The bristles of the brush scraped across the gray stone, tearing a sharp, ragged sound from the silence of the hall. The water in the bucket had long since turned into an icy slush, smelling of lye and old grime. Her knees, protected only by the thin fabric of her rags, were numb from the cold of the tiles.
"A stain remains."
Garret's shadow fell over Alina, stretching across the wet floor like an ugly blotch. He stood too close—his heavy boot frozen an inch from her fingers.
"I'll fix it right away. I'll just go over it one more time..."
"You've 'gone over it' three times already," Garret stepped on the edge of her rag, pinning it to the stone. "Are you mocking me? Do you think I don't see how you're stalling for time?"
"No, Master Overseer. It's just stubborn wax from yesterday's candles."
"You call me Master, yet your hands are as lazy as an overfed bitch's."
Garret brought his foot down sharply. The iron-shod toe of his boot slammed into Alina's knuckles. There was a dry crunch. Alina didn't scream—she only sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, clutching her damaged hand to her chest.
"Look at me."
Alina did not raise her head. Her gaze was fixed on the toes of his boots, which were splattered with soapy suds.
"Eyes on me, I said!"
"Forgive me. I'll redo everything right now. I'll scrub it until it shines."
"You'll scour this stone until your nails peel off," he leaned over her again, reeking of sour ale and tobacco. "If I see even one gray shadow here by lunch, you'll forget about dinner for a week. And maybe sleep, too."
Garret kicked the empty bucket with force. It went clattering across the hall, splashing the remnants of dirty water over the section she had just finished cleaning.
"Start over. From the very beginning, from the doors."
He turned and marched toward the exit, his steps rhythmic and heavy. Alina watched his broad back retreat. The fingers on her right hand began to throb, swelling with a heavy, searing pain.
"Hey."
Liam appeared at the entrance. The messenger paused, steadying himself—the bucket he carried was filled to the brim with clean water. He looked at Garret, waited until he vanished into the corridor, and only then approached Alina.
"Here. While it's fresh."
He set the bucket down in front of her. Alina stared silently at her reflection in the shimmering water. Liam crouched down, bringing himself level with her face.
"Your hand is bleeding."
"It'll pass."
"He's taking his anger out on you because the Blood Moon is near. All of them are... not themselves right now."
Alina finally raised her eyes. Liam didn't look away. For a moment, the world around them—the cold hall, the smell of dampness, the fear—ceased to exist. Alina saw in his pupils the same thing she saw every morning in the cracked mirror of her cell. A dark rim around the iris, a strange golden glint that they both hid so carefully behind lowered eyelids.
"We have the same look," she whispered, frightened by her own words.
"Don't speak of it. Never."
"Do you feel it too? The Moon?"
Liam stood up abruptly, glancing toward the empty galleries of the second floor.
"I brought the water. I can't help with anything else. Work, Alina. If he comes back and sees us talking..."
"I know. Thank you."
Liam nodded and quickly vanished into the shadows of the columns as if he had never been there. Alina dipped her rag into the clean water. The cold slightly dulled the pulsing in her broken fingers.
"Did he catch you again?"
Ella appeared from a side passage, carrying a stack of clean linens. She walked up to Alina, glancing around with that specific expression that always promised either gossip or questionable advice.
"Just an accident."
"Accidents don't wear size twelve boots and smell of booze," Ella sat on the edge of a long oak table. "You need to be craftier. You should have smiled at him, told him how strong and important he is. Then maybe your fingers would still be whole."
"I don't know how to do that, Ella."
"But you know how to scrub floors for days on end. A dubious achievement. Have you heard what they're whispering in the kitchen?"
"I don't have time for whispers."
"You should make time. They say the ceremony will be special this time. The Moon is turning red faster than usual. The Elders are whispering that there won't be enough sacrifices."
The rag in Alina's hands stopped moving. She slowly raised her head.
"What are you talking about? There have always been enough. They bring them from the villages..."
"The villages are empty, dear. Plague, famine—half the people fled to the southern lands. This time, the Blood Moon will demand its own. Those who are already in the castle."
"That's impossible. We are servants. We are the pack's property."
"That's exactly why we're the easiest to give up," Ella leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "If the choice falls on one of the 'highborn,' a massacre over the inheritance will break out. But us? Who will remember us? We're just dirt under their fingernails."
"Stop it. You're just trying to scare me."
"I want you to open your eyes! Look at your hands. You're already halfway in the grave from this work. Does it really matter if you die of consumption in a cell or on the altar?"
"There is a difference," Alina wrung out the rag with force. "In my cell, I'll die on my own. On the altar... I don't want them to see my fear."
"They see it anyway. Your fear is their favorite dessert."
Ella straightened up, adjusting her stack of linens. For a moment, her face lost its mask of sympathy, becoming cold and calculating.
"You know," she added as she began to walk away. "Yesterday, I saw how Garret was looking at you. Not like a floor-scrubber. He was evaluating you. Like a trader evaluates a carcass before the slaughter."
"Go away, Ella. Please."
"Suit yourself. Just don't say I didn't warn you later."
Left alone, Alina tried to focus on the monotonous movements. Back and forth. Back and forth. But Ella's words pierced her brain like splinters. "The Blood Moon will demand its own." She imagined a red disc hanging over the castle spires. The air saturated with the smell of blood and wild, untamed magic that forced the beasts inside the masters to wake up.
On the edge of the table sat a silver chalice, left by one of the lords after the night's revelry. A bit of wine still sloshed inside, dark and thick. Alina reached for it, deciding to clear it from the table before Garret found a new reason to scream.
Her fingers failed her. Her broken hand jerked from a sharp flash of pain. The silver slipped through her palm.
The clang of the chalice hitting the stone floor sounded like a landslide to Alina. The silver cup bounced, leaving a blood-red puddle of wine on the light stone.
"Oh gods... no..."
She lunged toward the stain, feverishly trying to wipe the wine with her rag. But the red liquid seemed to soak into the pores of the stone, leaving a dark, ominous trail.
"What do we have here?"
Garret didn't enter—he materialized from the shadows of the doorway. His steps were silent, like a predator's.
"I... I just wanted to move the chalice. It slipped."
"Slipped?" he approached the puddle, looking down. "You spilled wine. The Alpha is dining in this hall tonight. You've defiled his place with your clumsiness."
"I'll clean it all up, Master Garret. Look, it's already coming off..."
Alina began to scrub the spot frantically, not noticing that blood was seeping from her broken knuckles again, mixing with the wine and the soap suds.
"Enough!"
Garret grabbed her by the collar of her dress and hauled her to her feet with a single jerk. The fabric groaned. Alina found herself face-to-face with the overseer. She could see every pore on his flushed face, feel his heavy, hot breath.
"Look at what you've done. You are a non-entity. You can't even wash a floor without destroying something valuable."
"Forgive me..." Alina's voice broke into a whisper.
"Forgive you?" Garret snarled. "Do you think your apologies will wash the stone?"
He swung. Alina closed her eyes, pulling her head into her shoulders. The blow caught her on the cheek. White flame erupted in her head; her ears rang. She was sent reeling, her hip hitting the edge of the table hard before she slid to the floor.
The world blurred. The taste of blood in her mouth was salty and metallic.
"Get up," Garret growled.
Alina tried to push herself up, but her palms slipped on the spilled wine.
"Get up, bitch!"
He grabbed her by the hair, forcing her head back. The pain in her scalp was so sharp it brought tears to her eyes. Garret leaned down to her very ear. His voice was quiet now, almost tender, which made the terror feel icy.
"Your place is in the dirt, Alina. You were born in it, and you'll die in it. Do you know why Ella is so restless? Because the replacement list is already drawn up. And your name is at the top."
He shoved her away. Alina fell face-first onto the wet stone, right into the mixture of wine and dirty water she had been trying to scrub away.
"You have an hour to make this hall shine," Garret spat, heading for the exit. "If not—you'll spend the next night in the pit. And from there, the road to the altar is much shorter."
The door slammed shut with a heavy thud, the echo wandering beneath the vaulted ceiling for a long time.
Alina lay motionless. The cold of the stone seeped through her clothes, crawling under her skin and soaking into her bones. She saw her hands—red, swollen, stained with wine that now looked to her like a harbinger of her own blood.
"Replacement..." escaped her broken lips.
Helplessness covered her like a heavy shroud. She was alone in this vast, cold castle, surrounded by predators waiting only for the moment the Moon became red enough.
Somewhere deep inside, beneath layers of years of submission, something foreign stirred. A brief, almost intangible glimmer of rage, as golden as the glint in Liam's eyes. But it was immediately extinguished under the weight of fear.
Alina reached slowly for the brush. Her fingers wouldn't obey, her body trembled from the shock, but the survival instinct beaten into her by years of abuse drove her forward.
"I must... wash the floor..." she wheezed.
She got back on her knees. The grating of the bristles against the stone resumed. Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.
Every sound echoed in her head like a hammer blow. Through the tall windows, the sky was becoming grayer, heavier. The Blood Moon had not yet risen, but its presence was already felt in every breath, in every shadow lurking in the corners of the Great Hall.
Alina scrubbed the stone, feeling no pain in her hands. She saw only the red trail that refused to disappear. It was as if the castle had already begun to drink her life, drop by drop, piece by piece, preparing a place for that great and terrible ceremony from which she had nowhere to run.
"I don't want to die..." she whispered into the void of the hall.
The walls did not answer. Only a cold draft stirred the heavy tapestries depicting wolves tearing at their prey. And Alina knew—in this castle, cries for help always drowned in the silence of indifferent stone. She was merely a replacement. A void that would soon be filled with someone else's will and someone else's death.
She kept scrubbing until her own tears mixed with the dirty water on the floor. But even they could not wash away what had already been predestined. The dirt remained dirt, and fear was the only thing keeping her alive on this dim morning, saturated with the foreboding of the end.
The brush moved rhythmically, as if counting down the seconds until the sun disappeared behind the horizon and the sky turned the color of spilled wine. Alina closed her eyes, imagining not a cold cell, but a forest. Dark, wild, free. But when she opened them, there was only the gray stone and Garret's shadow, which seemed to have permanently taken root in the hall.
"Your place is in the dirt..." echoed in her mind.
She pressed her wounded hand to her chest, feeling her heart beat fast and ragged, like a trapped bird. The Blood Moon was waiting. And Alina knew that this time, the castle would not let her go so easily. She felt the invisible threads of fate tightening around her neck, turning every breath into a struggle for one more moment of this wretched, humiliating, yet still precious life.
There was very little time left before lunch. Alina dipped the brush into the bucket and made one last pass over the stone, blurring the line between reality and the nightmare that was about to become her only truth.