Origins of Blood Chapter 8: Chapter 7: Disguise

Read chapter 8 of Origins of Blood by Bloody_Potato on NovelPedia.

Aston’s POV—Blue Blood “Begins a rose’s withering, others in the bouquet will follow; so cut it, even if they are beloved.” On the Day of False Gods—the fifth day of the week—Aston sits in a carriage, heading to his appointment with Arthur von Löwenherz. My hands are encased in silk glacé gloves, their color mirroring (like the rest of my attire) Helios . As the rhythmic gallop of horses echoes through the streets, I read the Elisian Times about the rising conflict between Kingdom Nigil and Zentria, with Nigil having taken another False God under its sway and stop reading there. “My Lord,” says my butler, pulling me from my trance—a single shake of my head sends a strand of hair tumbling forward. “Yes?” I am lost in thought but push my hair back as my brows arch. “Coming.” Wasting no breath, my steps ring out against the fog-laden street, and the people—dressed in linen shirts and simple trousers from shades of beige to black, the finest garments they own—stare at me, at the royal blue masterpiece of a carriage, adorned with gold. The coachman, clad as elegantly as the horses he guides, strokes their manes with quiet reverence. I understand their envy. If I were in their shoes, I do not know if I would be disparate. But the greed … the greed that compels them to stain their hands red for a sliver of wealth … is something I cannot abide. My steps remain steady as I shrug off my silk vest, white with blue, green, and orange roses embroidered along the edges, and drape it over my butler’s waiting arm. He stands at my side, clad in a deeper shade of blue, allowing me to shine like a star. Kayl is old now, black hair streaked with silver, his wrinkles edging towards navy—unlike most men of his age, he wears no mustache. I walk on the remnants of last night’s snow and click my tongue every fifth step. Their envy twists into a smile—wilted, like a dying flower. Towering spires cast long shadows, exuding a quiet dominance, and Kayl halts as I lift my hand in an idle gesture. He is a good man—an honest one, loyal; moreover, devoted to his work. A smile finds its way on my lips as he retreats to the carriage. No doubt he will sit there, smoothing the creases from my vest, stealing anxious glances toward the entrance, ready to retrieve me at a moment’s notice—as if he were a golden retriever awaiting its master … a good man indeed. I face the grand sign hanging above an even grander building in the heart of this promenade, the very core of the capital, Denklin, and the modest Kingdom of Zentria itself: The Heart of Cultural Delicacies. Exhaling deeply, I walk past my reflection in a glass façade—a new face appears. I glance at her, puzzled, but say nothing. She holds the door open, clad in the warm orange uniform of a porter, her hair blonde. The tremor in my knees vanishes as I see familiar faces. “Where … is Alex?” I say, looking back at the Red standing amid the cold with a tilted poise. “ Helios burned him.” I remain silent … only stare at the boy whose skin peels with brownish moles as thick as raisins, and a kind of rash consuming his flesh. Three others, two of them cleaning the furniture of the entrance (the other standing ready to take off the guests’ vests), look no different, even worse. The staff is red in blood—a novelty, but short-lived, as every single one cannot live longer than a decade before dying from Helios’s light. Perhaps, because of that, we exploit and enslave them, for they have no deity, the only blood without an origin. I sigh and walk upstairs, bidding farewell to William, the boy whose face dies from the inside. Do they not deserve such fate, for they have done everything we do now? They made war, enslaved their own kind, animals. So why … why do I pity them? Because an exception exists? For they are now the animals, working in labor, breeding for exploitation, being slaughtered for food and entertainment? I do not know, and perhaps, I will never. The feeling is obscure, as if a sozzled puppeteer were pu