The growling of Liana’s stomach forced her to venture out into the night. The hunger that had coiled inside her since afternoon felt as though it were slicing her stomach to pieces. She needed carbohydrates—or at least a piece of dry bread—to stop the painful throbbing in her chest. After pulling on an oversized sweater and whatever fabric pants she could find, the girl slipped out of the dormitory room.
The stone corridors of Nocturne Academy looked far more menacing beneath the moonlight streaming through the tall windows. The smell of wet earth and old stone hung heavily in the air. Liana tried to remember the directions one of the senior servants had given her yesterday. The main kitchen, she had said, was on the lowest floor, past the spiral staircase at the end of the east wing.
Yet the farther Liana went, the colder and damper the air became. Her footsteps echoed softly across the dull marble floor. She descended one stone step after another, each growing steeper as it plunged farther underground. The walls around her were no longer decorated with oil paintings in gold frames, but with bare chunks of black stone.
“The door should be just past this turn,” Liana murmured. Her hand brushed against the stone wall, which felt as cold as ice.
She turned at a dimly lit three-way junction. Instead of finding the scent of cooking or billowing kitchen smoke, a strange smell stabbed at her nose. A thick sweetness clashed with the intensely pungent scent of burning iron. Liana’s throat suddenly felt dry on instinct.
Rather than finding the kitchen door, Liana discovered herself standing on a hidden balcony concealed behind faded maroon velvet curtains. A warm, dim light glowed beyond them. Curiosity mingled with unease, urging her to part the heavy fabric just a little.
Below, a vast hall with curved stone walls spread out before her. It appeared to be a private banquet room. A thick red carpet covered the stone floor, and a massive teak table stretched across the center of the room, crowded with tall candles burning faintly.
Liana held her breath. There were about six young people down there. They all wore aristocratic robes trimmed with gold—the uniforms of Nocturne’s upper-class clans, which always looked elegant in the daytime. They were laughing quietly and conversing in measured, composed tones.
But Liana’s gaze locked immediately onto the figure slumped in the middle of the room. A girl in a gray servant’s dress lay limp in a wooden chair. Her head lolled to the side, her face as pale as paper, her half-open eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
A handsome blond young man in an immaculate robe stepped toward the servant. With a graceful movement that was almost poetic, he lifted an intricately carved silver goblet. Thick red liquid pooled inside it, gleaming beneath the candlelight. The young man took a slow sip, letting a drop of the red liquid trickle down and wet the corner of his lips.
“The quality is fairly consistent this year,” the blond young man said. His voice was silky, carrying the unmistakable tone of pure aristocracy. “Not too salty, with a hint of sweetness at the end.”
A red-haired girl beside him gave a soft chuckle. “Of course. She only arrived from the northern region two months ago. Her body hasn’t been too contaminated by the academy’s processed food yet.”
The red-haired girl then approached the limp servant. Without hesitation, she tilted the servant’s neck to one side.
Liana’s heart felt as though it had leaped out of her chest. Behind the red-haired girl’s smiling, thin lips, two long, pointed fangs slowly emerged. They gleamed sharply in the dim candlelight.
Crk.
The girl drove her fangs into the servant’s neck without hesitation. The slumped servant could only let out the faintest moan, almost a whisper of resigned pain. There was no resistance, no scream. The red-haired girl drank with evident pleasure for several seconds before pulling her head back and wiping her lips with a silk handkerchief.
Fresh blood dripped in a thin stream from the servant’s neck, falling into the silver goblet held by another student beside her. They collected it. They drank it like a gathering of nobles enjoying afternoon tea in a garden.
Liana clutched her violently trembling chest. Her legs shook so badly that her knees felt ready to give out.
This wasn’t a dramatic performance. It wasn’t a stage-magic effect or some theatrical ritual like the ones she had read about in the student-admission brochure. The red liquid in the silver goblets was real human blood. And the lavishly dressed people below weren’t merely rich students behaving strangely.
They were monsters. They were predators.
Wild panic seized Liana’s entire mind. Her rational thoughts urged her to turn around immediately and run as far as possible from that nauseating place. She slowly backed away, trying not to make the slightest sound on the balcony floor.
Click.
In the dim darkness of the balcony, the heel of Liana’s shoe bumped into a small ceramic flower vase displayed on a side table. The vase shifted a few inches, producing an ear-splitting scrape of ceramic against stone in the silence of the hall.
The conversation and laughter below stopped instantly.
The atmosphere transformed into terrifying silence. Liana froze in place, her breath caught in her throat.
The blond young man holding the silver goblet slowly raised his head, staring straight at the balcony where Liana was hiding. His eyes, which had been a clear blue, had now completely transformed into an intense, glowing red in the darkness.