Chapter 9: The Moon That Bleeds
The moon bled for the first time in a thousand years.
It wasn't poetic. It wasn't metaphorical.
It was literal.
Liam stood atop the Eastern tower of Noctis, watching as a crimson stain unfurled across the lunar surface, rippling like oil on silk. It was slow, deliberate, and wrong. The stars around it flickered and vanished, as if something unseen devoured their light.
"It begins," Ella whispered, standing beside him. She wore the Crown still—its glow subdued but constant—as though it too watched the sky with unease.
Liam said nothing. Words didn't belong to moments like this. Only instinct. And instinct told him that the bleeding moon was no omen. It was a summoning.
The Rift had answered.
---
The Broken Accord
Back in the royal war chamber, the situation deteriorated rapidly.
Reports flooded in from the outlands: cities swallowed by mist, entire bloodlines vanishing overnight, whispers in the mirror that left nobles catatonic. The Rift wasn't waiting anymore. It was moving.
Worse still, the Crown had begun to resist.
Liam could feel it inside his bones—something clawing behind his thoughts. Not malice, but urgency. A voice without a mouth, screaming without sound.
"The Crown is waking something," he said to Ella during a strategy meeting. "Or maybe something is waking it."
Ella nodded grimly. "The Ancients are stirring. Even the dead are no longer staying dead."
Yerrin slammed a dagger onto the map table. "Then we strike first. We take the army into the Rift, burn whatever moves, and end it."
"No," Liam said, voice cold.
He had seen what fire couldn't touch.
"This isn't a war of swords anymore. This is a war of truths."
---
Descent into the Whispering Vaults
If the Rift was feeding on memory and fear, then Liam needed to understand where it came from. That meant going to the one place even the Crown feared: the Whispering Vaults—deep beneath the city, sealed by the first Vampire King.
Only two keys existed. One worn by the reigning monarch.
And the other—by the High Priestess of Dread.
She hadn't been seen in two centuries.
So Liam summoned her.
At midnight, the chapel bells rang themselves. The candles flared black. And from the shadow between pillars, a woman stepped. Not walked. Stepped. As if from another time entirely.
She wore robes of shadowed bone. Her eyes were holes in the world.
"I felt the Crown stir," she said. "You should not be wearing it, child."
"And yet I do."
The woman studied him. Then smiled.
"Then I will open the door."
---
The Secrets Beneath Noctis
The Vault was older than Noctis itself. Carved not by hands, but by intention—a cavern woven from blood oaths and forgotten regrets. As Liam descended, the air thickened. The walls whispered. Not in voices, but memories.
His own memories.
His mother's lullaby.
The first lie he ever told.
The scream of his first kill.
And beneath it all… the sound of his name, spoken by something that had never been human.
At the bottom lay a mirror.
Shattered.
But not broken.
Liam approached—and the shards began to hover.
Each showed a different version of him.
A king. A tyrant. A corpse. A god.
"Choose," the mirror said.
He didn't.
Instead, he knelt—and looked into all of them.
And they became one.
The shards embedded into his chest—right above his heart.
And suddenly… he understood.
The Rift wasn't a place.
It was a being.
One that had been betrayed.
---
The Rift Speaks
He awoke three days later in the Queen's arms.
"You were gone," she whispered.
"No," he rasped. "I was inside."
Her eyes widened.
"What did it show you?"
He looked at her—and for the first time, wept.
"It showed me… you. Dying. In every possible future."
She held him tighter.
"And yet I'm here."
"Not for long," he whispered. "Unless we do something impossible."
She waited.
"We must unbind the Crown."
She recoiled.
"No one has ever done that. The last time it was attempted, it killed half the continent."
"Then we try a different way."
---
The Ritual of Severance
The Ritual of Severance required three things:
1. A willing soul bonded to the Crown.
2. A drop of origin blood—from the first vampire.
3. And a memory powerful enough to reshape reality.
Only one problem: the first vampire was dead.
Or so everyone believed.
But Ella had secrets.
"There's an old ruin," she told Liam. "A place even I was forbidden to enter. My mother said it was where the world ended once."
They traveled in secret—just the two of them.
The ruin wasn't a ruin.
It was a tomb.
Sealed with gold fire and iron vines.
At its center was a throne.
And on that throne sat the corpse of the first vampire.
She was beautiful. Undead. Undying.
And when Liam approached—she opened her eyes.
"You wear my legacy," she said.
"I want to change it."
She touched his face—and wept ash.
"Then take what remains of me. And make it better."
Her blood flowed like molten crystal into a vial.
---
The Memory That Saved Them
Back in the castle, the ritual began.
Ella stood opposite Liam, the Crown between them.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
"No," she said. "But I love you."
That was enough.
The magic rose like a storm.
The room became void.
And within it, their memories danced—twisting, merging, rewriting.
He saw her as a child.
She saw him as an old man.
They saw each other dying.
And choosing to live anyway.
They reached for each other.
Their hands met.
And the Crown shattered.
Not in destruction.
But in release.
The power didn't vanish.
It entered them.
Equally.
And the Rift… paused.
As if thinking.
As if waiting.
---
A New Throne
With the Crown destroyed, a vacuum opened.
Across the dominion, vampires felt the shift.
Some panicked.
Others rejoiced.
But in Noctis, something new rose.
A throne of flame and shadow.
And upon it sat not one—but two rulers.
Ella and Liam.
Not as Queen and Consort.
But as balance.
Day and night.
Blood and fire.
Together.
The Rift stirred.
But did not strike.
Not yet.
Because for the first time in a thousand years, the Crown no longer ruled.
Love did.
---
End of Chapter 9