The booming decree drove the miners and peat-cutters into an immediate scramble. Mothers dragged their children, old men limped over frozen ruts, and laborers shoved forward until a shivering herd packed the center of the common. The crimson fog thickened, staining hollow cheeks and threadbare coats in bloody hues. Zovya grabbed Valka’s small hand, her knuckles white. “Stay close, Valka. Don’t look up. Don’t speak.” A carriage, pitch-lacquered and drinking the faint light, rolled into the open ground. Its iron-shod wheels, molded with curling talon spokes, cut through the mire without a rattle. The red vapor split before the horses, revealing iron-shod hooves that left no prints in the muck. The carriage door, ornate and gleaming with obsidian, opened with a soft click. A figure emerged, stepping down as though sliding free of the murk. Drazhan. He towered over the miners, lean and angular in tailored black velvets. His skin was the color of fresh bone, stark against the dark fabric, and his lips, a cruel, precise line, were the only hint of color on his face. He stepped forward with ancient poise, his appraisal drifting across the huddle of locals with detached indifference. Zovya backed against the rotted planks of a peat shed at the edge of the grounds, drawing Valka behind her thigh. Her ribs ached from the shallow, measured breaths she forced through her teeth. Tavric, she noted, was already near the front, his face a mask of subservience, his head bowed. A traitor. Her fingers scrabbled at the peat-rich soil near her feet, scraping up clumps of dark mud. “Hold still,” she whispered to Valka, smearing the cold, grimy earth across the child’s cheeks, nose, and forehead, obscuring the pale, flawless skin that had drawn the Sovereign’s attention once before. Valka flinched, her grip digging into Zovya’s frayed wool hem without a sound. Zovya then rubbed the mud fiercely onto her own face, dulling the sharp planes of her features, hoping to look like any other malnourished, grimy human of Tarnstead. Drazhan’s gaze settled on the settlement elder, a stooped laborer named Hektor. “You lead this... collection, old man?” His voice was a silken rasp, devoid of human warmth. Hektor sagged, as if the words themselves were physical blows. “Y-yes, my Lord Sovereign. Hektor, at your service.” “Service,” Drazhan repeated, a faint, chilling amusement in his tone. “Indeed. I believe there is a stray among your livestock. A peculiar vintage. I have been informed she has... returned.” His irises, glowing like doused coals, drifted across the huddled ranks. Men bowed their necks, averting their faces toward the mud. Zovya risked a glance towards Tavric. The apothecary’s eyes, though mostly downcast, flickered briefly, almost imperceptibly, toward the shed—directly at Zovya. The gesture was practiced and deliberate. Bile rose in Zovya’s throat; the apothecary was pinpointing her. Drazhan’s head tilted slightly, as if he’d caught a faint scent. His glowing gaze sharpened, narrowing on the general vicinity of Zovya and Valka. Drazhan took a measured stride toward the woodpile, parting the clustered families. The fog seemed to part before him, revealing a narrow aisle in the packed humanity. No one dared breathe as he advanced. He stopped, not directly in front of Zovya, but a few paces to her left, where a young woman with a babe clutched to her chest whimpered. Drazhan ignored her, his eyes still scanning. Zovya trapped the air in her chest, pressing her palm flat against Valka’s small shoulder. Then, Drazhan’s crimson eyes, like twin coals, settled. Not on Zovya. On Valka. He took another step, his shadow falling over them. The air grew impossibly colder. His hand, long-fingered and pale, reached out, not roughly, but with an unnerving delicacy, and tilted Valka’s chin upward. The girl looked up at him without flinching, her expression flat, eerie, and unblinking. The mud Zovya had smeared was imperfect, a faint patch of Valka’s skin, pale as moonlight, still visible beneath the grime, just under her jawline. “Such purity,” Drazhan murmured, his voice a low, dark caress, his thumb brushing Valka’s skin. “And such a striking resemblance. The same delicate curve of the jaw. The same defiant lift of the chin. A remarkable echo of my missing treasure.” His eyes, still fixed on Valka, burned with a terrifying intensity, a possessive fire that promised an endless, inescapable grasp. “Tell me, little flower, where did you come from?” Zovya shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, muscles coiling to tackle or sprint. She braced herself, ready to snatch Valka away, to fight, to die, if necessary. But Drazhan’s attention, which had been so wholly consumed by Valka’s face, shifted. His head lifted, his stare rising from the girl's chin to meet Zovya's. The mud on her own features felt like a thin, pathetic veil. His glowing red eyes, impossibly sharp, pierced through the grime, through the pretense, through Zovya’s very soul. A slow, chilling smile, utterly devoid of warmth, stretched his lips. “Did you really think mud could hide your pulse, my love?”

The Sovereign's Gaze