Oh, dear gods, at what cost, fame? His poem had been so much of exactly what the art fag had wanted. One hundred and ten per cent.

Brutal, biting, vicious words contrasted at every turn with a mockery of kindness and love. Fluid motions grated against stasis. Exactly what was sought after was lost, leaving an act of bestowing an eternity as empty, hollow, and undeserving as Joshua felt. They had loved it, and they had loved him.

They had hated Lord Welcomb. They had mocked him and stripped him of the status that was oh-so-prized in this bloody society. Lord Welcomb had been visibly agitated, a feat never before accomplished in the “polite” society of the Kindred. And that’s all that had happened in public.

It would take over a week for his body to heal from the beating he had received. And Joshua was quite good at healing. It was, at least, something to take his mind off of his punishment. That would take much, much longer to heal. Exile from London. Exile! He was sent to the American Colonies in 2000, to a city that had just been claimed in war. As a state capitol, this built-on-swampland poor excuse for a city was supposedly strategically important. He was being sent to meet ancillae representatives from the other families. They would pick a leader, and hold the city.

The place was going to be a bloody shit-hole, and he knew it.