Chapter 18 | Family Chains | Leah
I'm heading back to Ashen Row this weekend.
Don't want to, but I have to. Mom sent a message to the academy saying my brother Gareth needs a new blood-rune coat and told me to bring money home.
The message came through the academy gate's reception office, a crumpled note with just one line, the handwriting messy like she was in a rush.
I don't have any money, but I can't not go back.
If I don't, she'll come straight to the academy.
She'd do it. She'd stand at the academy gates, curse me out in front of everyone, humiliate me, make me a joke—just like she did when I was little.
The air in Ashen Row is still the same.
Rotting water, mold, sewage smell, all mixed into something sickeningly sweet.
Every breath feels like swallowing dirty water. The wooden houses along the street lean to one side, like a row of drunks propping each other up.
The wooden walls are covered in patches of black mold, like some slowly spreading disease. I walk past the tilting houses and muddy streets, my pant legs splattered with muddy water, sticky against my ankles.
At the street corner, a stray shade-hound digs through garbage, glances up at me, then goes back to scavenging.
Shade-hounds are descendants of bloodkind-wolf hybrids, abandoned and left to survive at the bottom. It and I, we're both creatures on the edge of this world.
When I get home, another patch of paint has peeled off the door frame, exposing the rotting wood underneath, like a decaying face.
There's a new scratch on the door panel, from the drunk neighbor kicking it last night.
This kind of thing happens every month.
I push the door open. Mom is sitting at the table mending clothes.
Her fingers move through the needle and thread, the movements practiced and mechanical. Her fingers are rough, the joints swollen, marks of years of hard work.
She looks up at me, her gaze sliding from my scarf and then back to her needlework, like I'm just a messenger.
"Money?" she asks, her voice flat.
"I don't have any money."
"Scholarship?"
"Used it for textbooks."
She puts down her needlework and looks at me. I know that look well, I've seen it since I was a kid. Not anger, but a cold disappointment, like looking at a useless tool, an investment that should pay off but keeps losing money. Her eyes are honey-brown like mine, but without any light, just exhaustion and calculation.
"Then why did you come back?"
"To see you."
"See me?" Her mouth twitches, not a smile, a twisted expression. "Your brother is going through his awakening period, he needs nutrition. Your father works at the docks, his back is injured. Every coin in this house has to be spent on the blade. You're doing just fine at the academy, not even caring about home."
I want to argue back, but my throat tightens. She's always like this. Whatever I say or do, it's wrong. Because I'm Nullblood, because I haven't awakened a bloodline ability, because I'm the family's extra. The daughter who doesn't exist in Dad's eyes, the disappointing child in Mom's words.
"I'll find a way," I say.
"What way?" Her voice rises, carrying that scalp-tingling sharpness. "You think I don't know what you're doing at the academy? Hanging around with noble students, thinking you can become a noble? Let me tell you, you're Nullblood for life. Wearing that collar, wherever you go."
Her words are knives, but knives I'm used to. I've heard them countless times since I was a kid. But this time, something is different. Maybe because the mark disappeared, maybe because of the changes in my body, maybe because Kael's training taught me to stop hunching my shoulders.
"I know I'm Nullblood," I say, my voice steadier than I expected, like bamboo finally refusing to bend. "But I'm also an Arcanum student. I tested in on my own ability."
Mom freezes. She probably never expected me to talk back.
In her mind, I should lower my head, bite my lip, apologize, then work, then stay silent.
But I didn't.
"Ability?" Her voice gets sharper, like shattered glass scraping slate. "What ability? You can't even use blood-magic."
"I can mix remedies," I say. "I can memorize advanced arcana formulas. I can—"
"Enough." She cuts me off. "Go to the kitchen and cook. Your brother will be back soon."
I shut my mouth and walk into the kitchen. The pot on the stove is already rusted. I wipe it with my sleeve and start cutting vegetables. The knife hits the cutting board with rhythmic thuds. The sound calms me a little, like a familiar lullaby.
Gareth comes back while I'm cooking kelpblood soup. He's sixteen, going through his awakening period, his scent starting to become unstable, like a kettle about to boil. He looks at me, his eyes holding something complicated. Not Mom's contempt, not Dad's indifference, something I can't quite name... sympathy? Understanding?
"Sis," he calls out, his voice low.
"Yeah."
"How's the academy?"
"Fine."
He stands at the kitchen door, hesitating, his fingers gripping the door frame. "I heard," he says, his voice even lower, "the Adjudicators got a new Prince instructor."
My hand stops on the knife. The blade hangs in mid-air, half-cut wild vegetables scattered on the board.
"Yeah."
"He... treats you well?"
I turn to look at him. Gareth's eyes hold something startling. He knows. Or he's guessed. Or he's smelled my sweetness.
"Why are you asking this?"
"Because," he lowers his head, not daring to meet my eyes, "your scent changed. It has sweetness. I can smell it... sis, did you... with that Prince..."
The blood drains from my face. The knife slips from my hand and falls to the floor with a dull thud. I stare at Gareth, his face blurs in my vision for a moment, then clears.
He knows. He actually knows.
Outside, the neighbors' arguing and a child's crying mix with the stench from the sewers. This is my home, my roots, the iron chain I can't break no matter how far I walk.