her face. But then her mother steps forward, her expression hardening into cold resolve.
"You're right," the Dowager Countess says. "You don't belong here. You never did."
Her hand joins Sylvia's, gripping my other arm.
Together, they pull me forward, away from the chamber, down the corridor. I try to resist but my body won't respond properly. The Severance has left me weak, drained, barely able to stand let alone fight.
"What are you—" I start, but Sylvia cuts me off.
"Taking out the trash," she snarls.
They drag me through the estate. Past servants who quickly look away. Past guards who stand frozen, uncertain whether to intervene. The Dowager Countess's authority keeps them in place.
No one dares question her, even as they pull me roughly toward the main entrance.
My feet barely touch the ground. When I stumble, they yank me upright with bruising force. When we reach the main doors, they throw them open with a burst of power that makes the heavy wood crack against stone.
"Wait!" I manage, because suddenly I understand what they're doing.
Where they're taking me.
"You want to be free?" Sylvia hisses in my ear. "Then be free."
They drag me down the steps, across the courtyard, through the gates that mark the edge of House Ravencrest's grounds. The forest looms ahead, dark and ancient, the trees seeming to lean inward like spectators eager for blood.
"Please…" I try, but my voice is weak. Too weak.
With a final, violent shove, they throw me forward. I hit the ground hard, the impact driving the air from my lungs. Dead leaves and dirt press against my cheek. My wrist screams in agony where I've landed on it.
"You are no longer welcome in House Ravencrest," the Dowager Countess declares, her voice ringing with formal authority. "You are no longer bound to our blood. You are nothing, as you always were."
I push myself up on shaking arms, turning to face them. They stand just inside the gates, their expressions triumphant. Vindictive.
Behind them, the estate rises against the sky, every window dark.
And then I see it.
The sky to the east, beyond the trees. Not dark anymore. The faintest hint of gray bleeding into black, that particular shade that means dawn is coming.
Sunrise.
My blood runs cold—colder than it already was. Vampires and sunlight don't mix. Even the oldest, most powerful of our kind can only tolerate brief exposure.
And I'm not old. Not powerful. Not anymore, with the bond torn out of me and blood still dripping from my wrist.
"You wouldn't…" I breathe.
But Sylvia's smile says she would. She absolutely would. "Pray you find shelter before the sun finds you, mongrel."