Red Through Blue (2)

When the meal ends, Aston waits until the others leave before rising. The moment stretches. Then finally, I’m outside—on the streets.

I walk. Or rather, he walks, and I go along for the ride.

Before I move too far, I reflect. These people. This place. It’s so far removed from where I was first captured. The filth, the stench, the screaming—gone. Replaced with manicured streets, smooth stone, and gold-embellished buildings that glisten beneath towering lights.

Blues walk past me. No—not past me. Past him.

They don't recognize the difference.

And maybe... maybe even I’m forgetting it too.

Who am I? This body walks like theirs. Stiff posture, frozen expressions. No wrinkle of joy. No crease of pain. A sea of blank masks.

But I watch. My eyes—his eyes—scan their faces. Some are handsome. Some aren't. There are big noses, large bodies, crooked features—exceptions to their elegance. But overall, they’re too perfect. Too sterile. And far more refined than the blues I’ve seen on the sewerage, or the ones I’ve killed.

In my peripheral vision, I catch the occasional smile.

But they’re never for each other.

No. Those small, rare smirks curve only when their eyes fall on reds. On humans. On my people.

Slaves. Broken toys.

Children, too young to understand what's being taken from them, shackled and paraded like animals. And blue children—smiling at them. Laughing. Delighting in cruelty.

That’s when it hits me.

Hatred.

True and vile.

But again—is it mine? Or his?

Is this Aston’s contempt, bleeding into me? Or is It mine?

I don’t know. I just know it burns now.

Ding!

I’m too focused on the periphery—on the strange blurs at the end of my sight—that I forget what lies directly ahead.

When this body takes three steps forward, I finally notice them. People. Dozens. All kinds. Every pair of lips I see is blue, polished like sapphire stone. Except for two—two red. My kind. Their color stands out like a wound. I freeze, or rather, Aston does, just long enough to let me realize we’ve stepped into what looks like a bar. A dull chime marks our entry.

Then the scent hits me. Sweat. Liquor. Drunken breath. A sticky, raw humidity that clings to the skin like second flesh. He walks deeper in—big, long strides, the kind only a nobleman would have the nerve to take in a place like this. Heads turn. Shoulders stiffen. Eyes narrow. Everyone here looks rugged, rough, and stained by life. And yet he—I—we shine like a polished coin dropped into the mud.

Aston. A noble. That much I know. He looked at himself earlier, during the carriage ride, inspecting his reflection in the mirror embedded in the cabin’s velvet wall. Blonde hair, sleek. Eyes blue like mine. And handsome—sharper features than I ever had, even before being dragged into this godforsaken hell.

I hate to admit it, but he looks... better. Stronger. Cleaner. Whole.

Still, I haven’t grown used to this body. I feel too connected to it. The lines blur. Sometimes I forget who’s walking. Who’s breathing. Who’s speaking.

“One Avelorian scotch,” I—he—we say, voice cool and clear, “with a straw. Extra liquor.”

The barkeep is a woman with skin like ice, lips tinted blue, eyes in a near-violet hue that seem to pierce through skin. Her dark blonde hair falls over her shoulders in perfect waves. She squints sideways, lips twitching.

“Follow me,” she says.

The room, already tense, becomes still. Every pair of eyes locks on us. Glasses are raised again, more out of habit than comfort. I can feel them watching. Judging. Measuring. Then one of them whistles—a shrill, taunting note that breaks the silence like a blade on glass.

My jaw tightens. Teeth grind together.

But this body—Aston—doesn’t break pace. We follow her into the back.

My head begins to throb. A migraine blooms like rot behind my eyes. Not sharp, but there. Persistent. I can feel the tension ripple beneath the skin, clawing its way inward as we step into the next room.

No sunlight here. Only candles.

The woman drifts across the dark wood floor with elegance, her silhouette moving like shadow over flame. She pours a drink, lips still, as I scan the space.

Then a voice cuts through the silence like a whisper crawling up my spine.

“You’re finally here.”

It’s familiar. Uncomfortably so. Like something I should remember but can't place.

The presence is thick. The air hums.

My gaze follows the voice to its source—a man sitting by the dim light, half-hidden in flickering gold. He’s burning paper between his fingers, watching the flames curl with a wry smile stretched across a scarred face.

I don’t recognize him. But Aston does.

And somehow... I feel like I do too.

Beside him, three men lounge in silence. Two women as well. Eight of us, in total. Six men. Two women. All of them watching. Silent. Still. Their eyes glow unnaturally—two in green, two in orange—and only one pair mirrors mine: Arthur’s. The man who spoke.

Aston knows them. His pulse spikes.

My heart feels like it stops.