Contents
Chapter 9
Overview
In Sanguine Rites, Blake confronts Visha about Lace’s death and hears she ended her triad with Lucian and Evander after their cruelty. Visha warns Blake about losing control. Blake then undergoes an uncontrollable dragon shift, takes his first flight, and narrowly escapes Nyxaris, aided by Molindra’s psychic summons. Shaken, Blake resolves to hide his emerging dragon nature.
Summary
Blake endures Professor Vane’s Sanguine Rites lecture, seething over Vane’s suspected role in past betrayals. Visha sits beside him, subdued and furious after Lace’s death. Blake offers condolences and a debt of vengeance for Aenia’s crimes, but Visha rejects a duel and demands his blade for a broader reckoning.
Visha reveals she ended her triad with Lucian and Evander after they aligned with Quinn Riley to bully a blightborn girl. Their callous response to Lace’s death convinced her they saw Lace as disposable. She praises Blake’s risky stand in Dragon Court to protect Florence and warns him not to “go soft,” then pointedly cautions him to control whatever is changing in him.
Leaving class, Blake’s barely contained rage and scales surge. He flees to an empty cliffside classroom, but the transformation overtakes him: bones lengthen, wings tear free, and he becomes a red-scaled dragon. Trapped by the room’s confines, he dives off the landing—and instinct snaps his wings open. He discovers he can fly, hiding within an approaching storm cloudbank as predatory urges press him to hunt.
Nyxaris intercepts him midair, speaking mind-to-mind and calling him “cousin,” even mistaking him for a dragon named Vorago. Blake clamps down his thrallguard and dives to evade. A psychic screech—Molindra keening for Nyxaris—wracks his mind and distracts the elder dragon, letting Blake slip away in the clouds.
Exhausted but alive, Blake recognizes the escalating danger of his uncontrolled transformations. With nowhere truly safe—inside Bloodwing or under Nyxaris’s sky—he resolves to bury the secret of his dragon nature and find a way to master it before it destroys him or those he loves.
Who Appears
- BlakePOV character; struggles with violent dragon urges, transforms, takes first flight, evades Nyxaris, vows to hide his secret.
- VishaGrieving and enraged over Lace; ends her triad with Lucian and Evander; seeks vengeance against abusive highbloods; warns Blake to gain control.
- Professor VaneLectures on Sanguine Rites; Blake suspects him of enabling past betrayals involving Marcus, fueling Blake’s resentment.
- NyxarisElder dragon detects and pursues Blake in the storm, addresses him telepathically as a ‘cousin,’ then is distracted by Molindra.
- MolindraAncient entity whose psychic keening for Nyxaris causes intense pain and distraction, enabling Blake’s escape.
- Medra (Pendragon)Absent but central to Blake’s thoughts; her resistance to thrallweave raises questions; Blake fears her reaction to his transformation.