Two moons hung low over Grigoryn, bathing the Crimson Spires in blood-red light. Jagged obsidian towers clawed at the endless night sky, their surfaces veined with glowing rivers of cooled blood-magic. A relentless wind howled through the stone, carrying the sharp tang of eternity's hunger.
Aravos Voss stood on the highest balcony, his lithe form silhouetted against the Veil—a vast wall of swirling iridescent mist that divided Grigoryn from Eldoria's sunlit realms. Young by vampire measure, barely a century marked, yet prophetic dreams scarred him: visions of a lost sun, a binding verse echoing in his blood—When Veil and moon align, fang shall claim the sun's lost throne. He thrust out a pale hand, fingers slashing runes through the biting air. Shadows boiled up from the floor in a writhing mass, lashing toward the Veil like living whips, probing its fraying seams.
The barrier shuddered. Rifts flickered like lightning, spilling echoes from medieval Eldoria: sword clashes rang sharp, sun-warmed earth scented the wind, mortal heartbeats thrummed with fragile fire. But a savage pulse underlay it—the Wildmoons packs, their howls erupting from fog-shrouded forests like thunder rolling across a battlefield.
Deep bellows shook the spires as werewolves surged from the treeline. Hulking forms twisted mid-stride, midnight fur erupting over rippling muscle, yellow eyes blazing. Lunar magic crackled—roots exploded from the earth in thorny spears, gales hurled debris in vicious cyclones. Alpha Thorne Blackfang led them, a colossus of fury, his claws extended like scythes that severed shadow mid-air.
Aravos bared fangs like honed ivory, a snarl ripping from his throat. Shadows exploded forward in a dark torrent, smashing into a werewolf scout's earthen wall—stone shattered in brilliant sparks, the beast thrashing as tendrils bound its limbs in crushing coils. Thorne's roar drowned the fray, a raw tempest hurling shockwaves that buckled the Veil itself.
Far below, vampire lords massed in the courtyard, rune-etched armor flashing, thralls dashing with goblets of steaming vitae. Lord Draven's gravel voice boomed upward: "The packs muster, Aravos! Thorne tests the Veil—strike first, or Grigoryn bleeds!"
Aravos vaulted to the balcony's edge, cloak snapping like a war banner, crimson eyes locked on the chaos. Then the air split—a rift tore open feet away, mist erupting in a violent geyser. A human girl tumbled through, hitting stone with a bone-jarring thud, ragged wool torn, silver locket pulsing wildly in her grip. Her wide eyes met his, terror raw.
"Werewolves," she gasped in Eldoria's tongue, voice slicing the wind. "Through the forest… shadows and fangs… please."
The rift sealed with a deafening crack, winds falling to a deathly hush. Aravos's shadows surged around her like coiling guardians, and in that suspended instant, the prophecy blazed alive—the worlds had crashed together.
Aravos's shadows retracted with a hiss, coiling back into the balcony's cracks like wary serpents. The girl—Lirael, she would later gasp her name—scrambled to her knees, locket clutched to her chest as if it alone anchored her to life. Her skin glowed with an alien warmth, kissed by Eldoria's sun, her brown hair tangled with leaves and flecks of rift-mist. Fear etched her face, but defiance sparked in hazel eyes that darted from Aravos's fangs to the howling forests below.
"You… you're one of them," she whispered, edging back toward the balcony's void. The wind tugged at her, promising a swift end on the rocks far below. "A night demon. The tales were true."
Aravos froze, hand half-extended in restraint. No human had crossed the Veil whole in living memory; most shattered like glass under Grigoryn's chill. Her vitae scent flooded his senses—rich, pulsing, laced with adrenaline and earth—but he clamped down the hunger, visions of the prophecy flashing: alliances forged in unlikely blood. "I am Aravos Voss," he said, voice low and edged like a drawn blade. "Heir of the Crimson Spires. And you trespass in a war you do not understand."
A fresh howl split the night, closer now—Thorne's vanguard scaling the outer walls, claws gouging stone in sprays of sparks. Draven's war cry echoed from the courtyard:
"To arms! Shadows rise!" Vampires poured from the spires, cloaks unfurling into wings of night as they leapt into battle, runes igniting in bursts of crimson fire.
Lirael flinched at the din, but her gaze snapped to the locket. She pried it open with trembling fingers, revealing a crystal shard etched with glowing script: Moon's tear binds the rift, sun's heir wakes the throne. "This… it was my mother's. She foresaw the beasts crossing—whispered of a pale guardian beyond the Veil. You?"
Before Aravos could answer, the balcony shuddered. A werewolf hurled itself over the parapet—a brute with fur matted in gore, eyes mad with lunar rage. Its paws slammed down, earth-magic surging to sprout thorny vines that lashed toward Lirael. Aravos moved in a blur, shadows erupting like a geyser. Tendrils whipped out, severing the vines mid-growth; he spun, channeling darkness into a spear that pierced the beast's chest. It convulsed, gales whipping futilely from its maw, before crumbling to ash under twin moons.
Lirael stared, breath ragged. "You're… protecting me? Why?"
Aravos wiped shadow-ichor from his blade-hand, the spires alive now with chaos—vampire silhouettes clashing against werewolf hulks, magic colliding in thunderous blooms of light and void. "Because the Veil weakens," he said, seizing her arm—gentle, yet iron. "And your arrival is no accident. Come—the spires will not fall this night."
He pulled her toward the tower's maw, shadows cloaking them as Thorne's roar shook the heavens, promising more blood before dawn's false promise.