My determined stride faltered only a few steps from the shadows. I had to go. I didn’t really have a choice. He knew what I was now. Even if he found it in himself not to despise me, it was still his duty to kill monsters. He was the Hero. I was a vampire. There wasn’t much else to it.

  From the beginning, I’d known this storybook adventure could only ever have one ending. It just hurt more than I’d expected. Leaving other friends behind had hurt too, but Laurent was different. He had been more than that, even before anyone told us we were destined to marry. Was he still a friend? Or something more? And did it matter, if that promised future could never exist?

  I was stalling.

  I wiped my face with my sleeve and took a steadying breath. It was time to go.

  Before I could take another step, something shifted behind me with a faint rustle. I glanced over my shoulder, expecting a small animal, and froze.

  Halfway up the wall were four figures, each bristling with blades, moving silently toward our window.

  “It’s not a good time,” I told them, my voice still thick with emotion. “Laurent is trying to sleep.”

  “The Saint,” one of them replied, clipped and harsh.

  They dropped to the ground like cats. Their dark clothing was uniform, broken only by the black wooden masks they wore, each carved with a different pattern of ravens in flight. I knew who they had to be. Laurent had told me about the assassins who had come for him before.

  How had the church known, and still let them get this close?

  A cold anger crept into my despair, sharper than it had any right to be. My fangs ached. My nails bit into my palm before I realized they’d lengthened at all.

  Without a word, they spread out. One came straight for me.

  His charge was a blur of motion. Vampiric might surged in my veins, and I stepped aside as Celerity took hold, the world smearing as if reality itself lagged behind me. I didn’t look as I whipped my staff through the air. The crunch of bone at the base of his skull was answer enough.

  Their brief pause to reassess me was a mistake.

  I lunged at the center assassin. He twisted aside from my staff and swung at my exposed arm. I caught his blade on my weapon and slashed at him with my claws in the same breath. He leaned into the unarmed strike, trying to force leverage against my parry.

  A poor choice.

  His blade slid free as my claws slipped beneath his ribs. I lifted him off the ground and turned him into a shield just as a thrown knife buried itself in his side. I hurled the body toward the attacker and spun on the last one closing in behind me.

  Was this what it was supposed to be like? The thrilling hunt I'd left home for so long ago?

  His long knife swung for my throat, expecting the turn. I leaned back, just out of reach for the instant of its passing. Then my boot drove through his knee like a hammer through glass. He screamed in silence, crumpling, but I was already turning toward the last blade.

  His steel slammed home in my heart the moment our eyes met.

  My left hand clamped around his wrist. I saw triumph flare in his eyes as he tried to twist the blade, but my grip held fast. I let myself sag into him, my other hand fisting in his collar, and then I pulled myself upright again, lifting my face to his ear.

  “That’s not how you kill a vampire.”

  His blood filled my throat before the words truly reached him.

  And I felt…

  nothing.

  No rush. No fire. No thrill.

  The mask split when the fourth drained husk hit the ground, ravens scattering across the cobblestone. I turned and walked into the night, my heart as empty as their veins.

  I could still hear the crowds and revelry of the festival carrying on late into the night. I ignored it, focusing instead on the soft impact of my boots against the walkway, willing my thoughts to settle. I could feel my nature beginning to dim my emotions. Not by much. Not like the others of my kind. But enough.

  Away from the panic of my confession, I almost second-guessed myself. Almost.

  No matter how I turned it over, this was the right decision. I could trust Laurent. He had given his word. Someday, he might even come to accept me for who I am. But the church never would. There was no time to wait for that distant "Someday," and even if there were, I could never ask him to abandon his life to run away with a monster. Perhaps it was only the dreams that let me understand that now, but I did.

  The wall surrounding the cathedral was thick and well kept, but at only eight feet high and choked with ivy, it was more decorative than defensive. No wonder the assassins had slipped through. Worse, there wasn’t a single guard or patrol in sight.

  I was almost to the wall when a scream cut through the night and stopped me cold.

  For a heartbeat, I thought someone had found the bodies. But the sound came from the wrong direction.

  I scanned the gardens, and a flash of steel caught my eye through the greenery. I couldn’t see clearly, but far off, near the cathedral’s entrance, it looked as though two templars were already fighting. As I watched, more figures rushed into view. Templars. Soldiers. Even townsfolk, armed with whatever they could find.

  The lines were crude but clear. Some were holding the cathedral doors. The others were trying to tear them down.

  I let my personal concerns fall away and finally paid attention to what was happening around me.

  The air was still thick with the sounds of celebration, cheers, song, and clapping, carrying on late into the night. But woven through it all was another noise entirely. Steel striking steel. Cries of pain. The sounds of people fighting and dying. The festival almost drowned it out, the city itself struggling to stay blissfully ignorant.

  The smell was harder to ignore. Smoke from torches, and what I now suspected were real fires, hung heavy in the air. And beneath it all, once I allowed myself to notice, was the unmistakable scent of blood.

  “What is going on?”

  Laurent. He was asleep. Helpless.

  I turned, ready to run back and warn him, but the window of our room was already glowing with light, throwing familiar shapes into stark relief. Sir Cedric was there, guiding Laurent toward his armor. As if he sensed me watching, Cedric’s gaze snapped directly to mine. Our eyes met for a brief moment before Laurent said something that drew his attention away.

  That eased my worry, just enough.

  My thoughts shifted to my family. Aunt Violette had taken Nadine to find my grandfather. They were likely safer than most. The others would be at Uncle Edgar’s home, but I had no idea where that was. That left only one option.

  With a destination in mind, I turned and rushed toward the cathedral’s main entrance. I had no intention of forcing my way through the fighting at the doors. I searched instead for another way inside, one that wouldn’t send me straight back into Laurent’s path. I flew past shuttered windows and locked doors until, at last, opportunity found me.

  A door burst open ahead, a young priest stumbling out in terror. Behind him came a woman wielding a broken table leg, its jagged end slick with blood and trailing sinew as she raised it overhead.

  As the priest stumbled past, the woman, a priest herself, snapped her attention to me. Her movements were jerky as she turned, redirecting her charge toward me, and I took her in at a glance.

  Her eyes were vacant pools, fixed on me without truly seeing. She bled from several shallow wounds, and something about the scent of her blood was wrong. I didn’t have time to dwell on it before she lunged.

  I stepped outside the arc of her swing, struck the back of her wrist hard enough to send the broken table leg clattering away, then backhanded her skull as she staggered past. She collapsed in a heap. I didn’t wait to see if she would rise.

  The door she’d burst through was already swinging shut. I lunged forward, caught it with the tip of my staff, and slipped inside. The door closed behind me, sealing me into a room soaked in blood.

  It slicked the flagstones in wide, uneven smears, gleaming in the lanternlight cast by a single lamp that had somehow remained upright on a side table. The space was small, a servants’ prep room, its modest furniture overturned and scattered. A wooden table lay on its side, one leg torn free, the stump splintered where someone had ripped it loose. Trays of bread and fruit were crushed underfoot, seeds and pulp mixing with the red on the floor in a grotesque slurry.

  Two bodies lay near the far wall, robes tangled, throats opened by something jagged and desperate. The air carried a sharp metallic tang, undercut by the faint sweetness of spilled wine, and the room still throbbed with the echo of panic that had erupted here only moments ago.

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  The blood on the floor carried the same wrongness. Worse than that, it made the world feel heavier, as though the blood itself had weight, dragging at me. I’d never felt anything like it before, and I had no desire to linger and discover what caused it.

  Half running, half leaping across the room, I placed my steps carefully between the tainted smears and spilled out into the hallway beyond.

  I paused for a moment to get my bearings. The corridor stretched wide and quiet, its stone arches swallowing sound. Whatever chaos had torn through the servants’ room had thinned here, leaving only streaks and shallow pools of blood trailing along the floor, with no bodies to explain them.

  I had no idea where to go. From my brief glimpse outside, I had a rough sense of which direction would lead back toward the central hall where the ceremony had been held earlier that day. It had to be nearby. And if I were lucky, someone there might still be sane enough to tell me where to find my family.

  My pace stayed brisk as I moved, skirting pools of blood that some spreading taint seemed to cling to. None of this made sense. And why now? It didn’t really matter. The same wrong scent that had clung to the madwoman outside was everywhere here.

  I stepped past several bodies, dead or unconscious, winding through the maze of halls until one figure shifted. An older paladin, by the look of him. I raised my staff, ready to strike, but he only managed a wet, gurgling cough.

  I almost moved on. Then he spoke.

  “Saint…” He tried to breathe, failed, and coughed again, blood flecking his lips. “You must warn—” Another fit cut him off, but he forced the words out. “No mercy for Malvran. Planned it all.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  His strength gave out before he could answer.

  I knelt and shook him gently, but the light was already fading from his eyes. I knew better than to risk giving my blood to the dead, and I started to rise… Then I hesitated. I was the Saint now, wasn’t I? I didn’t know this man. I didn’t owe him anything. But whatever he’d been trying to say might be important.

  I placed my hand back on his shoulder and reached for the light I’d felt before.

  Healing Touch answered as easily as any of my other abilities, flowing into him like a cool, steady breeze. His eyes flew open, and he dragged in a sharp breath, but I nearly collapsed. The severity of his wounds, combined with my inexperience, drained far more from me than I’d expected. I could still smell fresh blood and knew he wasn’t fully healed, but he was alive. And that was more than he’d been moments ago.

  “You… saved my life. Thank you, Saint.” The relief in his voice vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, his eyes widening with urgency. “Malvran. He’s in the Nave. He must be stopped. Some kind of ritual. He’ll kill us all.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” I said, forcing my confusion down. “What ritual? How do I stop it?”

  He shook his head, breath coming short. “The Oracle will know. Warn her. She’s in the Sanctum of Revelation. Back the way you came. Hurry.”

  I nodded and rose to my feet. “I don’t have time for that. Where is my grandfather? Archbishop Basile De Ciel?”

  “What?” He stared at me, clearly expecting me to already be running. “He’s… trying to stop Malvran. Did you not hear me? You must find the Oracle!”

  “Don’t worry,” I called over my shoulder as I moved away. “She’s an Oracle. I imagine she already knows.”

  There was no chance I was leaving my grandfather to fight alone. Or my aunt, if she was with him. It was a strange thing to feel so fiercely about someone I had never met, but it didn’t matter. I lengthened my stride and ran.

  It didn’t take long for the sounds to reach me. Steel ringing against steel. The chant of priests. The screams of the dying. The thick scent of blood drew me forward, just as the taint within it pulled at me like gravity. The closer I came, the stranger the blood felt, heavier and more insistent with every step. I finally slowed as I neared the door that could only be my destination, the pull of the blood sharpening as the sounds ahead abruptly died.

  I peered around the corner to see what had brought the chaos to a sudden standstill.

  The cardinal who had proclaimed me the Saint stood near where he’d been before, now surrounded by several armed men. Only two wore church regalia. The rest were dressed more plainly, with glints of mail showing through torn fabric. Behind them, where the Oracle’s throne had once stood, was a perfectly round crater, as if the stone floor had been struck by something immense.

  Suspended above it hovered a dark stone, no larger than my clenched fists held together.

  Even from the doorway, I could feel the magic saturating the room. Not just the lingering residue of spells spent in battle, but something else entirely, centered on that stone. Setting aside its obvious magical nature, it felt like a ritual poised on the edge of activation.

  Twisted, condensed, and somehow viscerally wrong. Whatever it was, this had to be what the paladin had tried to warn me about.

  Pressing in on the cardinal and testing his defenses were three paladins, supported by a man who could only be my grandfather. With Aunt Violette standing behind him, I couldn’t have mistaken him for anyone else. Nadine was beside her, and together they worked at a complex enchanting circle, runes forming in the air at their hands. Even with my limited understanding, I could see how slow the work was without a proper implement to focus the magic.

  At first, I didn’t understand the stalemate. My grandfather’s men were better equipped, but they were outnumbered. Whatever Violette and Nadine were building, I doubted it would end well for the cardinal and his followers. Not that it mattered. Whatever ritual had been prepared here, it was already complete. I was certain of that now. It could be triggered at any moment.

  And yet, no one moved. They had stopped even testing one another’s defenses.

  Then I saw it. Darkness clawed along the floor in a perfect circle around my grandfather’s position. The strain carved deep into his face as he held a spell in place, keeping it at bay. The cardinal, Malvran, I supposed, wasn’t waiting for a final clash at all. He was watching, confident and patient. He had already won, and now he was savoring it.

  “Just let him in, Basile,” Malvran said smoothly. “It will be quick. Painless. You’ll finally understand the lies you’ve been fed by that fraud of an Oracle.”

  My grandfather didn’t even look at him, but one of the paladins did.

  “You’re a snake, Malvran. Help is coming. You’ve nowhere to run. Whatever this little revolt is, it’s doomed, and so are you.”

  The cardinal laughed. “I hope you’re right. The more of your people gathered in the city, the better. There’s still time to see the truth.”

  I didn’t understand everything they were saying, but suddenly it was clear to me what he was doing. He was stalling. That wasn't just banter. He really did want more of them here. More templars. More priests. More faithful packed into the city before whatever came next. They were so intent on watching each other that no one had noticed me yet.

  There wouldn’t be a better chance. I began to cross the room as Malvran kept talking.

  “There is no hope, Basile,” Malvran said calmly. “I don’t know how you managed to hide that girl away all these years, but it didn’t help you in the end, did it? Just like the Oracle calling your sweet Marie all this way, only for her to die.” His eyes gleamed. “You remember that, don’t you? How a messenger could have done the same job. How she didn’t bother to send any real escort, despite the danger.”

  That finally shook Basile. His protective circle shrank by the barest margin as he glared up at the false cardinal. “I remember when you objected to the escort,” he said coldly. “I remember when you rallied the other cardinals to vote against keeping them safe in the Holy City. Speak no more, heretic. Your plans fail here. The Saint survived. The Hero has been named. You will face whatever punishment your gods mete out in the afterlife.”

  His gods. That was interesting. Already, this was more than I had ever been told about my parents’ deaths.

  Malvran’s smile only widened. “Are you so sure, Basile? The last report I received said they were both sound asleep, with a full squad from the House of Ravens closing in.” His tone softened, almost regretful. “I’m afraid it seems you’ll have yet another grave to fill, old friend.”

  My grandfather’s face went still. Then I watched it begin to break, piece by piece. I was barely two dozen paces away, and I wasn’t about to let his defenses fail.

  “You’re right,” I said into the silence. “We were asleep. Fortunately for us, I’ve always had a taste for midnight snacks.”

  Every eye in the room snapped to me as I continued forward, my steps unhurried. Measured. Each one an effort of restraint.

  “I hope they weren’t expensive,” I went on lightly. “I am curious, though. How did you know we would die in the Dark Forest? How did you convince my parents to enter that place?”

  “Mirela!” my aunt cried. “Get out of here. Run!”

  I raised a hand without looking back. “No, Aunt Violette. I don’t think I will. He’s trying to break your focus. Finish your working.”

  My gaze burned into Malvran as he recovered his composure. “Tell me, Cardinal of shadows and blood. Tell me how you killed my parents.”

  His eyes shifted, just slightly. Not to me, but inward. Weighing, measuring, so subtle I almost missed it. Then his expression softened into something almost kind. A paternal smile that made my stomach turn. He held his hands out slightly, palms visible, the practiced posture of a priest soothing frightened children.

  “Saintess… I understand your grief. Truly. But you ask the wrong question.” His voice dripped with honeyed patience. “I did not kill your parents. They were devout servants of the faith. The Church failed them long before I ever arrived at this post.”

  He took a careful step forward, stopping just short of the boundary his defenders guarded. I kept walking.

  “You think I sent them into the Dark Forest? No, child. They were already on a doomed path. The old Church refused them protection. The escort they needed was denied. Their summons rushed.” His gaze sharpened. “Your birth—your very existence—was meant to be safeguarded. Not paraded through danger for the sake of pride.”

  My hands curled slowly at my sides.

  “And when the vampires descended?” he continued smoothly. “Who could have predicted such negligence? Two consecrated souls sent through cursed lands, unattended.”

  I nodded once, slowly. He took it as agreement.

  “I tried to correct this corruption,” he said, voice thick with wounded righteousness. “But the other cardinals would not listen. They clung to their titles while your parents paid for their failures in blood.”

  “I see,” I said quietly, watching his eyes flick as I neared the outer edge of the shadows binding my grandfather. “And the assassins?”

  He inclined his head in something like reverence. “A misunderstanding. Rogues meant only to remove you from the Oracle’s influence. I would never harm you. Or the Hero. I have only sought to protect what the gods entrusted to us.”

  Something cold and sharp settled into my chest.

  “And which gods are those?” I asked. “The ones you serve?”

  He opened his mouth.

  I didn’t let him speak.

  “Actually,” I said, “I have a better question. Which vampire was it? Dragomir himself?” I tilted my head. “Or Toas? He travels often. Perhaps Victor. He’s always been the most comfortable around churches.”

  The reaction was immediate. Subtle, but there. His eyes didn’t recognize the names. Not really. All but one.

  For the first time, he faltered.

  “Did you know,” I continued, voice steady, “that even the people of Angelshade don’t know vampires live in the heart of the Dark Forest? Dragomir is very careful about that. So tell me… how did you?”

  The lie formed in his eyes before he spoke.

  “It is classified knowledge,” he said too quickly. “Restricted to the highest ranks of the Church. But a better question is—how do you know?”

  “Ah,” I said softly, a smile finally breaking through. “Let me—”

  The staff left my hand like a thrown spear. It punched through his body just below the ribs, ending the conversation mid-breath.

  For a heartbeat after the staff struck Malvran, no one moved. Then the chamber erupted.

  The two zealots in Church colors reacted first, years of drilled discipline snapping into place. Steel whirled in my direction in a single, clean motion. They formed a wedge in front of their cardinal, shields angled, blades raised, eyes hard.

  The others, Malvran’s plain-clothes minions who reeked of the taint, were nothing of the sort. Their response was feral.

  The moment his blood hit the air, something inside them broke loose. They shrieked like rabid things, spittle flying, and hurled themselves forward with wild, slavering fury.

  My center lowered, my arms coming up as I braced for the impact.

  It never came.

  Three steps into their charge, there was a silent snap in the mana around us, and every one of them collapsed mid-lunge. It wasn’t anything I had done, nor anything I could see anyone else doing. They simply crumpled, limbs seizing, bodies arching as they struck the floor in thrashing convulsions.

  Malvran’s blood, leaking from his wound, did not spill to the floor as it should have. It rose. Perfectly round droplets lifted toward the hovering stone behind him, which pulsed faintly as it accepted each bead into its center.

  Cold spread through me.

  The runes blooming across the orb told me everything. This was a blood ritual. Human sacrifice. Something I’d only read about in books. Something Father had warned me never to attempt, never to allow, never to—

  “Gods,” I breathed.

  More of the rabble screamed as the corruption in their blood answered the call. Veins bulged. Skin mottled. And then—horrifically—their blood tore free of their flesh. It slithered across the stone like sanguine worms, pooling toward the crater beneath the throne’s absence before lifting upward in a reverse rain of red.

  Malvran shrieked.

  Real fear finally cut through the honey in his voice. He clawed at the stones, dragging himself backward, but the ritual had already chosen him. Ribbons of his blood tore free, lifting toward the orb as he scrabbled away.

  “Help me! Get me out—”

  One zealot obeyed without thinking, lunging forward to haul him clear by the shoulders. The other froze, staring upward as Malvran’s blood spiraled in glowing coils toward the stone. He never registered me stepping in behind him.

  My claws opened the back of his neck. He fell without a sound.

  I caught the remaining knight by the collar of his armor, wrenched him close, and shoved him straight toward the orb. His scream vanished the instant the ritual took him.

  Behind me, my aunt and grandfather shouted my name, backing away as the last paladins tried to shield them.

  “Mirela! Get out! Run!”

  Nadine did the opposite. Instead of retreating, she sprinted across the blood-slick floor, seized my arm, and tried to drag me back the way I’d come.

  “Nadine—”

  “Mirela, we have to go!” Terror cracked through her voice.

  But the ritual had begun pulling from far more than the bodies at our feet.

  Blood slid beneath the side doors in dark, sinuous ribbons. From the hallways. From the wounded outside. From the cathedral itself. It carried that same foul gravity, that same wrongness, tugging at me like weight pressing into my bones.

  Every drop converged toward the basin beneath the hovering stone.

  Then the stone… pulsed.

  A wave of dark force burst outward from it, moving at the pace of a brisk walk. Not fast, but inevitable.

  I summoned the light instinctively, calling it from that deep well I was quickly growing accustomed to. It flared out around us in a dome no wider than my outstretched arms.

  And then, the wave hit. Everything beyond my Sanctuary turned to ashen stone.

  The screaming zealots.

  The rabble writhing in their own blood.

  The paladins protecting my aunt and grandfather.

  My aunt.

  My grandfather.

  All frozen mid-motion, statues of gray dust.

  The wave continued outward. Through walls. Through streets. Toward the city.

  Toward Laurent.

  Toward my uncle’s home. Toward Candice and Chloe. Toward every living thing I had touched, or might yet care about.

  Running wouldn’t save them. It would only mean I wasn’t there when it finished. And I wasn’t brave enough to leave them behind.

  Silence crushed the chamber as the pulse moved on, spilling out into the city.

  Nadine sobbed. “What do we do? What do we do—”

  She seized a fallen sword and hurled it at the stone. It struck and bounced away harmlessly, clattering uselessly across the floor.

  My eyes flicked to the basin. The blood rising toward the orb had slowed. Not stopped. Slowed. The curse was still growing, still feeding, even as it continued to reach outward.

  I knew what that meant. I knew what stopped such rituals. And I knew why the Oracle had twisted every thread of fate to bring me here, to this exact moment.

  “Nadine,” I whispered.

  She stared at me through tears.

  “I need you to trust me. And I’m so, so sorry.”

  Her breath hitched. “Mirela…?”

  I stepped out of the Sanctuary I'd created, feeling the curse try to chip away at me, failing to take hold against the natural resistance of my kind, and walked directly into the basin, releasing the grip on something I'd been holding back for far too long.

  My bloodline answered.

  My waiting evolution unfurled. Light met darkness, and the world bent toward me as the ritual’s hunger suddenly found a stronger pull.

  The blood in the basin surged, abandoning the stone. Not giving itself to me as a sacrifice, but being claimed. Stolen. Devoured before it could ever reach the orb.

  A shell of crystallized blood rose around me as the ritual starved, like a candle smothered beneath glass.

  I closed my eyes.

  And surrendered.

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