The scent of dust and decaying paper was a familiar perfume. For Elara, it was the smell of home. Moonlight, pale and silvery, streamed through the high, arched window of the monastery's scriptorium, illuminating the dancing motes of dust her feather duster kicked up from the ancient tome on her desk.
This was her life: Keeper of the Forgotten Texts. Translator of Dead Languages. Official Hider-from-the-Outside-World.
She sighed, blowing a stray strand of hair from her face. The text before her was a dry historical account of border disputes between long-dead fae lords. Her eyes glazed over. Sometimes, she dreamed of more. Of adventure. Of a life that didn't smell like a library.
As her frustration peaked, a faint, warm tingle started in her fingertips. She clenched her fists, trying to suppress it. "Not now," she whispered to herself.
It was no use.
A soft, silver light began to emanate from her skin, pulsing gently in time with her heartbeat. The runes on the ancient pages she was dusting shimmered in response, glowing with a faint, answering gold. This was her curse and her secret: she was Starborn. On nights when her emotions ran high, especially under a full moon, she quite literally glowed. It was why the monks had taken her in. It was why she had to stay hidden. Her blood, the Abbot said, was a vintage the vampire aristocracy would pay a fortune to taste.
A sudden, sharp crackle of energy made her jump. The air in the center of the scriptorium tore open, shimmering like a heat haze. In its center, a vision resolved: a grand, obsidian throne room filled with impossibly beautiful, pale-faced figures in exquisite finery. In the center stood an ancient vampire with eyes that held entire galaxies.
His voice, deep and resonant, echoed not just in the room, but in her very bones.
"Hear me, children of the night and scions of the day. The time of the Crimson Tithe is upon us. The most powerful, the most cunning, the most worthy unmated souls of Sanguinea are summoned to compete. The prize? A binding alliance with my power and the right to shape the future of our realm. Let the trials begin."
The vision vanished, leaving behind a ringing silence and the scent of ozone and cold stone.
Elara stood frozen, her glow now a steady, stunned luminescence. A competition. For vampires. It was madness.
But then, a thought, wild and reckless, sprouted in her mind. The Progenitor had said "unmated souls." He hadn't specified vampire souls. And the announcement had been broadcast everywhere, a public spectacle.
Her eyes darted to the monastery's ledger, lying open on the Abbot's desk. The entry for this month's food stores was depressingly small. They were struggling. She was struggling. Trapped in this library, a secret to be kept forever.
What if she didn't have to be?
She walked to the ledger, her heart hammering against her ribs. With a trembling hand, she picked up a quill. She wasn't a powerful vampire lord. She was a nobody. A glowing, magical nobody with nothing to lose.
She would enter.