Noxx's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

The hunt began tonight. Noxx stood at the top of the stairs and listened to the dining hall fill with strangers. Lola fixed the clasp of her cloak. "They came for your name, miss," the maid whispered. "Not your heart." Noxx knew that already. Her father wanted her married. These lords wanted her bloodline. She meant to find out which of them could stand beside her without flinching. She descended into the hall. Candles burned low. Count Vladimir waited near the head of the table, her father, cape pooled behind him. Beside him stood Edgar Grimshaw, the head butler, his skull-pinned coat catching the light. "The eligible lords, miss," Edgar murmured. His voice drifted like cold air through a crack. "They wait on your word." The lords watched her with careful eyes. She heard the whispers. Dracula's daughter. The dead woman's child. They feared her before she spoke. So Noxx gave them a reason. She raised one pale hand over the long table. "You fear my family," she said. "Then meet them." The candles guttered. Cold rolled across the floor. From the shadows a wraith rose, hollow-eyed and drifting, its ragged form reaching toward the gathered men. Noxx spoke to it low, in words only the dead understood. The wraith turned its skull toward the lords and moaned. Chairs scraped. A goblet shattered. The lords broke like startled birds. One shoved past another toward the door. A prince tripped on his own cape. Within moments the hall emptied, boots pounding the black stone, voices crying of dark magic. Edgar did not move. Her father's jaw tightened. Noxx lowered her hand, and the wraith sank back into shadow. The hall fell silent. She had driven off every suitor in a single breath. All but one. At the far end of the table, a man stayed seated. He wore black armor marked with skulls, and his hair was pale white and curled close. A dark sword rested against his chair. He had not flinched. He had watched. Now he stood and crossed the empty hall, slow and unafraid. "King Vesper," Edgar announced softly. "Of a kingdom beyond the veil." Vesper stopped before her. His eyes studied the spot where the wraith had been. "The others ran from the dead," he said. "I was raised among them. My father is the reaper himself. My mother screams for souls as they pass." He almost smiled. "You summon the dead. I have never feared them." Noxx's heart struck once, hard. Every lord had fled. This one remained. "Then you are the only guest left," she said. "Then choose me," Vesper answered, "or choose no one." Her father watched them both, and his smile returned. Noxx had cleared the room of every suitor who feared her. Now one suitor stood where many had. Her deadline had not changed, but her choices had narrowed to a single dark king who would not look away.