“I hope so.”
My mouth went dry. “You don’t know how her blessing will take shape, or what it will demand of her.”
“You’re right, but at least when her powers do show, they will answer to me as well.”
Vampyres lived across empires. Their lifespans were endless—not borrowed like the goddess-marked, but carved into their very making. Divine marks granted longevity; Vampyric blood granted true immortality.
But Aurelia was no ordinary bond. She carried a bloodline the gods themselves could not master. And now she carried him too.
Kaelith looked up at me, calm as stone. “We all take risks when we love something,” he said. “I love this realm. I love what it could be. She is the key to that future.
His fingers brushed hers—almost tender—before he wiped the fresh blood from beneath his nose with the back of his hand.
“I had to change her,” he said again. “For all our sake.”
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Because I wasn’t sure what terrified me more.
That I might lose her, and with her the last hope of restoring balance. Or that I wouldn’t lose her at all, and she would rise as something I might have to protect the world from.
Piece by piece, the truth had begun stitching itself together—her scar waking, the Veil answering her, Gabriel kneeling without hesitation. Even the shadows had recognized her before I did. She wasn’t just marked—she was remembering. And the realms had begun to answer.
33
Malachi
The birds werethe only ones who remembered morning.
Their song carried faint and fragmented through the stone, soft trills and flutters drifting down the corridor. Mist clung to the arched windows and bled in through the seams—silver-gray, quiet, unbothered by the dusk that never lifted. Nyxarra never changed.
But some part of me always noticed when the birds returned each day.
I followed the winding hallway toward the chamber Kaelith used for private meals. Not the banquet hall. This one was tucked behind a wall of draped velvet.
He was waiting when I entered, standing at the head of a long, obsidian table. One hand rested on the back of a chair, the other cradled a goblet of something dark and sweet-smelling. The table was laid for two.
“Sleep well?” he asked, all brightness and ease.
“No,” I said flatly.
Kaelith smirked, motioning for me to sit. I didn’t.
“I’ve added a detour,” he said. “Before you reach Synnex.”
I didn’t answer, but the tension in my jaw made its own reply. There was nothing on the way to Synnex but the in-between lands. Kaelith sipped from his goblet, unbothered. “There have been whispers. Rumors of a village still standing along the eastern ridge. Old rebel territory. Some say it was spared. Protected.”
He met my eyes. “I need you to find it.”
“And if it’s there?” I asked slowly.
“Then you cleanse it,” Kaelith said. “Erase what should never have endured. Protect Nyxarra.”
I stared at him, heart thudding once, then stilling.
Kaelith swirled the wine in his glass. “My father’s memories are becoming clearer.”
Something cold slid beneath my ribs. Of course. That was it. He’d consumed his father's blood. Inherited his power. And with it—secrets.