The forest was alive — not with peace, but with menace.
Lilith's hands ached from gripping the reins too tightly. Her gown was torn near the knees, soaked from dew and streaked with dirt. Her once-elegant slippers were long gone, abandoned somewhere between desperation and panic. Every branch that scraped her skin felt like a warning, every sound in the dark a promise that she didn't belong here.
The horse moved fast, but she had no sense of direction. Only the thought of escape — of truth — pushed her forward.
Her mind kept replaying Baelrik's voice, the certainty in it, the pity she hadn't asked for. Calyra hadn't died of illness. She had died during her Choosing. The very ritual that Lilith was days away from enduring.
No one had told her. No one had prepared her. The people sang praises of her power and beauty, but none of them had whispered the most important truth: she was walking into a trial that could kill her.
A Choosing meant survival — or death.
Just like Calyra.
Lilith's throat tightened, but she forced herself not to cry. Not again. Her tears wouldn't save her now.
A crack sounded to her left. Not like a branch — like movement.
She twisted in the saddle, trying to peer through the thick trees, her heart hammering wildly.
Nothing. Just wind. Just panic.
Then another sound, this time closer.
Before she could react, the horse shrieked, bucked, and Lilith was thrown to the ground, the wind knocked from her lungs. She scrambled up, her body screaming in protest, but her instincts screamed louder — run.
Too late.
Shadows emerged from the trees — three, no, four men, each dressed in armor that looked too polished for a midnight patrol.
Baelrik's crest on their shoulders.
They had been sent after her.
The first grabbed her arm roughly. "The Queen wants you alive. So try not to bleed too much," he said with a crooked grin.
Lilith kicked, scratched, tried to fight — but it was hopeless. She was a girl raised in luxury, not in war. Her magic hadn't even been Awakened yet. Her power, if she even had any, still slept inside her bones.
They began binding her wrists.
And then, something happened.
A flash — not of light, but of movement.
One of the guards made a choking sound. A blade had pierced through his neck so swiftly, he didn't even have time to fall before another dropped beside him.
A fifth figure had appeared.
Not with the rest. Not with Baelrik's men.
Tall. Dark-haired. His eyes were like ink, his movements like smoke.
The last two guards charged at him — and fell like paper.
Lilith backed away, trembling. "W-who—"
Before she could finish, the man stepped toward her, grabbing something from his cloak.
He's going to kill me too.
But he didn't strike.
He pressed a cloth to her mouth.
She struggled, but the scent hit her fast — sharp, strange, sweet.
Her limbs went heavy.
Her vision blurred.
The last thing she saw before the world went dark was the stranger's face leaning close to hers.
She woke up — gods knew how many hours later — her wrists bound to the corners of a rickety old bed. Her vision was still fogged, her body heavy as if sleep had only half let her go. Panic settled quickly, her heart pounding so violently she thought it might shatter in her chest.
Where was she?
How did she get here?
All she knew was that something—no, someone—dark and dangerous was standing at the door.
A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, draped in black. His hair matched the night, but his eyes were pale and sharp, the kind of blue that didn't warm — it cut. He didn't move, didn't speak. He simply stood there, as if waiting for her to wake, or for something to end.
She looked around frantically. The small hut was filled with hanging herbs, dried flowers, and strange powders in glass jars. Symbols had been etched into the floor. There was no mistaking it.
Witchcraft.
She licked her dry lips and forced her voice out, hoarse and trembling. "Who are you?"
The man didn't answer. He didn't even look at her—just let a small, cold smirk cross his face. It made her feel like a prisoner in a story already written.
A second voice broke the silence, this one female.
"You put too much in that damn cloth."
Lilith turned her head with effort. A woman had entered the hut—blonde, graceful, familiar.
Too familiar.
The man shrugged. "As much as it took to shut her up. You screamed the same way, you know."
He winked at the blonde woman, who gave him a sharp glare in return.
Lilith's mind reeled.
No. It couldn't be. Her throat tightened.
That face. That voice. That presence.
The woman stepped closer, her gaze gentle, warm in a way that felt like a memory. "You must have a thousand questions, Lilith. It would please me to know you haven't forsaken me... like Mother did."
Lilith's blood turned cold.
"Calyra?" she whispered, her voice breaking in disbelief. "No... No, it can't be. You're dead. You—" Her eyes blurred with tears. "You died! Either from the Choosing, or the illness—you died!"
Calyra's expression softened, pained, but she didn't deny it.
Lilith began to thrash against her restraints, the ropes biting into her skin. "Let me go! You're not her! You're a liar! Let me go!"
The man remained where he was, watching like a shadow. Calyra didn't try to calm her, not yet.
Lilith sobbed, helplessness burning in her chest like fire. The ropes were too tight. Her fear, too loud. She'd escaped one cage only to land in another.
And yet... despite everything... something in Calyra's eyes said she was who she claimed to be.
Alive.
And that changed everything.
It had been hours since the screaming had started — hours of panic, of tears, of hopeless thrashing against the ropes. And only now, finally, had Lilith gone quiet.
Her voice was gone, her body weak, her mind numb.
It felt like the wolf had entered her house and made it his own.
Maybe it had.
"I can explain everything, I promise," the blonde woman said gently, crouching beside the bed. Her voice trembled with something almost like guilt. "But you need to calm down, Lilith. Please."
Lilith stared at her with hollow eyes. She wanted to scream again, but there was nothing left inside to give. She didn't know whether to rage or weep. Her entire body felt like a battlefield.
The woman—no, Calyra—looked at her as though every breath hurt. There was pain in her eyes, deep and real. This wasn't someone pretending to care.
"Leave," Calyra said softly.
She didn't raise her voice, didn't glance toward him. But he heard her.
The tall man at the door — the vampire, she was almost certain of it now — obeyed without a word. He vanished in a blink, like the shadow he was.
Lilith's breath caught.
A vampire. Her sister was consorting with a vampire. The very creatures who had tried to wipe out their bloodline in the wars long ago. The very ones her tutors said were unnatural, evil, wrong.
And yet he had followed Calyra's order like a dog to its master.
What was going on?
Lilith looked at her sister again — or the woman claiming to be her sister. Calyra didn't speak. She just watched her, eyes shimmering.
"I don't understand," Lilith finally whispered, voice rasping. "You were dead."
"I know."
"You left me."
"I didn't want to."
"You lied to me."
"No," Calyra said, tears finally spilling from her eyes. "They lied to both of us."
Lilith's eyes were still wide with disbelief, but her limbs had stopped struggling. Her wrists were red from the ropes, her lips dry and trembling.
Calyra reached for the knot holding her. Lilith flinched.
"I'm not here to hurt you," she said softly. "You've been hurt enough."
She loosened the bindings, slow and careful, watching her sister the entire time. Lilith didn't pull away. She just stared at her, still too stunned to react.
"You want to know the truth? Fine. I'll give it to you. But it won't be easy to hear."
Lilith didn't answer, so Calyra went on.
"They told you I died of illness," she said, brushing the hair from Lilith's face like a mother would do to a child. "And they told everyone else that I died during the Choosing."
Lilith nodded slowly. "Because you were too weak."
Calyra's mouth curled bitterly. "Is that what they're saying now?"
Lilith's silence was answer enough.
"I wasn't too weak. I wasn't chosen — but not because I was unworthy." She sat back, her hands trembling as she folded them in her lap. "The Choosing revealed something else inside me. Something... dangerous. To them."
"To Mother?" Lilith whispered.
Calyra's eyes darkened. "Especially to her."
Lilith could barely breathe. "So she... exiled you?"
"No. She tried to kill me."
The words fell like a blade. Lilith recoiled, not because she didn't believe it — but because she did.
Calyra took a deep breath. "The Choosing wasn't supposed to be lethal. But they knew what the symbols would do if they saw something unnatural in me. They forced the ritual before I was ready. They hoped it would burn me alive."
"But it didn't."
"No. I survived. Barely. Someone saved me. Alistair found me in the woods and brought me here."
"The vampire," Lilith whispered.
Calyra nodded.
Lilith stared at her hands. "Why didn't you come back?"
"I couldn't. If I showed my face again, they'd finish what they started. And they'd never let you take your Choosing. Not after me."
Lilith's chest tightened. She had wanted answers. Now she wasn't sure she could bear them.
"They lied to everyone," she whispered. "Even me."
"They lied especially to you," Calyra said, her voice soft but fierce. "Because they knew one day you might be strong enough to rise. And that terrified them."
Lilith pulled her knees to her chest, resting her forehead against them. Her whole body was trembling, not from fear anymore — from the cold weight of the truth pressing down on her.
"They hated you," she whispered. "And they used me to cover it up."
Calyra said nothing. She didn't need to.
"All my life I thought I was next. That I was chosen to fix the failure you left behind. And you were never the failure, were you?" Her voice cracked, bitter and breaking. "I was just the next lamb."
Calyra moved closer. "You were never a lamb. But yes... they raised you to be one."
Lilith let out a hollow laugh, the kind that doesn't sound like laughter at all. "I studied, I smiled, I danced. I played the perfect daughter because I thought one day I would be Queen. But now I don't even know what that means."
"It means power," Calyra said gently. "The kind they wanted to keep out of our hands. But it's in your blood, Lilith. Just like it was in mine."
Lilith looked up, her voice low and sharp. "Then why didn't the symbols choose you?"
Calyra didn't answer right away. She reached for a satchel beside the bed, pulling out a worn leather-bound book and setting it in Lilith's lap.
"They did choose me. Just not in the way anyone expected."
Lilith opened it slowly. Symbols danced across the page in ink that shimmered faintly under the lantern light. Not the sacred markings they were taught about in court... something older. Wilder.
"This is forbidden," she whispered, but her fingers lingered on the page.
"Everything powerful is forbidden in our family," Calyra said. "But it's time you stopped playing by their rules."
Lilith swallowed hard. Her throat burned from the cloth, her wrists still ached, and her mind was spiraling — but beneath it all, something new was blooming inside her.
It was small. But it was fierce.
"I want to know what they did to you," she said at last. "I want to know everything. And I want to survive the Choosing."
Calyra met her gaze with a quiet smile — proud, and a little sad. "Then we'd better begin."
"Wait!"
Her voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper. Still, it was enough to stop Calyra in her tracks. She turned slowly, waiting — for a question, a demand, a scream. She had no idea what to expect.
"How do I know it's really you?"
A fair question. Calyra chuckled softly, though the sound held no humor. Four years was a long time. Fifteen to nineteen felt like a lifetime. She had changed, and Lilith, so young when they last saw each other, could hardly be blamed for not recognizing the woman she had become.
Calyra took a breath.
"After our brothers died in that battle, you were terrified the soldiers would come for you too. You had nightmares for months. Mother and Father reinforced the castle walls to make you feel safe, but it didn't help."
Her voice cracked.
"You used to sneak into my room after everyone had gone to sleep. I held you through the night. I even sang to you... that lullaby with the river and the stars. You said it made the nightmares go away."
Lilith gasped, her tears starting before she could stop them. That lullaby — she had never forgotten it. Not a single note. It had haunted her just as much as it had once comforted her.
Her knees gave way and she stumbled forward, falling into Calyra's arms. Calyra caught her with a soft cry, holding her tight, burying her face in her sister's shoulder.
Her tears soaked through the fabric of Lilith's dress, but neither of them cared.
They were together.
Calyra had not died.
She had not abandoned her.
She had come to save her — because she remembered what it felt like when no one had saved her.
Calyra poured two cups of hot tea and handed one to Lilith, who held it between her trembling fingers. The warmth seeped into her skin, and for the first time in days, she felt something like calm.
"I want to tell you about Alistair," Calyra said, settling into the chair beside her. "And why he is... the way he is."
Lilith watched the fire crackle. "You said he was cursed."
"Yes. His family once ruled part of the North, long before the crown unified the regions. They were powerful. Respected. But they crossed a fire witch."
Lilith turned her head. "What kind of witch?"
"An old one. From the Emberline bloodline. It's gone now — or so the records say. But that witch cast a curse so strong it exiled Alistair's bloodline to the Shadows. Not just killed — banished to a realm where only the dead and the forgotten go. It's cold there. Silent. Time doesn't pass the same. And there's no escape... unless the curse is broken."
Lilith's mouth felt dry. "How?"
Calyra looked at her carefully. "The spell can only be undone by a witch of the same bloodline. A direct descendant."
Lilith furrowed her brow. "But the Emberline witches are gone, you said."
Calyra's voice was quiet. "Not all of them."
Lilith stared at her, heart beginning to race. "You think... I'm one of them?"
"I know you are," Calyra said. "The Choosing marked me with air — it rejected me, broke me. But you were born warm, even in the coldest winters. The fire has always lived inside you, Lilith. You just never knew."
Lilith looked down at her hands, suddenly uncertain. "And he wants me to break his curse."
"Yes," Calyra admitted. "But that's not all he wants. He wants to protect you, too. He knows what Mother has planned."
Lilith shook her head. "Why would a vampire care about me?"
"Because he sees himself in you. Trapped. Used. Hunted."
A silence settled between them. Then, quietly, Lilith asked, "And if I refuse to help him?"
Calyra looked at her sister with soft sorrow. "Then he'll die in the shadows. Alone. And you'll face the Choosing... without any idea of what's waiting for you."
Hours had passed. No more talk of Alistair. No more questions about the Choosing.
Just silence.
The sisters lay curled together on the old mattress, the wood beneath them creaking softly with every breath. Calyra's fingers idly wove through Lilith's long, tangled hair, the repetitive motion soothing them both.
"I'll be honest," Lilith whispered at last, her voice barely more than a thought, "for a brief moment... I thought I could trust Lord Baelrik."
Calyra didn't flinch. She just kept combing her sister's hair, waiting.
"He seemed genuine," Lilith added, like she needed to confess it before it crushed her. "I thought maybe he was trying to help me."
"No man should be trusted," Calyra said gently, her voice carrying the weight of bitter truth. "It's their world we live in. And it's built on using us."
Lilith shifted, peeking up with a half-smirk. "You yourself said you trust Alistair. Isn't that a bit ironic?"
Calyra's lips curved, amused by the challenge in her sister's tone. Lilith wasn't afraid of her — she just hadn't decided yet if her sister was naïve, delusional, or truly safe. Maybe it was all three.
"Alistair is different," Calyra replied. "I don't count him as a man."
Lilith's eyes narrowed playfully. "And what do you count him as? A donkey?"
Calyra grinned. "Well... sometimes he is one."
That made Lilith laugh — for real this time. Not out of fear or relief, but something genuine. A moment of warmth cracked through her ribs and spilled out of her like sunlight breaking through fog. That sound — her sister's laughter — made everything Calyra had sacrificed worth it.
And then, from outside the hut, a voice called lazily, "Well, now I'm officially insulted."
Lilith's smile vanished. She sat up slowly, wide-eyed, while Calyra just rolled her eyes.
"I said sometimes," she called back, voice light with teasing venom. "You're only proving my point, Alistair."
He chuckled somewhere beyond the doorframe, and Lilith swallowed hard, that familiar storm of dread and curiosity waking up in her chest.
Lilith sat up, brushing straw from her tangled dress, her eyes still fixed on the door as if it might bite her.
Calyra leaned back against the wall, arms crossed behind her head. "Ignore him. He thinks being dramatic makes him interesting."
"I heard that," came Alistair's voice again — calm, smug, and far too pleased with himself.
"Good. Then you also heard how annoying you are."
"Annoying is charming when you look like me," he replied without hesitation.
Lilith scoffed. "Modest, too. A real gift."
There was a pause. Then: "Ah. So the princess speaks. I was starting to think you'd bite me before you ever said a word."
Calyra chuckled softly, glancing at her sister. "He likes his women like he likes his weapons — sharp enough to hurt him."
Lilith blinked, then gave a faint, reluctant smile. "I'm not sure if that's a compliment or a threat."
"Why not both?" Alistair offered.
"Do you ever stop talking?" she asked, pulling her knees to her chest.
"Only when I'm sleeping or brooding. I do both with flair, I assure you."
"I'm sure you do," Lilith said dryly, resting her chin on her knees. "I assume you're lurking out there because you know you're not welcome inside."
"Correct. I make it a rule never to enter a room where I'm not invited," he replied evenly.
"Vampire rules?" she asked, half-mocking, half-serious.
"Something like that."
Another silence fell, this one oddly more comfortable.
Lilith looked over at Calyra. "Is he always like this?"
"Worse, actually," Calyra said with a sigh. "But occasionally useful."
"I heard that too," Alistair muttered.
"Good," both sisters replied in unison.
The stars were barely visible through the thick forest canopy, but the moonlight was enough. Lilith stepped outside, the cold air biting at her exposed skin. She didn't care. She needed space. Needed silence.
She didn't get it.
"You'll catch your death," came the voice from behind a tree. Smooth, low, and completely unsurprised to see her.
She didn't jump. "So will you, if you keep stalking girls in the dark."
Alistair emerged from the shadows, arms crossed, cloak wrapped neatly around his lean frame. "Technically, I'm already dead. So I guess I'm just collecting hobbies now."
She rolled her eyes. "Well, congratulations. You've added 'creepy nighttime lurking' to your impressive résumé."
He stepped beside her, but kept his distance. "It's a classic. Right up there with 'witty banter' and 'unwanted charm.'"
"Unwanted is right," she muttered, rubbing her arms.
He glanced sideways at her. "You're still trembling."
"I just found out my sister's not dead, was drugged and kidnapped by a vampire, and might spontaneously combust during a ritual I don't understand. Sorry if I'm a little cold."
A beat passed.
"Fair," he said.
She blinked at him. "That's it? No clever retort? No 'oh princess, don't be so dramatic'?"
He shrugged. "Wouldn't dare. You look like you'd throw me into the fire if I said the wrong thing."
She tilted her head. "Maybe I would."
He grinned. "Good. Fear keeps things exciting."
They stood there in silence for a moment, neither quite sure why they hadn't walked away yet.
Finally, Lilith said, "You talk too much."
"You listen too well," he replied.
She cracked a smile before she could stop herself, and that was enough for him to smile too — not mockingly this time, but something quieter, like he was trying to figure her out without scaring her away.
"I'm still deciding if I trust you," she said, voice low.
"I hope you don't," Alistair replied without missing a beat. "I'd think less of you if you did."
She turned back toward the hut, not looking at him. "You're ridiculous."
"And you're exhausting," he called after her. "I think we're off to a brilliant start.