The moon was high and crimson, bleeding its cursed light over the ruins of the village.
Xerces stood alone now, the remnants of his skeletal thralls shattered and scattered like broken toys. Only his presence kept their remains from crumbling to dust.
The battle had been fast.
Brutal.
One-sided.
He hadn't even seen them coming.
One moment, he had been reanimating fresh corpses, preparing his next wave of undead.
The next, they were among him—shadows with fangs.
The Crimson Nocturne, a wandering vampire clan known to terrorize the western valleys. Six of them had descended like whispers in the dark, beautiful and terrible—dressed in black silk and crimson armor, faces pale and ageless, eyes burning with aristocratic contempt.
They had laughed when they saw him.
"A little Lich?" one had sneered. "How quaint."
He had tried to fight. Unleashing all six thralls, hurling bone spikes, even attempting to rip the blood from their veins. But they were too fast. Too old. Too cruel.
One by one, his soldiers were torn apart, their skulls crushed under elegant heels and claws. His own magic had been sliced apart mid-cast.
And then—their leader arrived.
Lady Veralyn of the Crimson Nocturne, tall and statuesque, wearing a crown of thorned gold. Her voice was silk dipped in venom.
"I admire ambition," she had said as she caught Xerces by the throat—bone cracking beneath her grip. "But you're just a child playing with fire, little Lich. A skeleton in a king's clothing."
Xerces remembered the pain—not physical, but soul-deep. She didn't just wound him.
She drained him.
She shattered his soul-core with a single kiss of magic, a curse laced with ancient blood sorcery. His connection to his thralls severed instantly. He collapsed in the mud like discarded carrion.
She left him there.
She could have killed him. Should have.
But she didn't.
"Return when you're worthy," she whispered, vanishing into mist. "And I'll let you watch your kingdom burn."
Now, hours later, Xerces dragged his ruined form into the shadow of a broken barn, bone and soul flickering weakly.
The rage was there. Yes.
But so was something deeper.
Humility.
He had thought himself strong. Clever. Untouchable in this new form.
He had been wrong.
This world didn't care that he was reborn. It didn't care that he had ambition, or power, or dreams. Elydria chewed up the weak and devoured the reckless.
Even a Lich.
Especially a Lich.
He stared at his skeletal hands—one of them cracked through the wrist. The fire in his eyes had dimmed to a faint ember.
And yet… he lived.
That was enough.
He would rebuild. Smarter. Slower. He would not just raise skeletons and hurl bone spears. He would master soul magic, blood magic, ritual alchemy. He would learn the forbidden tongues, enslave demons, and tear secrets from the old gods' tombs if he had to.
He would rise higher than any vampire queen.
He would not be mocked again.
Xerces clenched his fist. The bones creaked but held.
"I will return, Veralyn," he growled, voice sharp and ragged. "And when I do, you will kneel. Or I will unmake you bone by bone."
He slumped back against the broken beam, staring up at the blood-red moon.
Tonight, he had been humbled.
Tomorrow, he would begin again.
From the grave, as always.