The silence in the containment berth was no longer just a calm quiet. It was a vacuum, filled with the echoing absence of three hundred years. The engine's growl was the pulse of a foreign world.

  Three centuries.

  The number echoed in Idris’s skull, a cold, factual hammer blow. He had known his rest was deep, but this… The Mages had not just won a war; they had reshaped his reality. Darkthorn was not just fallen; it was ancient history, probably a ghost in a story told to children now. Tsk

  His mind, reeling from the scale of it, did what minds do, it sought a smaller, more personal measure of the loss.

  Alyra. His sister’s face, fierce and laughing, swam before his closed eyes. She had hated his choices, had called him a fool, but her eyes had held a grief that mirrored his own. Sedri. Always aloof. He would have searched. He would have looked for him.

  They would be gone by now surely. The palace was also likely a forgotten foundation swallowed by forest or a new city. All the petty squabbles, the shared jokes, the unfinished arguments—all resolved into silence long, long ago. He was not just a relic. He was a ghost, and everyone who had ever known him was a ghost of a ghost.

  A profound, solitary grief, vaster and colder than any hunger, settled in the hollow of his chest.

  The sound of boots shifting outside the door pulled him back. The present. The shackles. The slit of light. The living.

  He let out a slow breath.

  “I need to speak with her,” he said, his voice quiet but clear.

  Ramza, leaning against the wall, didn’t bother to turn. “You’re a security risk. You cant make requests.”

  “Then have her come to me,” Idris replied, his eyes still closed. “A word through the door. I am sheathed in more silver with runes than a wizard's sword, and you hold the keys. Where is the risk?”

  The Commander’s voice was a low growl. “The Princess does not hold an audience at a cell door. The answer is no.”

  Idris fell quiet, but it was a tactical silence. When he spoke again, his tone was different, softer, more reasonable, yet underpinned by a thought out gamble.

  “Hmm. But consider her perspective,” he mused, as if working it out for their benefit. “She issued a very specific order. Retrieval, not termination. She invested resources and overrode your professional judgment. If her interest was just charitable, it would have ended at the roadside.” He finally turned his head, his pale eyes catching the light from the slit. “She wants me alive for a reason. Wouldn’t that reason include ascertaining if I am, in fact, awake? If I can answer questions? It seems that way to me.”

  He let the idea settle, then added, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, almost teasing murmur, “You are her loyal swords. It would be a pity if she learned you’d denied her the first fruits of her own command. You wouldn’t want to disappoint her, would you? After she placed such… unique trust in you.”

  Ramza clenched his jaw. The vampire had neatly flipped the script. He wasn’t demanding rights; he was pointing out their potential dereliction of duty to their Lady’s unspoken will. He was using their devotion as a lever.

  The Commander stared hard at the door, his expression one of pure frustration. He shot a look at Ramza, a look that said, This creature is insufferable, and he’s right.

  “Fine,” the Commander spat. “We’ll ask her though. No promises.”

  “Naturally,” Idris replied, a faint, knowing humor returning to his voice. “I shall await her convenience.”

  ***

  The convoy’s growl deepened as it slowed, then ceased. The sudden absence of the engine’s roar was startling. The door hissed open with a pressure seal breaking, and light spilled in.

  Idris did not flinch. He kept his posture loose. He watched instead, boots first, then greaves, then the silhouettes of two more soldiers entering.

  The air changed immediately.

  Not metaphorically. Literally.

  Idris’s nostrils flared as something sharp and chemical threaded through the recycled air—bitter, metallic, threaded with alchemical rot. His muscles tightened a fraction before he could stop them.

  Ah.

  So that was new.

  “On your feet,” the Commander ordered.

  Idris rose smoothly, chains clinking, the motion costing him more effort than it should have. He hid the effort behind a lazy exhale.

  One of the soldiers stepped forward holding a small, matte-black case. He opened it with deliberate care.

  Inside lay the manacles.

  They were slimmer than the shackles he wore now—almost elegant. Dark steel veined with faintly glowing filaments, the runes not carved but grown into the metal like frost trapped beneath ice. Tiny vents lined the inner curve.

  Idris’s lips twitched despite himself. “Those are new.”

  “Hands,” Ramza said flatly.

  Idris complied, extending his wrists. As the old shackles were unlocked, he felt a fleeting rush of strength return—his body inhaling freedom like air,

  and then the new cuffs snapped shut.

  The effect was immediate.

  It wasn’t pain. This was dullness. A sudden, invasive heaviness sank into his bones, as if gravity itself had been recalibrated around him. His pulse slowed even more, each beat dragging. The world dimmed at the edges, colors losing their bite.

  Idris hissed through his teeth despite his composure. His fingers twitched once, uselessly.

  “Well,” he murmured. “This isn’t fun.”

  The Commander nodded to the soldier, who stepped back. “Suppressant’s working.”

  Idris rolled his wrists experimentally. The manacles didn’t burn, didn’t bite, they drank. He could feel something leeched from him with every second. Strength, regeneration, the sharpness of his senses bled away into nothing.

  Idris laughed quietly, a dry sound. “You didn’t just prepare for vampires. You studied us.”

  The Commander folded his arms. “You talk too much for someone in restraints.”

  “And yet you keep adding more,” Idris replied mildly. “Which suggests experience. Tell me, how many of my kind did it take before you learned what works? Was it during the mages war with us?”

  Silence.

  That, more than any answer, told him enough.

  Idris tilted his head, the shocking weight of the cuffs tugging at his shoulders. “This convoy. The runes. The suppressant. The redundant failsafes.” His eyes narrowed, sharp despite the haze creeping through him. “Why so much anti-vampire infrastructure, hmm? I was under the impression we were extinct.”

  “We’re not a ceremonial guard,” Ramza said. “We’re a threat-response unit. Anything that can wipe out a town before breakfast counts as a threat to humans.”

  Idris arched a brow. “And vampires rate so highly?”

  “They rate as unknowns these days,” Ramza replied. “Which is worse. And accurate reports are hard to come by with how few you are.”

  A faint smile ghosted across Idris’s lips. “How flattering.”

  Ramza continued, voice steady. “We prepare for anything. Because the moment we don’t, people die. Cities burn. History repeats itself.”

  Idris’s amusement faded, replaced by something quieter. Thoughtful.

  He flexed again, testing the limits of the manacles. His strength answered sluggishly, like a limb waking from deep sleep. A soft chuckle. “Someone very smart designed these.”

  The Commander snorted. “Cost a fortune too.”

  “I imagine,” Idris said. Then, after a beat, “Are they necessary?”

  Ramza’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

  Idris studied him, truly looked—at the scars, the posture, the way his hand never strayed far from his weapon.

  “Even now?” Idris asked quietly. “Bound. Drained. Cooperative.”

  Ramza didn’t hesitate. “Especially now.”

  They marched him out of the hatch, down the ramp, and the world opened up.

  They were in a forest of impossible beauty. Giant, silver-barked trees soared upwards, their canopies interlacing hundreds of feet above to form a vaulted ceiling of luminous green and gold. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, night-blooming jasmine, and living magic. Bioluminescent fungi clung to roots like scattered starlight, and the distant call of an unseen bird echoed with crystalline clarity. It was a place out of a familiar beauty to Idris, a stark, breathtaking contrast to the cold metal and sterile light of the convoy.

  Idris stopped at the bottom of the ramp, his chains clinking. He inhaled sharply, his head tilting back. The profound alienation on his face was momentarily washed away by wonder.

  His reverie was cut short as the guards formed a tight perimeter. Then, a hatch on the central vehicle hissed open.

  The Princess emerged. She descended the steps, her travelling gown of grey and silver seeming to draw the forest’s muted light into itself. Her veil billowed as it hid her features. Here, amid the primordial grandeur, she looked both ethereal and utterly in command.

  The forest seemed to hush as she approached.

  The guards straightened. Weapons were subtly re-angled. Ramzah and the Commander both straightened, fists to chest.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Your Highness,” the Commander said.

  She stopped a few paces from Idris. Close enough that he could sense her pulse. Strong. Steady.

  Her head shifted as she regarded him in silence.

  Then, calmly, decisively, she spoke.

  “Remove his bindings.”

  The words landed like a glass dropped on stone.

  Ramzah’s head snapped up. “Your Highness—”

  “I said remove them.”

  The Commander hesitated only a fraction of a second longer. “Princess, with respect, this is not advisable. He is—”

  “What you think he is,” she cut in, her voice still level, still composed. “Remove them.”

  Ramzah stepped forward, incredulous. “He’s a vampire. An unknown variant at that. Those restraints are the only thing keeping him—”

  Her veil turned toward him.

  “Ramzah.”

  Just his name. Quiet. Unadorned.

  The effect was immediate. Ramzah stiffened, jaw tight, but he lowered his head.

  “As you command.”

  Idris watched the exchange with careful stillness, he knew not to move, not to provoke. The soldier approached, hands tense as he unlocked the cuffs. The suppressive weight lifted in stages. First the fog receding from his mind, then the slow, delicious return of sensation, strength, self.

  Idris flexed his fingers once, deliberately restrained, then inclined his head toward her.

  “My thanks,” he said, voice sincere. “Few people in this age seem fond of trusting what they don’t understand. But I’m guessing your favor comes with debts.”

  She took another step forward. He could tell she was young. Not worn by decades of rule at the very least.

  “I am Princess Amani of Qahila,” she said. “Daughter of the Sun Throne.”

  Idris inclined his head again, more formally this time. “Idris, Count of Darkthorn. Or… what remains of it. Son of the Al-Bey”

  Her gaze didn’t flicker at the name. Interesting.

  “Obviously, we are currently in Ardonia,” she continued, “I am here to assess land suitable for capture, annexation, or influence.”

  Idris smiled faintly. “Straight to the point. Admirable. But I fail to see what territorial expansion has to do with a half starved relic that was in chains.”

  She studied him like she was looking at a map.

  “Your eyes,” she said.

  Idris’s smile stilled.

  “They mark you as Al-Bey,” she went on. “Or they would have, once. Before the Mage War.” Her tone sharpened. “We were told your kind was eradicated. Custodians wiped out alongside the old territories they bound.”

  Her gaze hardened, just a touch. “Clearly, that was a lie. One of many the magicians have made.”

  A low, dangerous quiet settled over the clearing.

  Idris exhaled slowly. “Many lies survived that war it seems.”

  “If you are here,” she said, “then you were not merely Al-Bey. You were the last one standing in your region. Which makes you the final custodian of this land’s old authority, whether the current kingdoms acknowledge it or not.”

  Understanding clicked into place.

  “You think I still matter,” Idris said softly.

  “I know you do,” she replied. “If I intend to expand Qahila’s reach into Ardonia, I cannot afford to antagonize even the ghost that still holds the keys beneath the soil. I must do it rightfully”

  “Three hundred years asleep,” he murmured before snickering, “and I wake up to find I’m a political asset.”

  Ramzah scoffed. “You’re a stray vampire,” he snapped, then turned his attention to the princess. “Nothing more. Whatever he was died in the Mage War. We should have ended him on the road.”

  The Princess did not turn to face Ramzah.

  She simply lifted one hand.

  The gesture was small. Almost lazy.

  It stopped everything.

  Words died in Ramzah’s throat. Authority settled again, absolute and unquestioned.

  Only then did she look back to Idris.

  “You’re a smart man I’m sure,” she said. “So tell me, what do you think I want from you?”

  Idris considered her openly now, no pretense of meekness left.

  “A document, maybe?” he mused. “A will, a writ, some dusty proclamation stating Princess Amani of Qahila owns this land by ancient loophole.” His lips curved. “I could sign in blood if you like. Very traditional.”

  A few guards bristled. Ramzah scowled, but he knew not to speak up again.

  The Princess didn’t even blink.

  “No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”

  Idris’s smile thinned. That alone told him the stakes were probably higher. He began to smell something other than the serenity of the Ardonian forest. It was a foul smell. A smell he hated. The smell of mana. What is that? Are magicians nearby? Am I being set up?

  “I will fund you,” she continued. “Gold. Labor. Influence. I will aid you in rebuilding your kingdom, what remains of it, what can be reclaimed. I will give you every tool necessary to stand again as a sovereign power.”

  The forest seemed to lean its ears into this conversation as well, the leaves on the trees began rustling.

  Idris’s breath slowed. Hope was the most serated blade of all. He began to wonder if she was sincere or trying to bait him. Maybe put his guard down.

  “And,” she added calmly, “Qahila will recognize Darkthorn as a legitimate domain once more.”

  Idris’s brow raised. “Generous,” he said softly. “But not free.”

  “Of course not.”

  He took a slow step closer, boots whispering against moss. “You want union. Influence once I've rebuilt. A banner flying beside yours. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s not the real price,” Idris said. His eyes searched her face. “You’re missing something more important than that.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Idris inhaled.

  And froze.

  He could smell it again. Mana.

  Faint. Suppressed. Woven so finely into the air that a normal being would never notice—but to him it was unmistakable. Clean, disciplined, predatory. Mage work. Recent. Powerful. Yet it was not heading for him.

  His pulse spiked, not with fear, but exhilaration.

  “Protection,” he said.

  The Princess’s lips curved, just slightly under her veil.

  “You are an anachronism,” she said. “A symbol powerful enough to frighten modern kingdoms. If you rise again, the Mages will come out.”

  Idris laughed under his breath. “Of course they will. Because they want me dead.”

  “I seek that,” she continued. “If you fall under my banner, my domain extends to you. Any attack on you becomes an act against Qahila. Which gives me enough legal clearing to wage war on them, and wipe them out once and for all.”

  Idris’s eyes burned now, alight with something feral and delighted.

  “So that’s the catch,” he murmured, glancing past her shoulder, nostrils flaring again. Stronger now. “You want me alive because you need a weapon.”

  Ramzah shifted uneasily. “Princess—”

  Too late.

  In a blur of motion that left several guards unaware, Idris moved.

  His hand dipped to Ramzah’s belt.

  Steel flashed.

  Idris straightened with a dagger in hand, already smiling, wicked and sharp as a crescent moon. Ramzah looked as if he was going to attack, but something kept him in his place. Fear?

  “Fine. I accept. All we need now,” he said lightly, “is a vow. Old words. An oath. I swear it’s painless.”

  Weapons snapped up instantly as they realised what he was brandishing. Shouts erupted.

  “DOWN—”

  “GET HIM—”

  “PRINCESS MOVE—”

  She did not.

  Instead, she spoke.

  “I vow,” she began, eyes never leaving Idris’s, “by the one above, that Qahila shall stand as shield and sanction to Idris of Darkthorn—”

  “Hold that thought,” Idris said softly.

  And then he moved.

  Not toward her.

  Past her.

  He vanished in a blur of pale motion, boots barely whispering against the forest ground as he dashed behind the Princess. The dagger in his hand came up in a sharp, rising arc, blade angled toward the sky.

  In his mind, the calculation was instantaneous.

  I’ll cut right through his blade, and then it'll take his head.

  The assassin was coming high and fast from the rear left quadrant, descending through layered concealment. The strike would be vertical—clean, surgical—meant to bisect the Princess before anyone could register the shimmer. He would intercept that.

  Idris swung upward.

  Steel met something that was not steel.

  A shriek split the air.

  A blade of condensed mana, shaped like a longsword but humming with geometric sigils, collided with Idris’s dagger in a burst of violent light. The impact cratered the earth beneath his boots.

  The forest exploded into motion.

  Leaves tore free. Bark split. Shockwaves rippled outward in visible rings.

  And then—

  The impossible.

  The two blades held.

  For half a heartbeat, mana and steel locked together.

  Idris’s eyes widened in shock. I don’t sense any mana coming from him… It’s only his damned blade. So how. How is he physically matching me! A human is physically matching me? Impossible!

  The shriek of colliding forces became a physical weight against Idris. Sparks of steel flew like shrapnel. The dagger was solid, well-forged steel, yet it did not just break. It shattered, exploding backward in a spray of molten fragments. One shard sliced a deep, burning line across his cheek, drawing a hiss from his lips. The assassins blade slashed down on his arm, bringing out a wince.

  But his grip had already adjusted. His empty hand snapped forward, not away from the deadly mana blade, but into its humming heart.

  The assassin had expected his strike to carve through flesh and bone. He had not expected his target to vanish, nor for a vampire to materialize in his path. He certainly had not expected the vampire to catch his blade.

  Idris’s fingers closed around the solidified light. It was like grasping a lightning bolt. Agony, white and pure, shot up his arm. His skin smoked. The mana blade’s hum stuttered, its geometric sigils flaring in protest.

  For a fraction of a second, they were locked again. The assassin, suspended in the momentum of his killing lunge, and Idris, rooted to the earth, holding back a sun.

  Idris’s pink eyes, burning with fury and sudden, intense curiosity, met the assassin’s golden ones through the dissipating smoke of the encounter.

  He saw a man. A human man. soft features, framed by white hair that hung loosely. He wore silver plate armor etched with fine threads of gold. He was more a knight than an assassin. There was no aura of enhanced magic about his form, no demonic pact shimmering in his gaze. Just the terrifying, impossible power in the blade he wielded, and the trained, perfect strength in the body behind it.

  How?

  The question was a roar in Idris’s mind. No human, not even the mightiest Mage-warrior of his age, could generate this kind of raw, physical force. It defied his reality.

  The assassin’s own shock was a mirror in his golden eyes. He had been prepared for guards, for spells, for panic. He was not prepared for this: a creature of legend, moving faster than him, stopping a mana-severance strike with bare hands, and staring back at him with the wrath of a bygone age.

  The stalemate broke.

  Idris, using his hold on the blade as a pivot, twisted his body. He drove his foot into the assassin’s midsection, a brutal side kick that channeled all his coiled, supernatural strength. The impact was a dull, awful thud, like a battering ram hitting a fortress gate.

  The assassin’s breath exploded from his lungs. The mana blade tore from both their grips, spinning away to dissipate in a shower of fading sparks. The man himself flew backward as if launched from a trebuchet, crashing through a thicket of glowing ferns and slamming into the broad trunk of a sentinel tree with a crack that echoed through the clearing. He slumped to the mossy ground.

  Silence, more profound than before, rushed in.

  Idris stood panting, his injured arm hanging at his side, blood and ethereal burns mingling. Damn it, I’m still too weak and hungry to heal. I might be screwed here. He stared at his own smoking palm, then at the distant, rising form in the shadows. The forest air, once fragrant, now stank of blood.

  He slowly turned his head, his golden eyes finding the Princess. She had not flinched. Her guards had finally closed ranks around her, weapons pointing shakily in all directions. He stood up, taking in Idris one last time. Idris didn’t miss it. The face of that assassin became sour. It wrinkled and twisted to a disgust and hate he had never seen before he disapeared in a flash of sparks. Idris finally began to breathe again. He couldn't smell him anymore. He left. I should be alright…for now.

  “What,” Idris asked, his voice a low, ragged thing, “was that?”

  The Princess’s head rose, as if turning her gaze to the sky, but with calculation, not fear. She looked from the stunned Idris to where the assassin had been.

  “A Crescent. They are warriors the magicians concocted,” her guards began slowly dispersing from her side. “As you can see, the world is very different, Count Idris.”

  “Yeah…Clearly.”