Dawit's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The last of the ruby moonlight had refined the whole store. Row after row of vials glowed in the blood machine, deeper and richer than any human vein. Dawit stood before the tall glass tanks and could not celebrate. He held one vial to the light and asked the only question left. Was this blood safe? One bad batch could sicken every soul who trusted him. "You keep staring at it," Crimson Prințesă said. She stood beside him in red, her long veil pooled on the floor. Her gift tugged at the blood in his hands, pulling it toward her without her trying. "Staring won't tell you if it's clean." "I refined it fast," Dawit said. "The stones ran dry before I could test a single dose. If the fold went wrong, I poison my own clan." Ali Gamal crossed the lab, robes bright against the dark stone. The inventor built this whole apparatus with his own hands. He knew every valve and gauge in it. He set a small brass reader against the tank and watched the needle. "You don't guess with blood," Ali said. "You measure it." He tapped the glass. "Feed one vial to my machine. It will read the fold. If the moonlight bound clean, the needle holds steady. If it soured, it drops." Dawit poured a single vial into the reader's chamber. The three of them watched the needle. It climbed, then wavered. Dawit's chest tightened. Then it settled and held, steady as stone. "Bound clean," Ali said. "But one vial is not a store." Crimson Prințesă stepped to the tank. "I can read the rest. Blood tells me its own truth." She pressed her palm flat to the cold glass. Her red eyes closed. Dawit felt the pull deepen across the whole room, every heartbeat leaning toward her. She held it a long moment, then opened her eyes. "It's whole," she said. "Every tank. The fold took the same in all of them. No sour batch. No poison." Dawit set his hand beside hers on the glass. The blood glowed back at him, steady and alive. He had feared this store would break his clan. Instead it could feed all of Walachia without a single hunt. "It's stable," he said. "We did it. We ended the thirst for human blood." Ali did not smile, but he nodded once. "Then it can't sit here in a lab." "No," Dawit said. He looked from the inventor to his lover. "A cure means nothing until the crown accepts it. We take it to Dracula's wife. And to the White Domnitor." Crimson Prințesă lifted a full vial and turned it in the orange light. "My mother's shamans died guarding this promise. Now you carry it past their graves." She pressed the vial into his hand. "Don't drop it at the throne." Dawit closed his fingers around the glass. The batch was safe. The harder test waited in the court.