Before Selene opened her eyes, she heard voices.

  "She needs more time. Look at her—she's not even awake."

  “We do not have time. The sun is below the horizon. She has again slept for more than a day already. Klaus will not delay the Ascension for her.”

  Selene opened her eyes. She tried to sit up, but her body felt leaden, as if gravity had doubled while she slept.

  Selis stood by the bed, her posture shielding her. Sebastian remained near the door of the room, his expression tight with urgency. Across from them, Astraea leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching Selene.

  She noticed Selene's eyes open first and smiled. "Finally," she murmured.

  Her words prompted Sebastian to snap his attention to Selene.

  "Selene," Sebastian said, moving forward. Selis stepped between them, and he stopped, addressing Selene past her shoulder. "You are awake. Good. Are you ready?"

  Selis turned to him, her voice sharp with anger. "She just woke. She isn't ready. You're pushing her."

  "I am pushing her because we do not have any other choice. Don't you understand? “She needs to be at the Moon Court,” Sebastian countered. “If she is not there, she is disqualified. And disqualification means execution. Is that what you prefer?”

  “Nobody touches Selene. Not even you,” Selis said, her voice edged with unmistakable menace.

  For a moment, no one moved.

  Selene swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The divine offer lingered like a foul taste in her mouth. Together, no one will ever use us again.

  "I'm going," Selene said, her voice raspy.

  Selis turned to her, blindly reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Selene…"

  "He's right," she said, standing up. "If I stay here, Veilmouth dies. If I go, I have a chance to protect them." She looked at Sebastian with determination. "Where is Nihil?"

  "Waiting for you at the main entrance," Sebastian said, already turning to leave. "Garen has prepared your gear. We leave immediately."

  Selene followed behind him as she exited her room. Selis moved to follow, but Astraea stopped her.

  “Let her go,” Astraea said quietly. “You sensed it. You heard it in her voice, did you not?”

  Selis stopped, reluctant, but she did not follow immediately.

  When they reached the double doors that opened to the twilight, Garen was there waiting with Nihil strapped to his back, bearing its enormous weight. He looked as if he had been rehearsing a speech, but when he saw them, he spoke at once.

  "You asked me to carry this sword. Now I return it to you. My task here is done."

  Garen unslung the weapon and rested the tip on the ground, steadying it with both hands.

  Selene gripped the hilt. "Thank you, Garen."

  In the ruins, the sword had thrummed with power, a living thing in her hands. But now it felt different. Nihil lay dormant beneath the scabbard. Selene reached for the pulse of the fire opal and found nothing. No warmth. No light. Just iron and leather and silence.

  She pulled.

  The sword barely moved. It was heavy, dead weight, nothing more. A grunt escaped her lips as she braced her feet and hauled it onto her back, the leather strap digging into her shoulder instantly.

  She staggered a step, almost losing her balance.

  Sebastian watched her, his brow furrowing slightly. "Are you alright?"

  “Yes,” she said, adjusting the strap until it cut a little less deeply. “It’s fine. I’m still waking up. That’s all.”

  Selis and Astraea arrived moments later.

  Selis stepped closer. “I trust you, Selene. You will do what you were meant to do.”

  Astraea’s gaze was cold. “Trust none of that filth. Survival is all they understand.”

  “Come now. Great things await us,” Sebastian said, turning as he left the manor.

  They stepped into the twilight and headed toward the Moon Court, where the Ascension would begin.

  Sebastian slowed as the wind from the Moon Court swept through the archway ahead. From here, the tips of the Citadel's spires rose above them, and dragons could be seen perched upon the highest points, watching with silent judgment.

  “Ah, I almost forgot,” Sebastian said. “I believe you’re missing this.”

  He turned and held out something small in his palm.

  "Your timekeeper, I repaired what I could."

  For a moment, she did not understand. Then she saw the familiar shape, the casing polished to a soft sheen. The cracked glass was gone, replaced by a flawless face.

  "I could only restore the exterior," Sebastian added. "The casing, the glass. The rest is beyond my knowledge. I can see Eldric put considerable work into its mechanism. I could not fully understand it."

  Selene stared at it, surprised. She had forgotten about the watch. Forgotten the steady rhythm of its ticking.

  She took it from his hand.

  The metal was cool against her fingers. For a moment, the roar of the dragons above seemed to recede, replaced by something quieter, steadier.

  Tick.

  She closed it and slipped it into the inner pocket of her uniform, beneath the heavy crimson layers.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Sebastian gave a single nod, then turned toward the archway. "Come. The Moon Court waits."

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  The Citadel’s Moon Court was a vast sweep of black stone open to the sky, suspended high above the churning sea. Twelve candidates stood in a loose semicircle at its center, buffeted by the wind.

  The sun was gone. The sky was dark, but it had begun to bleed. Rising above the horizon, swollen and immense, was the blood moon, its light casting everything in shades of deep crimson.

  Klaus stood at the center of the platform. Moonlight caught on his coat, and his gloved hands rested atop a black ceremonial cane encrusted with gemstones.

  Accompanying each candidate stood their patron, noble vampires in their finery, each positioned behind the one they had chosen.

  Lucian stood near the edge. He looked focused. When he saw Selene approach, struggling to keep her stride steady under the weight of the massive sword strapped to her back, he couldn't help but laugh.

  “Look at that. You finally showed up. I thought you might have taken my advice,” Lucian called, his voice cutting through the wind. “And you brought that heap of scrap metal.”

  He glanced at his entourage, his smile. "Don't kill her too quickly. I want to see if she can even draw it before she bleeds."

  Alice, standing a few feet away, looked at Selene with worry but didn't speak. Oswald was staring at his boots, shivering in the wind.

  "Silence," Klaus commanded.

  The wind seemed to obey him, dying down instantly.

  "The Red Moon rises. The gateway is open."

  He gestured to the vampires. "Sponsors. Prepare your vessels."

  The vampire nobles stepped forward, producing ornate syringes filled with glowing, viscous crimson fluid.

  Sebastian stepped in front of Selene, blocking her from the view of the others with his body. In his hand was a syringe, the liquid inside dark and potent.

  "This is my blood," Sebastian said softly. "This is the price if you win. My blood will bind you to me."

  Selene stared at the needle. "You're going to inject that into me?"

  “Yes,” Sebastian murmured, his voice barely a breath. “The Council is suspicious of you. We cannot hesitate now.”

  His eyes narrowed. "And given what lives in your blood, this will likely have no effect on you."

  He gripped her arm, positioning the needle at the crook of her elbow. Selene flinched, bracing for the sting.

  Sebastian injected her.

  The fluid entered her vein, cold at first, then burning as it spread up her arm. Selene clenched her jaw. She waited for the flood, the overwhelming presence, the loss of self that the other candidates were screaming through.

  Nothing came.

  The burning faded. The cold receded. Her blood swallowed Sebastian’s offering the way a river swallows rain, completely, silently, without a trace.

  He withdrew the empty syringe.

  Selene looked up at him, eyes wide.

  “Now everything depends on you,” Sebastian said, stepping back as he turned toward Klaus. “She is ready.”

  Down the line, candidates gasped and groaned as the potent blood struck their veins. Some doubled over. One dropped to a knee, clutching his chest.

  Lucian threw his head back. But unlike the others, who twitched or screamed, he simply inhaled, a long, deliberate breath. His eyes flashed a violent, unnatural red, and his veins darkened along his neck like black roots spreading beneath pale soil. Yet he remained perfectly composed. He was not overtaken by the blood.

  He absorbed it.

  "The Ascension begins," Klaus announced.

  He raised a black staff, a gem set in its crosspiece shining with a dull inner light. The runes etched into the floor of the Moon Court flared with blinding violet brilliance, and the black stone beneath their feet began to hum.

  The world ruptured. Space folded, twisted, turned inside out.

  And she was gone.

  The air was thin and freezing.

  Selene slammed into the ground, her boots skidding on loose shale. She dropped to her hands and knees, retching dryly as the sickness of the teleportation faded. The impact and the weight of Nihil nearly sent her tumbling backward down a slope.

  She steadied herself, gasping for breath.

  She was alone. The other candidates had been scattered across the range. Only the faint ticking of the watch kept her company.

  She looked up. Towering above her were the jagged, mist-shrouded peaks of the Veilspine Range. She knew these silhouettes. She had grown up in their shadow and had traced their outlines from the windows of the Athenaeum a thousand times.

  "Well," she muttered, tightening the strap on her shoulder. "At least we're back home."

  A colosseum atop the mountain peaks made no sense.

  She had grown up among the ruins, where anything of importance lay buried beneath stone, hidden within the mountain’s bones. This would be no different. The colosseum had to be underground. Somewhere ahead, the valley would open, and from there she could reach the base.

  At least she had a direction.

  She started walking. The terrain was brutal: sharp rocks, hidden patches of ice, and a constant, oppressive incline that burned through her legs. Every step became a negotiation with the sword. It snagged on low-hanging branches, threw her off balance on narrow ledges, and dragged at her shoulder like an anchor chained to her spine.

  "Why are you like this now?" she hissed at the weapon after nearly slipping for the third time. She reached back and pressed her palm against the scabbard, searching for the fire opal's pulse. Nothing. Cold leather and dead steel. "You were lighter at the ruins. You answered me. What changed?"

  Nihil did not respond. The fire opal produced no light.

  She was carrying six feet of dead metal up and down a frozen mountain, and the weapon that had once made her feel invincible now felt like a punishment.

  She forced the thought aside and kept moving.

  She paused on a ridge to catch her breath, scanning the horizon. She had descended farther than she realized. The Red Moon was climbing higher, swelling against the black sky. She had to find the colosseum. If she didn't arrive in time, she would be disqualified.

  The thought sent a surge of urgency through her.

  She was about to move again when she heard it.

  Faint, carried on the wind, but unmistakable. A melody, unwavering and hauntingly clear, completely out of place in this desolate wilderness.

  Oswald, she thought.

  Selene frowned. Below her, she could make out a plateau, a shelf of level ground cutting into the mountainside, sheltered by a stand of dark pines. The singing drifted up from there, growing louder as the wind shifted.

  She descended carefully, boots scraping against the slope, the singing growing more distinct with every step. The voice was raw and beautiful.

  She reached level ground. Through the pines, sheltered from the worst of the wind, she found him.

  Oswald lay curled on a flat stone, his arms wrapped around his knees, his body drawn into itself like a child trying to disappear. His face was twisted with pain, his scarred skin flushed and glistening. He had no weapon. Nothing but pain for company.

  He was simply there, miserable and shivering, but singing.

  The melody trembled and broke as Selene’s boots crunched through the frost. Oswald stopped. At first he looked afraid, his body tensing, his eyes squeezing shut as if bracing for a blade. Then he lifted his head and looked at her.

  His eyes, now red, were glassy, veins spidering through the irises like cracks.

  "Selene," he said softly. A small, sad smile touched his scarred face. "I… I thought that was you. I heard you cursing at the mountain."

  "What are you doing?" Selene said, jogging the last few steps, the sword clanking behind her. "We have to move. The moon is rising."

  Oswald lowered his head back to the stone. "I'm not going."

  "What?"

  "My body is burning from the inside out," he whispered. "The blood—it's not… I can't make it do what the others can. The only thing I can do is sing." His voice cracked. "It's the only thing I've ever been able to do. Not even as a slave was I useful to anyone."

  Selene stared at him as the cold wind whipped her hair across her face. "So you're just going to lie here and die?"

  "They will find me eventually," Oswald said with a faint shrug. "It doesn't matter."

  Selene blinked, anger rising within her. It was her own stubborn refusal to accept the world as it was.

  "Don't you dare," she snapped.

  Oswald flinched.

  "Are you really going to let them win?" Selene advanced on him, her shadow falling across his huddled form. "Are you going to let those monsters define what you are? Because you can't kill?"

  "Selene, I—"

  “You have a gift, Oswald!” she shouted. “But this place, this sick kingdom, does not value beauty. It values death. And you are going to lie in the dirt? You are going to let them convince you that the stone beneath you is worth more than you are because you refuse to become what they want? That because you will not kill, you are nothing?”

  She grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and hauled him up. He was light, fragile in her grip.

  “I won’t let you die here, I am going to make it through this, and you are coming with me.”

  "I can't!" Oswald cried, tears welling in his eyes. "I'm scared, Selene! I'm useless!"

  Selene shoved him back gently and released him. She stepped away, her eyes hard.

  "Fine," she said coldly. "Stay here. Freeze. Let them find you."

  She turned, the heavy scabbard swinging with the motion.

  "If you want to be a victim, Oswald, be a victim. Die alone."

  She started walking. Her heart pounded.

  Five steps. Ten.

  "Wait!"

  The scream tore from the hollow behind her.

  "Selene! Wait!"

  Selene stopped. A small, hidden smile touched her lips. She turned her head.

  Oswald was scrambling after her, slipping and sliding on the frozen ground. Pain twisted his face, his body protesting every movement. His cheeks were wet with tears and his breath came in ragged, hitching sobs.

  "Don't…" he gasped. "Don't leave me."

  Selene adjusted the strap of Nihil.

  "Keep up, then."