They had been walking for hours.
The moon hung high, hidden behind the skeletal canopy of the forest, casting only a faint silver glow across the damp moss and leaves beneath their boots. Branches cracked underfoot, distant howls rang through the night air, and the scent of ancient bark mixed with the thick, earthy air. The forest stretched on endlessly, its silence pressing down like a heavy blanket.
Zarek's patience had worn thin. He stopped and turned, hands on his hips, his eyes narrowing on the older vampire leading them.
"Malrik, are you sure we're not going in circles? I'm pretty sure I've seen that same crooked-ass tree four times now," he grumbled.
Cassian chuckled quietly behind him. "You sure it's not just a tree with a twin?"
"No. I know what I saw. He's lost. Old age finally got to him," Zarek added with a smirk.
Malrik paused, not turning to face them, and placed his hand against the bark of a wide, gnarled tree. "Age," he murmured, "is irrelevant to vampires."
The tree shimmered. Just for a moment. Like the ripple of disturbed water. Then, without warning, Malrik's entire arm phased through the bark, and he pulled it back out just as easily.
"We are exactly where we need to be."
Silence fell.
Kael , quiet until now, stepped forward and peered at the tree with calculating eyes. Zarek blinked, then walked up to it and slapped his hand against the bark.
Nothing.
The tree was solid.
"What the hell," Zarek muttered.
Malrik turned. "Only supernatural beings may enter. The barrier recognizes bloodlines and essence. Humans cannot pass unless led in by one of us."
Zarek opened his mouth to protest when Malrik suddenly drew a dagger and sliced across his own palm. Without ceremony, he smeared his blood across each of them.
Cassian flinched. "Ugh. That's disgusting."
"Necessary," Malrik snapped. "The vampires in the kingdom have not been near humans in decades. If they smell blood, you won't be dealing with polite nobility. You'll be food. Do not bleed. Do not stumble."
Kael opened his bag and calmly pulled out a sleek cylinder. "I anticipated something like this."
Zarek raised an eyebrow. "Of course you did, gadget boy."
Kael tossed one spray canister to each of them. "Disguises your scent and aura as that of a vampire. It only lasts an hour. Reapply before it wears off. Or they'll smell your humanity like blood in water."
"You know," Jaxon Pyre muttered, examining the canister, "I really don't know how we lived before Kael."
"You didn't. That's why I exist," Kael replied with a grin.
Cassian sprayed himself and grimaced. "Smells like death and cinnamon."
Zarek hesitated before spraying. "So, Malrik," he said while misting himself, "did you and Kenneth feed on humans too?"
The older vampire's face darkened slightly. "I drink blood. Kenneth… is something else. He craves flesh. And blood. He never learned to control it. Only to delay it."
Kael blinked. "That would explain the… consumption reports."
With no more words, Malrik placed his hand back on the tree, and this time, the forest warped around them.
It was like falling sideways through light.
One moment they were in the woods, the next, standing on the edge of a vast obsidian cliff, overlooking the sprawling capital of the Vampire Kingdom.
Zarek's mouth fell open.
"Okay," he whispered, "no one told me it looked like that."
The Vampire Kingdom was a paradox of beauty and horror. Gothic spires of black glass and steel towered into the blood-red sky, threaded with floating bridges glowing with crimson veins of light. The streets below shimmered with magic-infused hovercrafts and shadow creatures slithering beneath translucent roads. It was futuristic—and ancient.
"Tech and magic," Malrik said, watching their awe. "It is what sets them apart. They merge the two like lovers. And they do it very well."
Kael was visibly trembling with excitement. "This is incredible. Quantum enchantment. Floating constructs. Arcane-reactive lighting. Who engineered this? Who designed the leyline architecture? This is insane!"
Zarek eyed him warily. "Why do you look like you want to marry the buildings?"
"Because I do."
Jaxon laughed. "He's actually smiling. That's terrifying."
They traveled quietly through hidden pathways Malrik remembered. Cloaked by Kael's devices and protected by the old vampire's knowledge of the terrain. Eventually, they reached a forgotten sewer entrance hidden beneath the southern district.
A thick iron gate gave way to a vast underground network of ruins, abandoned before the tech-magic fusion era.
"We camp here," Malrik declared, already lighting an orb of soft blue flame that floated in the air.
They set up silently. The shadows of the city groaned above them.
Back in the depths of the dungeon, chained and forgotten, Kenneth Prince stirred.
His wrists were bruised raw, his shoulders dislocated, his breathing shallow. His eyes opened slowly, like fog lifting from the surface of a dead lake. He saw nothing. Heard only the drip of water. The rustle of rats. The memory of screams.
But one name bubbled up from the depths of his shattered mind.
Malrik.
He didn't know what it meant.
Didn't know who he was.
But he remembered the name.
And for the first time in weeks, something in his chest stirred. A smell reached his nose. Old, but familiar. Not of rot, not of iron.
Hope.
He let his head fall back. And closed his eyes.
Outside the city, far below the towers, five figures made camp in the dark.
And war was coming.
---