Before he was Elias, he was no one.
No name that lasted.
No face that mattered.
He was born in the gutter alleys behind the River Market of Dravemont , a city where names were currency, and the poor weren't permitted to keep either.
His mother died before he ever asked her name. His father was either a myth or a customer.
And he learned early that if he wanted to survive, he had to become what people wanted.
A perfect echo.
A reflection of need.
He didn't remember the first lie he told, only that it worked and that it kept working. He could shift his tone, mimic posture, absorb entire dialects by watching for an hour. No one ever asked who he was, only what he could do.
And when he realized magic came to his call like wind to a hollow reed subtle, silent, sharp , he began to change more than just words.
He changed faces.
He learned how to be a boy someone missed, then a boy someone wanted. He learned how to make nobles forget they ever met in shadows. How to mimic a voice from across a room with such eerie accuracy that even the speaker turned to look.
He learned to vanish.
Until the night he found the book.
It was old. Hidden beneath false ledgers in a nobleman's study he'd infiltrated to steal coin. Bound in red leather, sealed with iron thread. The first page had no title.
Just a name.
Valen.
The second page had an illustration.
Not a painting. A sketch. Rushed. Urgent. And yet, still unbearably beautiful.
A man with pale eyes and darker lips, long hair tumbling over high collars and finer bones than any human carried. Fangs bared , not in threat, but in reverence. Like the artist couldn't help himself.
Beneath the sketch, a single line.
"He does not drink from those who beg, but from those who defy."
He turned the page. And kept turning.
Not a journal. Not quite.
But a recording of encounters, sightings, obsessions. The book belonged to someone who had once tried to study Valen. Failed. And died for it.
But in their failure, they left behind breadcrumbs.
And the boy with no name began to follow.
He hunted down every legend. Learned to read in six dialects just to access forbidden libraries. Stole into temples, disguised as acolytes, just to get a glimpse of texts bound in salt and sealed with blood.
And the more he read… the more he wanted.
Not just to find Valen.
Not just to meet him.
But to see if he could matter.
If he could be remembered.
Not as a shadow. Not as a lie.
But as someone who could reach into the cold heart of a myth and move it.
For years, he prepared.
For years, he became better.
Sharper.
More precise.
Until the real Elias Mercier, a scholar with papers from the University of Meremount was selected by name to meet the vampire of legend.
And the boy with no name stole that name.
Not for power.
Not for gold.
But because, deep down, beneath the magic and the mimicry, he wanted one thing.
To be seen.
And Valen?
Valen had looked at him like he was made of the first dawn in centuries.
Valen had wanted him.
And for six nights, he forgot that he was playing a game.
He forgot the rules.
He forgot the danger.
He remembered only the way Valen's voice softened when he said his name.
And now sitting in the ruins of a temple older than the city itself, with Valen's magic crawling toward him like a promise and a punishment , he wondered…
If maybe, just maybe, Valen had seen through the lie.
The moment he felt it ,that shift in the air, that invisible thread pulling taut across the planes of magic , Elias knew.
Valen had found him.
Not all the way. Not yet.
But the blood he left behind, unguarded in sheets and skin, was a tether. And Valen, for all his restraint, had finally pulled it.
Hard.
The glyphs on the old temple walls trembled with it. Stones began to hum low and pulsing, like some ancient beast waking from slumber. The lamps he had conjured with soft flame sputtered, one by one, casting the space into uneven shadows.
Elias stood slowly, heart hammering in a chest he'd once sworn he could control.
He couldn't.
Not now.
He had wanted to be seen. Wanted to be chosen. Wanted to be something more than a mask.
But he had not wanted this.
Not Valen enraged. Not magic raking through the world like claws through silk. Not the truth creeping up behind his heels like a wolf scenting blood.
He should have been flattered.
He should have felt power in being hunted by a legend.
Instead, he felt cold.
He tore the warding glyph from the altar stone and pocketed it, throwing open the temple's heavy door. Outside, the mountain fog was thick as soup, swallowing everything except the thudding of his own heartbeat.
He didn't look back.
Because Valen would be there soon. And if he looked back now, he might stop.
He might wait.
And that was the most dangerous instinct of all.
He vaulted down the crumbling stairs, cloak whipping behind him, breath catching in the sharp mountain air. Every nerve in him lit with the sensation of being watched.
Even though he knew Valen wasn't close enough to see, not yet.
But his blood had become a whisper.
And Valen was always good at listening.
Wind howled through the pass. The forest below, dark and twisted with ancient roots, offered shelter. Danger too, but nothing he hadn't faced before.
He stumbled on the last step, palms skidding in dirt, the sting grounding him.
Don't fall. Don't stop.
He ran harder.
Branches tore at him. Stones cut through the soles of his boots. His breath turned ragged.
And behind it all… a pull.
Like gravity.
But crueler.
It wasn't just magic anymore. It was Valen's focus. Honed. Intentional. Reaching like teeth into his ribs.
A sound slipped from his mouth , a laugh or a sob, he couldn't tell.
"You're really coming for me" he whispered aloud to the night, voice shaking.
And part of him ,the reckless, lonely part that had always lived beneath every disguise , wanted Valen to catch him.
To tear the truth out of him.
To find the lie and still choose it.
But the rest of him… the part that had survived… the part that had been no one for too long… knew better.
Love was a story told in heat and illusion.
And when the illusion broke , when the truth settled like ash , Valen would hate him.
And Elias, no matter how perfectly he mimicked the name, could not survive being hated by the one thing he'd ever wanted.
So he ran.
Faster. Deeper.
Blood blooming in his mouth from a bitten tongue.
He didn't notice the trail he left behind ,not the footsteps, not the scent, not the flicker of unstable magic leaking from his fingers like spilled ink.
He didn't notice that Valen was closing the distance.
Because the forest was too loud.
And the fear had finally made him real.