The vampire and his Bride

The throne room of Virel Castle shook with whispers.

Torches flickered violently as guards dragged Gabriel into the chamber, his wrists bound with iron etched in runes. His silver hair was matted with blood. His lips, once full of honeyed lies—now sealed in silence.

Lora pushed through the crowd, still trembling from her vision in the Chamber of Memory.

"Unbind him," she ordered coldly. "Now."

No one could stop her this time. Some stood quietly at the dais, arms folded.

The chains fell with a heavy clink. Gabriel slowly lifted his head.

His golden eyes met Lora's. And he smiled, even as blood trailed from the corner of his mouth.

"You found the truth," he said.

She slapped him.

"You knew. You knew about the child. About the prophecy."

Gabriel didn't flinch. "Because remembering would have destroyed everything."

"You don't get to decide that!" she screamed. "Where is she, Gabriel? Where is my daughter?"

They moved to the east tower, alone—just Lora and the man who had once raised her like a brother, then abandoned her like a stranger.

Gabriel sat in the window alcove as if this were any ordinary evening.

"I never meant to betray you," he said. "But I am the traitor. I broke the oath. I broke the Court's law. I broke yours."

Lora remained standing. "Start talking."

He exhaled. "Her name is Saraphine."

The name echoed through Lora like a long-forgotten song. It stirred something ancient.

"She was born of three legacies," Gabriel continued. "And from the moment she took her first breath, she became a threat to every realm."

Lora's voice was ice. "You hid her."

"I buried her," he whispered.

Gabriel walked toward the hearth, casting a small illusion—embers forming a flickering image of a sleeping girl in a sarcophagus of obsidian and silk.

"She rests in the depths of the Ebon Hollow, under the care of my coven. Sealed in an enchantment designed to put her in stasis for a hundred years."

Lora's hand covered her mouth. "You buried my daughter like a corpse?"

"She was safer dead than living."

He turned. "After your betrayal, after you vanished and the courts burned with revenge, they would've hunted her. Torn her apart. Claimed her as a weapon."

Lora's knees weakened. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Gabriel looked at her with sorrow.

"Because the prophecy said if she woke before the appointed time, she would bring the End of Blood. The death of vampires, humans, and gods."

He moved closer.

"But now… now the Crimson Court stirs. The bindings on her sleep are breaking. Someone is calling to her."

Evelyn whispered, "Who?"

Gabriel's eyes glinted. "Dorian."

The room turned cold

You are lying again, Lora gasped

"Where do you think he usually goes to at night darling," Gabriel smiled

He's always known, Lora. He found her before I sealed the crypt. He let you forget because if you remembered… You would've gone back."

Lora's voice cracked. "He said he didn't know where she was."

Gabriel nodded grimly. "And he lied. Because he knew the prophecy would force you to choose between her and him."

"The daughter will raise the blade. The mother must choose: Order… or Reign."

"And Dorian," Gabriel said, "has always chosen order."

"You are lying like you have always done, Dorian is not like you. And would never be you..

Dorian will never hurt a child" Lora shouted.

Gabriel stepped back. "She's already dreaming. And she's angry."

Lora's voice was hollow. "I have to go to her."

Gabriel nodded. "And I'll go with you. But be warned—if you reach her and she's turned…"

He drew his dagger and pressed it to his chest.

"You'll have to be the one to end her."

"Not until I end you first"

SARAPHINE'S SLEEPS

Far beneath the howling woods of Hollow Vale, beyond the broken gates of an abandoned coven, buried beneath stone and centuries, she sleeps.

Saraphine.

A child of two worlds. A dhampir born of fire and moonlight. The heir to an ancient prophecy she never asked for. The daughter of a queen who vanished.

In her resting place, an obsidian coffin wrapped in silk binding spells and weeping runes, her body does not age.

She remains ten years old, untouched by time. A girl with raven-black hair, ivory skin, and lashes dark as shadows. Her heart beats only once every hour. Her dreams have no end.

She sleeps inside a sanctuary, deep beneath black water and buried candles. No voices reach her. Only echoes of magic long forgotten.

But dreams have their own voices. And they whisper.

Saraphine dreams in broken fragments. Her mind wanders through a palace that never existed, where the walls are built of memories and the floor of unspoken pain.

She walks endless hallways in a white gown, her feet bare, her eyes wide. The world inside her mind is soft and surreal—like walking through fog and song.

She hears laughter she doesn't recognize.

Sometimes, she dreams of a woman's face. Pale, fierce, beautiful. A voice like wind over ruins:

She doesn't know her name.

She doesn't know the world has changed. A century has passed.

Sometimes she sits by a river in her dream, knees tucked to her chest, and watches the reflection of stars that don't exist.

"Why me?" she whispers.

But no one answers.

Because no one ever answers.

She is not allowed to wake.

Every time she reaches for something, another memory, a door, a hand, it vanishes.

The silk-binding spell around her is more than a physical prison. It wraps around her soul, binding her instincts, her memories, her powers.

Even her voice does not feel like her own.

And so she sings to herself. Little lullabies made from half-remembered rhymes.

"Silk and stars, and silver thread,

I dream while kingdoms fall and bleed.

The moon forgets, the night begins,

I sleep beneath my mother's sins..."

But recently… something changed.

There's a crack in her dreams now.

The sky bleeds red sometimes. The river turns to blood. And strange voices echo beyond the veil.

She sees figures she's never seen before—a girl that looks like her, grown-up and furious. A woman in chains. A man screaming her name as he burns in golden fire.

Saraphine doesn't know these people. And yet, she feels like she loved them once.

The dreams start to twist. Painfully.

She remembers being hunted.

She remembers someone hiding her.

She remembers lying in her coffin as the earth was shoveled over her, and a hand, warm, trembling, closed the lid from above.

A final whisper:

"Forgive me, Saraphine. You are too dangerous to walk on Earth.

I hope no one ever finds you, Sleep now. Sleep deep…"

Unbeknownst to the Crimson Court, unknown to the world.

One man almost finds her tomb.

Dorian.

A century ago. After Lora died in the first life, slain ....

Dorian tore through kingdoms to find the child she died to protect.

He found a tomb but didn't know it was Saraphine's. The obsidian coffin.

So he sat beside her for seven days and seven nights, not knowing he was just beside Saraphine.

But then he left.

Because he had to search for Lora.

And Saraphine? She felt him go.

That night in her dream, the palace burned.

Now, the blood moon nears.

The spells are fraying.

The silk turns to dust, thread by thread.

Saraphine dreams of her own voice, older, darker:

"I am not a child anymore."

"I am the bridge between blood and dawn."

"And I remember what they did to me. All of them, I could have lived a better Life"

In her dream, she stands in front of a mirror. She sees herself—grown now. A teenager, perhaps seventeen. Her eyes glow red, ringed with silver.

She lifts a crown of bone to her head.

Behind her in the mirror, two shadows appear.

Lora. And Dorian.

And between them, fire. Screaming. Betrayal.

Saraphine places a hand on the glass. It cracks.

A whisper drips from her mouth like a curse.

"They will all pay."

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