The air smelled of scorched bone and wildflowers when morning came to Windhollow Farm.
The three corpses still smoldered outside the house. Gravehounds didn't bleed like other beasts; their bodies wept a tar-like ichor that poisoned the earth beneath them. Nothing would grow there again. Not for decades.
Valen stood just beyond the corpses, gazing toward the horizon. His blade was already clean. His coat, once draped in ash and gore, now looked untouched. The rising sun—an anemic, copper disc—hovered behind thick clouds, casting a dull glow over the wasteland.
Lyra stepped outside, cloak clutched tight, eyes red from a sleepless night.
"You didn't rest," she said.
Valen did not turn to look at her. "Neither did the one who sent them."
She followed his gaze to the black silhouette of Blackreach Hold, still distant, still waiting.
"How many will he send tonight?"
"None," Valen said. "Tonight, he will come himself."
She felt a chill ripple up her spine. "So soon?"
"He grows impatient. Your resistance intrigues him."
Lyra stepped beside him, her voice low. "Then we should run. There's an old road south—if we leave now—"
"No."
His tone was not cruel. Just final.
"If you run, he will pursue. He's marked you. He believes you belong to him."
Her throat tightened. "Then how do we break it?"
Valen turned, finally, and stared at her with silver eyes that held no warmth.
"We go to him."
The road to Blackreach Hold was a vein of shattered stones and collapsed pylons, once part of an ancient rail that connected the outer baronies before the Age of Silence. Now, only weeds and ghosts traveled it.
Valen rode his midnight-black steed, Umbra, its eyes burning faint violet. Lyra rode behind him on a trembling palomino named Ashbit, her brother's old plow-horse. Taren had begged her not to go, his arms wrapped around her like she was already dead.
Valen had said nothing.
The further they traveled, the quieter the world became. No insects. No birds. Just the whisper of wind and the creak of long-dead machines in the hills.
"Tell me something," Lyra said, breaking the silence. "You said you were the last dhampir. But why do you hunt the Nobles? You're part of them, aren't you?"
Valen didn't answer right away.
When he spoke, his voice was even.
"My father was a Highborn. My mother was human. He seduced her, drank from her, left her to rot."
Lyra's breath caught. She felt like she'd touched a live wire.
"He never looked back. But I remember her screams the night she gave birth to me. She died afraid. Alone."
Silence stretched.
"I kill their kind," Valen continued, "because no one else will. Because they believe they are eternal. Untouchable."
He looked back at her then. "I exist to prove them wrong."
Blackreach Hold was not just a castle. It was a wound carved into the hillside, with towers like broken spears and gates forged from bone-fused metal. Ivy the color of old blood crawled its walls. Mist pooled around its base like a moat of ghosts.
They reached the outer courtyard before sundown. The sky wept weak snow—flakes of ash and frozen spores from the Wastes.
A bell tolled.
Once.
Then again.
And the gates opened with a scream.
The creature that emerged was tall and gaunt, its flesh stretched tight across bone. Its eyes were lidless, mouth sewn shut with golden thread. It bowed low, gesturing for them to enter.
Lyra shrank back. "What is it?"
Valen dismounted. "A sentinel. Bred for hospitality. It won't harm you. Not yet."
Together, they walked into the maw of Blackreach.
The interior was worse.
The castle had been built atop a pre-collapse fortress, half-organic, half-mechanical. The walls pulsed faintly, like veins. Lights flickered overhead—glow-lanterns made of bottled lightning. From the far corridors, whispers echoed, even though no mouths moved.
They passed statues of once-great Nobles, their names long erased. They passed doorways where no doors stood, just darkness so thick it drank light.
At the heart of it all stood a throne of glass and roots.
And seated atop it, like a god carved in twilight, was Malrath Voss.
He looked nothing like the monster Lyra had expected.
He was beautiful.
His skin was pale as moonlight, hair silver-gold and perfectly combed. His robes shimmered with dark embroidery that moved when one wasn't looking directly at them. His eyes, however—deep garnet—held no soul. Just hunger.
"Ah," he said, his voice a symphony of velvet and threat. "The girl returns. And she brings a cur. A mutt with a blade."
Valen did not bow. He didn't even blink.
"You've broken the Accord," he said coldly. "No feeding. No claiming. The frontier laws are absolute."
Malrath stood.
"I am the law," he said softly. "This is my domain. My throne. My right."
His eyes settled on Lyra.
"You called to me, child. Even if your tongue denies it, your blood sings it."
Lyra stepped forward, trembling.
"You've cursed me."
"I've chosen you," he corrected. "You should be honored. I will raise you to a level your kind has not seen in centuries. You will sleep beside kings and wake beside me."
She spat at his feet.
"I'd rather rot."
Malrath smiled.
"So be it."
From the shadows behind the throne, a dozen figures emerged—thin, swift, armed with scythe-arms and leechlike faces. Spawn. The children of Voss, bred from the marrow of warlocks and the wombs of the unwilling.
Valen unsheathed his sword in one fluid motion.
The first two lunged—Valen severed them mid-air.
The third burst into flame the moment it neared him.
Malrath's eyes widened. "You wield the blacksteel of the Ancients…"
"I wield judgment," Valen growled, voice like thunder in a tomb.
He hurled his blade—crimson light flared down its length. It tore through three spawn and buried itself in the wall beside the throne.
Lyra screamed as one grabbed her—but Valen was already there, faster than thought. The creature's head exploded beneath a punch wrapped in spellfire.
The rest hissed and shrank away.
Valen stood before Malrath now, his blade returned to his hand.
Malrath raised one hand—but his fingers trembled.
"You dare raise steel in my court?" the Noble whispered, incredulous.
"I raise it in the name of the fallen. In the name of the girl. In the name of the old blood that still bleeds in your name."
Valen stepped forward, point leveled at the vampire's chest.
Malrath snarled. "I will not be slain in my own home!"
Valen's voice dropped to a whisper. "Then step out into mine."
But before the duel could begin, the chamber shook.
From the farthest corridor came a sound like grinding stone. A circle of glowing glyphs ignited in the floor.
A voice—ancient, crackling—spoke in a language older than the stars.
Malrath's expression twisted.
"No..."
Valen stepped back, raising his blade.
"What is it?"
Malrath did not answer.
The throne room door exploded outward, and through it came a towering shape—nine feet tall, its skin made of bone and living armor, its face a skull crowned in iron.
Lyra gasped. "What is that?"
Valen's jaw tightened.
"An Enforcer," he whispered. "From the Inner Sanctum."
Malrath turned to flee—but the creature raised a single claw and pointed.
"You have violated the Covenant, Malrath Voss. Your lineage is now nullified."
There was a flash of light. Malrath screamed—and then was gone, his body turned to ash.
Silence returned.
Later, outside the ruined gates of Blackreach Hold, Lyra sat beside Valen, watching the wind scatter the remains of the fallen Noble.
"I thought you were going to kill him," she whispered.
"I would have," Valen said.
"But someone else already did."
She looked at him, confused. "What does it mean? That thing—the Enforcer—why did it help us?"
Valen stared into the empty horizon.
"It didn't help us. It enforced order. The Nobles made a pact centuries ago. Those who broke the rules… were erased."
He sheathed his sword.
"But for one of them to come this far? To interfere here?"
He looked at her. "It means something worse is coming."