The City on the Edge

Ronnie didn’t get the chance to argue or struggle before a pair of shackles were slapped around her wrists and she was pulled from her cell and jostled upstairs. Her senses left her again as the carved metal met her skin, like water flowing through her fingers and out of her grasp, no matter how desperately she tried to hold on to them.

Sunlight streamed through the corridor’s large windows, giving her a nice clear view of the grounds as she passed. Only shifters were present outside now, which surprised her. She hadn’t expected Sloan or his guards to accommodate the vampires’ need to stay out of the sun. His merciless treatment of Valerie served as proof enough that he didn’t care about turning vampires into sizzling piles of meat.

Before she could ponder what that meant, the guard shoved her through a set of polished wooden doors. She stumbled over the threshold and righted herself, looking around. A dining room, clean and proper, meant for someone of wealth, nothing like the scuffed and stained table used at home. Food had already been set on the long stretch of table that looked like it would seat at least a dozen people. Someone was already seated near the head of the table, sipping wine out of a finely cut crystal glass.

Sloan strode past Ronnie and took a seat next to the man, sitting at the head of the table. He beckoned Ronnie over but she didn’t move. She didn’t want to be here. Was she meant to have lunch with the man who was keeping her locked up in a dungeon beneath his manor?

“I don’t place much faith on your manners,” Sloan said with a tilt of his head, “but I had assumed you weren’t entirely barbaric.” Ronnie shrugged the insult off. Compared to everything else he’d called her, it was barely a scrape.

A hand took her arm, gentle and small, and led her to the table. Ronnie looked down at her helper, just a little girl. A vampire. Her dark hair fell into her face as she kept her gaze studiously on the floor and away from Sloan and his guest. Ronnie took the seat that was offered to her, the one next to Sloan and opposite the stranger. No one made a move to remove her shackles, though she had hoped they might. There were armed guards outside the room- certainly they couldn’t expect anything brash from her.

The man across from her, Sloan’s guest, let out a soft sigh. He stared at her almost fondly, if she had to place a name on his expression. He looked at her like one would a long lost treasure. Excitement gleamed in his bright blue eyes. The man looked a lot like Sloan, except his hair wasn’t as pale and his chin was bare. His wore a white jacket cut noticeably different than Sloan’s and the White Guard. A silver brooch gleamed on his lapel, engraved with a familiar design.

A letter P with an arched crown.

Ronnie swallowed and looked up at the man, whose smile widened. “Ah,” he said, his voice deep and rolling like loose stone. He raised a hand and tapped the brooch with a finger. “You know what this is, don’t you?”

Ronnie didn’t answer him. Of course she knew what that was. A coin with the same horrible history was burning in her pocket right now.

The man continued as if he didn’t expect an answer anyway. “So, this is Veronica Talos.”

A chill crawled up Ronnie’s spine, unnerved that this man, and what he represented on his lapel, knew her by name. Her full name.

The little vampire girl darted around the table, serving a thick stew into porcelain bowls. She dropped a mix of crunchy vegetables onto a dish beside each plate. When she came around to Ronnie, she moved quick, but brushed against her slightly. If she was trying to communicate something, Ronnie was lost as to what it was.

“My name is Treylan Blackburn. I’m the Supreme Justice of the Marble City. Do you know what that is?” he asked.

“Your job is to make life harder on the rest of us?” Ronnie couldn’t help the snark that spilled out. Her nerves were frayed and her temper was starting to flicker to life, a small flame heading toward an inferno.

Blackburn only laughed at her. He picked up a spoon and swirled his stew around. “It’s my job to end threats. To sniff them out and extinguish them. Think of it like putting out a campfire before it spreads to the forest.”

Sloan chuckled at the analogy. “An interesting turn of phrase. Appropriate, all things considered.”

Ronnie dropped her gaze to her plate. The stew looked good. The polished silverware sat untouched and gleaming, like everything in the human world seemed to do. It was like they lived in their own shining universe. Ronnie flexed her fingers, feeling the built up layer of dirt and pollen on her skin crack and flake with each movement. She wanted to wipe her filthy hands all over Sloan’s perfect belongings, from his spotless white tablecloth to his gleaming utensils and crystal glasses.

“You know,” Blackburn began, swallowing a mouthful of stew, “the world was beautiful once. Everything had a place and everything was in its place. There was order.”

Ronnie snorted and received a burning glare from Sloan. “Watch yourself, girl.”

“It’s quite alright, Tiberius.” Blackburn leveled a steady gaze at her. “It’s important that she understands where her kind lies in the order of the world.” With a single finger, he pushed his plate of crackers forward. They were all regular white crackers for stew. “Imagine that this dish of crackers is the world. Everything is the same. Everything is equal. Everything has its place.” He dipped into the crackers and pulled one out- slightly burnt and crisp around the edges. “Until one day, something changes and suddenly, the world no longer has order. An anomaly has appeared.” Blackburn leveled his deep gaze at her. “To fix the order, the anomaly must be removed.” He clenched his fist suddenly. The cracker crunched and crumbled in flaky bits, falling to the table in a little mess of dust and salt. “Do you understand?”

By the way her stomach churned, she understood perfectly and she didn’t like it.

“It isn’t enough to just destroy the one anomaly. We must cut off the source.We must eliminate the ones who created the source.” Blackburn leaned forward. His eyes blazed as he laced his fingers together against his chin. “So, tell me, Veronica- where is Taven Talos?”