"It’s not working!" Bovan blurted, his voice sharp with frustration as he stared down at the row of crimson vials lining the table.
The liquid inside caught the lamplight in a way that made it almost beautiful—if one forgot it was the product of slaughter. He could feel the heavy, simmering presence of Collet beside him, the vampire’s temper like a storm about to break.
Savira might have been the overall head of their entire division, but Collet was second only to her in authority—and that made his presence here far more dangerous. The fact that he of all people had been called into this experiment room was irritating enough. The fact that he was now under direct scrutiny was worse.
Do I look like someone who deals with monster remains and half-rotted organs? Bovan thought with a grimace, his eyes flicking to the scattered fragments of scale and sinew still laid out on the far end of the table. He fought the urge to wrinkle his nose. He didn’t want to be anywhere near this, especially if Collet reported back to Zyren. When that happened, everyone who failed was remembered.
"Clearly! Do I look blind to you?" Collet snapped, his voice cracking like a whip through the air. His red eyes burned with impatience, and the taut lines in his pale face deepened.
Bovan flinched instinctively, shaking his head so quickly it nearly jarred his neck. He wanted—needed—to take a step back, to get some breathing space from that piercing gaze, but didn’t dare. Collet moved closer instead, crowding into his space as if to prove he could.
"Pour the silver into it," Collet ordered, each word clipped. "Let’s see if it has a reaction. At the very least, we’ll know whether it can be tested on humans."
That logic was sound in the simplest sense—silver didn’t harm humans, which made it a reliable tool for distinguishing Zygons from the untainted. But Bovan wasn’t convinced. His fingers itched with the knowledge that this was a wasted step.
Still, he obeyed. He uncorked the small flask of powdered silver and tipped a careful measure into the vial. The delicate particles swirled into the dark red fluid like a cloud of shimmering dust. He waited, almost willing the mixture to fizz, to curdle, to do something.
The silver sank to the bottom and lay there, inert.
Bovan’s lips pressed into a thin line. He shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet the disappointment still prickled in his chest. They had been at this for days—ever since the first human-Zygon hybrid had rampaged through the food hall, tearing through its victims in an orgy of violence that still haunted his dreams.
"Nothing," he murmured, his voice low, unwilling to meet Collet’s eyes. He didn’t need to see the man’s expression to know it was dangerous.
Collet’s jaw tightened. His pale hands curled into fists at his sides, the faint twitch of his temple betraying just how close he was to unleashing the fury simmering under his skin.
"Try—try gold. And bronze," Collet said finally. This time, Bovan could hear it: the faint edge of doubt creeping into his tone. For all his arrogance, Collet didn’t believe this would work either.
Bovan followed the order anyway. He measured out flakes of gold first, watching as they sank like tiny coins through thick liquid. Then the bronze, heavier, duller. Neither made the slightest difference. The vial remained the same unyielding shade of deep red, stubborn in both color and texture.
Collet’s eyes narrowed. He looked like a man gripping the edges of his temper with both hands, trying to keep from letting it rip free. The silence between them was thick, pressing in from all sides, broken only by the faint scrape of Bovan setting the flask back on the table.
Bovan could almost hear Collet’s thoughts: There must be something. Something we’re missing. The vampire’s gaze kept darting to the other worktables, to the scattered tools, to the other healers hunched over their own vials and charts as though the answer might materialize if he looked hard enough.
The quiet shattered with a sharp, deliberate knock. The sound echoed across the cavernous experiment hall, sharp as a blade strike. Then came a voice—calm, controlled, carrying the weight of authority.
"The King has arrived."
Collet froze. His red eyes blazed brighter, the color sharpening like a fresh wound, while his skin seemed to drain of what little warmth it had. The reaction was instinctive, not fear exactly, but something colder—an awareness of power.
Bovan felt the air leave his lungs in a rush. He had hoped—prayed—that Zyren’s arrival wouldn’t happen on his watch. That he’d be long gone before the king decided to check on their progress. Fate had apparently decided otherwise.
Around the room, the other healers reacted instantly. Papers were abandoned mid-notation. Hands stilled in the act of pouring or measuring. One by one, they bent low at the waist, eyes fixed firmly to the floor. It didn’t matter if they were human, vampire, or something else—no one looked at Zyren without leave.
The door swung open on silent hinges, and the hush in the room deepened into something almost unnatural. The sound of boots striking stone was steady, deliberate. Bovan caught the faintest glimpse from the corner of his eye—the heavy fall of black fabric, the gleam of polished leather, the dark sweep of Zyren’s signature cloak.
No one dared breathe too loudly. The tension settled over them like a suffocating blanket, pressing against skin and bone alike.
Collet bowed lower than the rest, his shoulders rigid, his gaze locked on the floor. The movement seemed almost exaggerated, as though he were determined to appear the most obedient man in the room. Zyren’s boots halted in front of him, the sound of his presence heavier than the silence.
"Report," Zyren said. The word was loud, clear, utterly devoid of emotion.
Bovan swore he could hear Collet’s heartbeat.
"King Zyren," Collet began, his tone carefully measured. "We..."
He hesitated, and the slight pause was enough to make every other healer stiffen. Bovan’s fingers curled against his thigh. He wanted to cut in, to correct Collet, to prevent him from making them sound like a single failing unit, but the thought of speaking unbidden in front of Zyren was unthinkable.
"We are still searching for the reaction," Collet said finally, rushing now. "The transformation is at the most basic level." His words tumbled out faster than intended, as though if he stopped, Zyren might cut him off—or cut him down.
"We..." he began again, only to falter slightly before pressing on. "We have determined that the beasts carry cores—similar to those found in the Dark Forest. Magic cores. But we have yet to determine their function or how it integrates with the host."
The word we landed like a hammer in the quiet. It was deliberate. If Collet fell, he clearly intended to take everyone else down with him.
Zyren’s head tilted slightly, though his face remained unreadable. "This is the entirety of your team?"
Collet nodded instantly.
Bovan’s stomach dropped. He had only been asked to look—to consult briefly, to offer a few technical observations. He was human. Most of the others here were vampires with decades, even centuries, of practice in alchemical experimentation. Yet in this moment, he was no different from them in the king’s eyes.
He could feel Zyren’s gaze slide toward him like a blade tracing the back of his neck. The sensation was so heavy, so present, that Bovan found himself lowering his head even further, almost willing himself into invisibility.
"You all seem healthy," Zyren said at last, his voice dropping into something quieter—and far more dangerous. "Especially the humans. You clearly aren’t taking this seriously."
The words struck like the final judgment of a trial. Bovan’s breath hitched in his throat.
Zyren’s tone sank lower still. "Maybe," he said, almost musingly, "all of you have shape-shifted. Maybe you have become Zygons. Perhaps that is why there has been no result."
A tremor passed through the gathered healers. No one dared speak. Without a way to prove their innocence, Zyren could slaughter every one of them where they stood, and the court would not only allow it—they would applaud.
The silence was suffocating now, thick with the unspoken truth: prove him wrong, or risk losing your head before the day was out.
"I will not tolerate delay," Zyren continued, stopping just short of the central table. His gaze lingered on the vial of stubborn red liquid as if it had personally insulted him. "If you cannot prove what you are, then I have no reason to assume you’re not already compromised."
"If you need people to experiment on then you will have them in more numbers than you can comprehend!"
"However!" a clear warning followed.
"The next time I come here and there is still no report or advancement! I’ll carve all of you up to ensure that I don’t have monsters in vampire skin working for me!"
"Starting from you Collet!" Zyrrn warned before turning around and leaving the room.