Page 5 of His Emotional Support Snack

"I observe Vesper has already taken a liking to you." The words glide through the room in a dark, theatrical purr. "Fascinating. He usually prefers to consume human guests."

I say nothing. I keep my chin raised, meeting his terrifying stare with silent, clenched hostility. I will not cower. I will not give him the satisfaction of my fear.

The dark elf pushes off the doorframe, his strides long and unhurried as he crosses the chamber. He stops at the obsidian table. Reaching into the folds of his dark cloak, he produces a coil of metal.

He drops it onto the silver tray.

A thick, solid gold necklace hits the platter with a sharp, resounding clatter. It is a collar in everything but name. A singular, blood-red Zanthenite stone rests on the dense chain, faceted to catch the light like a fresh drop of blood.

"Put it on, little rat." He taps a long, silver-ringed finger against the red stone. "The court of Vhoig demands a performance tomorrow. You will wear the silks provided in the armoire, and you will wear this chain. It proves you belong to the Tagnadaet house. I am Lord Zuirvih Tagnadaet, and you are my property now."

My lips work, my teeth grinding together. "I belong to myself. And my name is Esmeralda. Esme. Do not call me a rat."

Zuirvih tilts his head, a dark amusement dancing in his glowing eyes. "As you wish, little rat. But in this city, a human without a master is a human without a head. You are my favored pet now. Wear the collar, or I will let my uncle’s assassins finish what they started in the Lowtown."

He turns his back on me, an infuriating display of supreme arrogance, and walks toward the archway. The shadows stretch and warp around his boots, mirroring the chaotic magic humming beneath his skin.

"The Zagfer will return at dawn to prepare you." He pauses at the threshold, glancing over his shoulder. "Do not disappoint me, little rat. Your survival, and the survival of your... son, depends entirely on how well you play your part."

The door shuts with a quiet, definitive click, leaving me alone with the beast, the boy, and the golden chain waiting on the silver tray.

4

ZUIRVIH

She does not reach for the gold.

The Zanthenite necklace rests on the silver tray between us, the blood-red gemstone catching the bruised twilight filtering through the glass archways. She stares at the collar as if a venomous viper lays coiled on the platter, her chin remaining locked at a sharp, defiant angle. A challenge issued in the dead center of my own domain.

I pause at the entrance to the chamber, my boots silent against the polished black marble. I do not leave. The game requires parameters, and this feral creature needs to understand the exact dimensions of her new cage.

"You hesitate." I fold my arms across my chest, leaning a shoulder against the stone doorframe. "Most humans from the lower tiers would cut their own throats for a single link of that chain."

"I have no use for jewelry." Her voice carries a dry, biting edge, though her knuckles burn white where she grips the child against her thigh. "It will not feed us. It will not keep the cold out."

"It will keep your head attached to your neck." I push off the stone, my strides slow and measured as I cross back into the room. The chaotic magic humming beneath my skin stretches the shadows trailing behind my boots, turning the edges of the room into a theater of dancing darkness. "Vhoig operates on a precise currency of power and possession. King Grymlock’s brother started a rather tedious trend—taking a human mistress and elevating her above the muck. The nobility has been scrambling to emulate him ever since."

I stop on the opposite side of the obsidian table. The Batlaz at her feet, Vesper, lets out a low rumble in his chest, his crimson eyes tracking my movement. He does not bare his teeth at me, but his broad, bristling body remains firmly planted between the woman and my boots. An intriguing development. The beast typically views humans as a convenient midday snack.

"You will play the part of my favored plaything." I trace the silver platter with a gloved fingertip. "It provides a flawless, unquestionable excuse for your residence in my household. More importantly, it explains the presence of a half-blood child under the roof of a Khuzuth lord. An eccentric indulgence of mine, nothing more."

She bristles, the muscles in her slender arms pulling taut. "He is not an indulgence. He is my son."

The fierce, unyielding conviction in her tone sparks a dark thrill in my chest. A mother’s desperate roar trapped in the body of an ownerless laborer. Humans brought into the high-tier estates usually break within the first hour. They weep. They grovel. They press their foreheads to the marble and beg for table scraps. This one stands amid wealth she cannot comprehend, wearing salt-stained rags, and bares her teeth at the master of the house.

"A convenient narrative." I tilt my head, allowing a slow, mocking smirk to stretch across my face. "My late brother possessed a tragic weakness for strays. You claim the boy sprang from your womb. I find the biological logistics of a Khuzuth lord mating with a starving dock-rat unlikely, but your devotion is... entertaining."

"I am his mother." She steps forward, putting herself between the boy and the table, ignoring the snarl of the Batlaz as she invades its space. "I raised him. I hid him. I will not let you parade us around as your property just to satisfy your sick political games."

A hook of pure, blinding agony catches beneath my ribs.

The breath stalls in my lungs, trapped behind a sudden barricade of seizing muscle. The poison awakens. It creeps outward from my decaying magical core, a necrotic fire turning the blood in my chest to boiling pitch. The pain is a living, jagged thing, tearing through my chest cavity and crawling upward toward my throat. My fingers twitch against the silver tray. Black veins press against the inner lining of my skin, a putrid map of my impending death.

I pivot sharply, turning my back to her.

I force my posture to remain upright, my shoulders locked in an arrogant sweep as I stride toward the crystal decanters resting on a side table. The silence stretches, taut as a bowstring, broken only by the boy’s muffled whimpers and the wind whistling softly against the massive glass panes.

With a dangerously unsteady hand, I pull the stopper from a bottle of Zhisk. The amber liquid sloshes against the sides of a cut-glass goblet. I lift the rim to my lips and swallow the burning liquor in one long draught. The spiced alcohol acts as a momentary solvent, numbing the sharpest edges of the internal decay, but the weakness remains.