Lightfall

In a world without humans, vampires once roamed freely until a sudden plague of creatures called the Grays wiped out half their kind in a single night. The survivors crowded into First Light, the last vampire city, where blood is rationed by class: the poor subsist on thin, weak blood while the nobility drink the best, and no one is ever permitted to leave. Sam, a palace maid, is sick of cleaning up after the lords who enforce these rules. When the ruler’s son is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she uses it to blackmail her way toward a better life and better blood, and falls in with a covert group of rebel maids who quietly check the cruelty of the powerful. Following the trail draws her into an alliance with mages and werewolves and forces her to confront the lies that hold the city together. Part murder mystery, part dark fantasy, the story uses its rigid vampire society to examine class, scarcity, and who decides who deserves to survive. As Sam digs deeper, the answer to one killing threatens to expose the foundations of First Light itself.