A week had never felt so long and so short at the same time.
Seven days of preparation. Seven days of checking weapons, rationing supplies, going over the plan again and again until they could recite it in their sleep. Seven days of stolen moments—kisses and whispered promises and hands held tight like they could anchor each other to this timeline through sheer force of will.
And now, finally, they stood at the base of the Ancient Tree.
"Holy shit," Zayne breathed, his head tilting back to take in the impossible scale of it.
The tree was massive in a way that defied comprehension. Its trunk was wider than some buildings, its bark twisted and gnarled like it had been growing for millennia.
And covering every surface—every branch, every crevice, every inch of available space—were vampires.
Thousand of them.
Maybe tens of thousands. All hanging upside down with their wings wrapped around their bodies like grotesque cocoons, sleeping in anticipation of the blood moon that would rise tomorrow.
"It's real," Zayne said, and there was something like awe in his voice. "You told me, but seeing it..."
"I know." Nana's hand found his, squeezing tight. "Come on. We need to start climbing before any of them wake up early."
They moved slowly, carefully, testing each handhold before putting their weight on it.
The tree's bark was rough enough to provide good grip, and someone—probably survivors from previous cycles—had carved rough footholds into the trunk at irregular intervals.
Around them, vampires slept on. Their wings twitched occasionally, and every time one moved, Nana and Zayne froze, hearts pounding, waiting to see if it would wake.
But they never did. Just shifted in their sleep and settled back into stillness.
Up and up they climbed. Past the lower branches where younger vampires nested.
Past the middle sections where the really old ones roosted, their bodies larger and more monstrous than the newly transformed. Past sections where the bark had been worn smooth by countless hands over countless years—other survivors who'd made this climb, most of whom probably hadn't survived it.
Nana's arms burned. Her legs screamed in protest. Beside her, Zayne's breathing was labored but controlled, his movements still precise despite the exhaustion.
They're been climbing for hours when they finally reached it—the gap.
A massive space between the highest branches and the tree's peak, easily fifty meters of empty air. This was where the Wish Bridge would form. Where ice and light would create a path from the Ancient Tree to the portal home.
But the blood moon hadn't risen yet.
The bridge didn't exist.
So they settled on one of the impossibly wide branches to wait, their backs against the trunk, weapons within easy reach. Below them, the entire realm of Avalon spread out like a map of hell—ruined districts, collapsed buildings, the grey sky pressing down on everything.
"It's so small from up here," Zayne observed quietly. "Everything we've been fighting through. All those districts. From this height, it all looks..."Nana finished. "Like it was all for nothing."
"Not for nothing." His hand found hers again. "We survived. We found each other. We made it this far. That's not nothing."
They sat in silence for a while, just breathing, just existing together in this moment before everything changed.
Then a vampire on a nearby branch twitched. Its wings shifted, unfurling slightly. Red eyes flickered open for just a second before closing again.
Nana and Zayne held their breath, not daring to move.
The vampire settled back to sleep.
They exhaled slowly, carefully.
"How much longer?" Zayne whispered.
Nana checked the sky. The grey was starting to shift, taking on a reddish tinge at the edges. "An hour. Maybe less."
"And if they all wake up before the bridge forms?"
"Then we fight. And we jump whether the bridge is ready or not."
Zayne's jaw tightened, but he nodded. "Together."
"Together," Nana agreed.
They watched the sky change. Slowly, incrementally, the grey gave way to red. Not the violent crimson of fresh blood, but something deeper. Older. The color of old wounds and ancient sacrifices.
The blood moon was rising.
And with it came the awakening.
Beneath them—far below, in the lowest nests—vampires began to stir. Wings unfurled. Red eyes opened. That distinctive shriek began to echo through the branches, a sound that made every primitive instinct scream to run, hide, flee.
"Nana." Zayne's voice was tight. "The bridge."
She looked up and her breath caught.
It was forming. Right in front of them, ice was crystallizing out of nothing, spreading across the gap like frost across a window. Light wove through it—pale blue and silver, creating a structure that looked impossibly delicate and impossibly strong all at once.
The Wish Bridge.
Their way home.
"We need to move," Nana said, already getting to her feet. "Now. Before they all—"
A shriek cut through the air, much closer than before. A vampire on their level had woken, its red eyes fixing on them with predatory focus.
"GO!" Zayne shouted.
They ran.
The branch was wide enough that running was possible, but it was also curved and slick in places. Nana's boots slipped once, her heart leaping into her throat before she caught herself.
Behind them, more shrieks joined the first. Vampires were waking everywhere now, emerging from their year-long sleep hungry and vicious.
The Wish Bridge solidified ahead of them, its surface gleaming in the blood moon's light. So close. Just a few more meters.
A vampire dove at them from above. Zayne's crossbow sang, the bolt catching it in the chest and sending it tumbling away with a shriek of pain and rage.
"Don't stop!" Nana grabbed his hand, pulling him forward.
They reached the branch's end and leaped.
For one heart-stopping moment, they were airborne. Nothing but empty space beneath them and vampires closing in from all sides.
Then their feet hit the bridge's surface.
Ice. Solid and real and impossibly cold beneath their boots.
"RUN!" Nana didn't know if she was shouting at Zayne or herself, but they ran anyway.
The bridge stretched before them, maybe a hundred meters to the portal at the other end. Behind them, vampires were landing on the ice, their clawed feet scrabbling for purchase on the slick surface.
Halfway across, Nana felt it—a shift in the air pressure. Something wrong.
She looked back and saw a vampire lunging for her leg, its claws extended, its mouth open in a triumphant shriek.
Zayne was faster. His arm wrapped around her waist and he jumped, pulling them both higher and forward in a desperate leap that carried them over the reaching claws.
They landed hard on the ice, skidded, kept running.
Seventy-five meters. Fifty. Twenty-five.
The portal was right there—a swirling vortex of light and ice, beautiful and terrifying and the most welcome sight Nana had ever seen.
Behind them, a vampire touched the portal's edge and screamed. Its body began dissolving immediately, turning to white mist as the portal rejected its corrupted essence.
"JUMP!" Zayne and Nana shouted at the same time.
They leaped together, hands clasped tight, their bodies hitting the portal's surface as one.
Everything exploded into sensation.
Cold. So cold it burned. Light that was too bright to look at directly. A pulling sensation like being turned inside out and put back together wrong.
Nana squeezed Zayne's hand tighter, feeling his fingers grip hers just as desperately. Through the chaos of the portal, she could see him—really see him—his hazel eyes wide and determined, his jaw set, his whole being focused on one thing: holding onto her.
Some vampires had tried to follow.
She caught glimpses of them at the edges of her vision, their bodies dissolving into white mist as the portal tore them apart.
The portal only accepted humans. Only the pure. Everything else was rejected, destroyed, erased.
But Zayne wasn't dissolving. His hand was solid in hers, his body whole and human and real.
He'd made it. They'd made it.
Together.
She pulled him closer, wrapping her arms around him as the portal's pull became stronger. His arms came around her waist, holding tight, and for just a moment—suspended in light and ice and the space between worlds—they had won.
The portal gave one final pull, and reality shifted.
They hit the ground hard.
The impact drove the air from Nana's lungs, sent shockwaves of pain through her entire body. She gasped, trying to breathe, trying to orient herself, trying to figure out if they were alive or dead or somewhere in between.
Real air filled her lungs. Not the stale, oppressive atmosphere of Avalon, but clean forest air that smelled of pine and earth and life.
They'd made it. They were home.
She tried to sit up, to check on Zayne, to make sure he was okay. But her body wouldn't cooperate. Everything felt too heavy, too slow, like she was moving through water.
She managed to turn her head, and what she saw made her heart clench.
Zayne was lying a few feet away,
unconscious. He was wearing a long dark coat—the same coat he'd been wearing when they'd first fallen into Avalon together, what felt like a lifetime ago. His face was peaceful in unconsciousness, his breathing steady.
Alive. He was alive.
Nana tried again to move, to reach him, to touch him and make sure this was real.
But exhaustion was pulling at her, dragging her down toward darkness.
Around them, the ice cave—the portal to Avalon—was disappearing. The opening in the rock face was sealing itself, freezing over,And shatter.Becoming just another unremarkable section of rocks and tree Like it had never existed. Like the nightmare they'd just escaped had been nothing but a dream.
But Zayne was here. Solid and real and breathing.
They'd made it.
Both of them. Together.
Nana's eyes drifted closed, a smile on her lips despite the pain and exhaustion.
They'd won.
And then darkness claimed her, pulling her down into unconsciousness beside the man she loved.
And somewhere in the distance, sirens began to wail.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.