One year ago – District 12, Crescent Fringe
The sky was not supposed to bleed.
But in the dead fringe of District 12, that was exactly what it did—cracked wide like porcelain, bleeding violet-black light from a Rift that pulsed and screamed without sound. The kind of sound you feel behind the eyes. The kind that makes breath catch and bone rattle.
Alex staggered through the remains of an abandoned transport bridge, one arm pressed to his side where glass and something more had torn through him. His breath came ragged. His body wouldn't heal—not yet. Not like the others he'd read about in forbidden forums, the lucky ones. Or cursed. He wasn't sure anymore.
There was light inside him. He could feel it when he closed his eyes—like a second heartbeat, like a star trying to rise through his spine. But there was blood, too. Sharp. Ancient. It screamed when the Rift pulsed. Like it remembered things he didn't.
He collapsed beside a broken pillar, shadows stuttering around him. The Rift screamed again.
That's when space tore.
No light. No thunder. No announcement.
Just a silence so profound it silenced the Rift itself.
She stepped through the fold with grace that ignored the rules of gravity, time, presence. A woman wrapped in dark robes that shimmered with starlight—not sequins or glamour, but literal celestial dust sealed into fabric older than any dynasty. Her silver-white hair moved of its own accord, like ink trailing through water.
Elira Vael.
Though he would not learn her name for days.
She stepped over the debris, over the ruin of the Rift's periphery, and regarded him with a gaze that had seen the death of stars. There was no pity in her eyes. Just weight. Recognition.
"Not yet," she said softly, more to herself than to him. "You are not yet burning out."
Alex tried to rise. Failed.
"Wh-who—?"
"Silence," she said gently. "You'll waste what little containment remains."
She knelt beside him, reaching a hand to his forehead. Her fingers didn't touch him, but he felt pressure all the same—a prickle across the skin, like spatial threads being measured and tested.
"You shouldn't exist," she murmured. "And yet…"
The Rift flared again, wild and uncontrolled, and Alex's body convulsed. His eyes flared briefly gold, then bled into crimson. His skin cracked at the edges of his veins.
"Inner world formation?" she whispered, tilting her head. "And unstable. No… collapsing. Idiot clans. They missed you entirely."
He didn't understand. He tried to form words, but they failed.
Elira Vael exhaled through her nose and unfastened her glove with deliberate, ritual care. "I will bind it. You will not remember all of this. And if you do…" She paused.
"You'll remember pain first."
With no more ceremony than a whisper, she leaned forward and bit into his neck.
Not with hunger. Not with hunger.
With purpose.
It wasn't deep. Barely pierced skin. But through that channel, she fed something ancient—not blood, but calibration. A spatial pulse. Celestial coding. Her essence pushed into him like starlight through a prism.
Alex screamed, the kind of scream that didn't carry sound. Inside, the pressure exploded outward. He saw his inner world—just a flicker. A forming void. A drifting core.
A star. A single star forming.
But also: blood. So much blood. An ocean waiting beneath marble.
Then everything went black.
He woke days later beneath a dome of woven crystal, the scent of silver-bark incense clinging to the air. His wounds were gone. The pain wasn't.
Elira stood in the shadows of the chamber, arms folded.
"You survived," she said simply. "I was not sure you would."
Alex sat up slowly, every motion alien.
"You bit me."
She nodded. "I anchored you. Your inner world was eating itself."
He looked at his hands. They no longer shook. But his veins—just beneath the skin—glowed faintly, like old starlight.
"What am I?" he asked.
"Not what you think," she replied. "Nor what you fear."
She stepped forward, her presence carrying weight even in stillness.
"You are both. And neither. A celestial anomaly with vampire bloodline fracture. It's a miracle you didn't tear apart the moment you awakened."
He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. "Why help me?"
Elira Vael considered him for a moment longer.
"Because the last one like you didn't survive. He believed power alone was purpose. He failed." A pause. "And I killed him."
The silence stretched, heavy and sharp.
"But I sense something different in you. Not purity. Not goodness. Just… restraint. Control. Potential."
She handed him a scroll, sealed with the Sael'Var sigil—an ancient glyph carved in temporal code.
"This is not ownership. It is protection. If you wish to remain free, use it. It will mark you as under our shadow. The others will not question it."
He hesitated.
"What do you get from this?"
Her lips twitched—not quite a smile. "Time. If you live, you'll give the clans something they've never had—a question they can't answer. And I like questions more than I like corpses."
She turned away, walking toward a wall that shimmered with stored space.
"One more thing," she said without looking back.
"The bite binds you for seven turns of the astral cycle. After that… your path is your own."
Then she was gone. Folded into nothingness.
Present Day – Crescent City, upper air district.
Alex stood at the edge of a hanging balcony, the stars above Crescent City hidden behind a veil of red clouds.
He touched his neck. The scar was still there—faint, nearly invisible to anyone else. But he knew where it was. He remembered the pain. The fear. The stillness in her voice when she told him she had killed the last one like him.
He had passed her test. Or at least, he was still passing it.
Behind his eyes, he felt the world he carried stir. The star at its center pulsed once—quiet and cold.
He had surpassed what she once saw.
But he hadn't forgotten.
And he never would.