The palace of Rolan the Eastern King stood like a jagged crown atop the cliffs of black granite. Gabriel paced inside a shadow-laced chamber, his eyes hollow, his breath quickened. Outside the heavy iron doors, banners bearing the dragon's crest of the East rippled in the wind.
Gabriel's heart thundered in his chest. Betraying Dorian had left a crack in his soul, but he had done it—for Eva. His daughter. The only thing that mattered. Some time ago, Rolan's men had kidnapped Gabrielle's daughter when he realized Gabriel, the only one who knew, were saraphine was buried.
When the guards announced Rolan, Gabriel straightened. The tall vampire king strode in like a storm, his eyes sharp and cruel.
"You've come," Rolan said, voice calm. "Ready to hold your end of our agreement?"
Gabriel clenched his fists. "You said if I helped you destroy Dorian, if I gave you the court's secrets… You would give Eva back to me."
"Well, you didn't kill Dorian. He escaped. Our bargain is not over," Rolan said, but there was ice in his tone. "And I require one more thing."
Gabriel's stomach dropped. "What more do you want?"
Rolan smiled darkly. "Saraphine."
Gabriel's mind reeled.
"I don't know where she is!" he lied.
"Don't play games with me, Gabriel," Rolan said. "You buried her yourself. The girl is the prophecy's heir. I want her. Then I will become more powerful if I get her powers for myself"
Gabriel's voice cracked. " But she's your child!"
"She is Dorian's child," Rolan snapped. "Not mine."
Gabriel flinched. "What…?"
Rolan leaned in, eyes gleaming with malice. "Yes. Dorian's.
Not mine.
I never touched Lora. But the world believed she had betrayed him.That we were lovers".
He gave out an evil laugh that almost shook the ground they stood upon."I let it. Because betrayal weakens a man. It broke him. And in his weakness, I grew stronger. Isn't that lovely, My plans came out exactly as I wanted"
Gabriel's knees weakened. "You lied… about everything."
Rolan shrugged. "Kings lie. Lovers betray. And friends, like you, choose their daughters over honor."
Gabriel swallowed hard. "What if I refuse?"
Rolan's grin widened. "Then Eva dies.
Slowly."
____
That night, Gabriel wandered the dark corridors of the palace, haunted by the ghost .He remembered the night he bury Saraphine deep beneath the runes of the earth, Miles away ancient monastery. The girl had been pale and still, sleep for over a century. A cursed angel.
Now, he was being asked to give her up. Not for prophecy. Not for honor.
But for the life of his child.
How could he do this for his own benefit? How could he do this to Dorian,his closest friend.No one knew the truth except him that Dorian was the actual father of the girl....
This could destroy the world.
Would Eva ever forgive him if he learns of his deception and betrayals?
She was Saraphine's childhood friend.
"I'll have to forget emotions and get this done once and for all, I need to save eva first," he said sadly to himself.
____
In the dungeons beneath the eastern palace, Eva clung to the stone wall, her wrists bloodied from the chains. Her eyes held fire despite the bruises.
"I will not be used!" she shouted at her guards. "My father will come.He will get me out of here."
One of the vampire sentries laughed. "He already has. And he's choosing you over a little corpse-girl."
Little corpse girl?
Who was that...
"Well it won't work you can't get my father to do against his will, besides he knows nothing about a corpse girl", she said fiercely
The second guard stood up from where he was sitting, " you know absolutely nothing about your father" he stood face to face with her." So sad you never knew your father buried a girl called Saraphine alive? Buried deep, only God knows where, except him of course".
Eva's heart ached. "Saraphine?" her long-lost childhood best friend.
"She's the one he's trading for your freedom."
Eva turned her head toward the cell's narrow window, and tears welled in her eyes. The blood moon rose slowly. She had remembered saraphine and her playing in the garden and laughing together just before the fire.
Before the ruin.
Before her disappearance
"Forgive me, Saraphine," she whispered. "You don't deserve this."
____
Gabriel stood again before Rolan, hands shaking.
"I'll tell you where she is," he said. "But swear to me—Eva lives."
Rolan nodded. "You have my word… as a king."
Gabriel leaned forward, his voice a whisper.
"There's a vault in the hallows Behind the altar. She sleeps beneath silver stone. I buried her there a century ago."
Rolan grinned. "Good."
He turned to his guards. "Prepare the hunters."
At the Weeping Monastery, the runes began to tremble. Saraphine sat up from her resting place, heart pounding. Dreams of fire and loss echoed through her mind.
"I feel things," she whispered. "So many things."
She rose to her feet.
"I'm not ten anymore. I'm not afraid anymore."
As she stepped forward, the air shimmered around her. The prophecy stirred in her blood. She didn't yet know what she was… but she would.
The wind howled as if in agreement.
As she stood atop the monastery roove ceiling, hair whipping in the wind. She saw the ravens coming towards her. She feel the enemy's hunger.
And she knew—she was the spark of a war that would end empires.
"I won't be hidden anymore," she whispered.
A lightning bolt cracked the sky.
The hunt had begun.
The next day
The monastery was ancient, carved into the cliffs like a wound in the world. Wind howled through its stone corridors, and shadows clung to every crevice like old regrets. Within its hallowed walls, the girl called Saraphine was treated less like a child of prophecy and more like a cursed relic.
Her feet bled from the rough stones as she was made to scrub floors. The sisters—robed in black with veils drawn tight—offered no kindness, only commands. "Clean it again," they would hiss, eyes filled with superstition. "Until it gleams."
Yet amid the cruelty, there was one light: a novice named Elia.
Elia was younger than the rest, barely sixteen, her eyes soft with pity and curiosity. She often snuck Saraphine bits of bread or whispered comfort in the night when the others slept.
"They don't understand," Elia murmured one evening, kneeling beside Saraphine in the laundry alcove. "They think you're the end of everything."
Saraphine's voice had grown quieter over the days. "I didn't ask to be born."
Elia reached out to brush a lock of hair from her face. "I know. But… you shine, Saraphine. Even when you try to hide it. That's what frightens them."
That same day
In the chapel, under a fresco of Saint Elira slaying demons, the elder nuns convened.
"She dreams of fire," hissed Sister Verna, the Mother Abbess. "And when she walks, the ravens follow. What further signs do we need?"
"She bleeds light," muttered another. "And ages faster each night. By spring, she'll be a woman. By summer, a queen of the damned.never will that happen"
"We must cleanse her. Rid her of this…
This darkness."
"Holy water," said Sister Ismene. "Baptism. In the tomb of Saint Elira herself."
"Scrub her," Verna spat. "Break her. Tear the sin from her flesh."
The council nodded. It was decided.
Elia found Saraphine again that night, by the well.
"They're preparing something," she said, her voice barely above the wind. "The Tomb. They say it's for your soul."
Saraphine didn't flinch. "Let them come."
"No, you don't understand. They mean to hurt you."
Saraphine's eyes flickered, golden and haunted. "I've lived through fire. I can endure water."
Elia clutched her hand. "Promise me you'll fight back."
Saraphine looked away. "I promised long ago… never again."
They came for her at dawn.
Four sisters bound her wrists with silk threads, their faces grim. Saraphine walked in silence through the stone halls as chants echoed around her.
The Tomb was an ancient cistern carved from white marble. Holy runes circled the water like prayers frozen in stone.
"Strip her," Sister Verna ordered.
Elia flinched as Saraphine's tattered shift was pulled away, her pale skin marred with bruises.
"She walks in sin," one sister cried.
"In the name of Saint Elira," shouted another, "we cast out the darkness!"
Saraphine was thrust into the water.
It was freezing—colder than death.
"Scrub her!"
They surrounded her, cloths dipped in salt, scraping at her back, her arms, her legs.
The pain was searing.
Blood clouded the water.
Still, Saraphine did not scream.
"Speak the prayer!" Verna shouted.
Saraphine raised her head. "Which one?" she rasped. "The one you use for sinners—or martyrs?"
"Blasphemy!"sister Verna shouted has she walk ahead and slap her
"She mocks the rites!"
Elia watched in horror.
"Sisters, please! She's just a girl!"
"She's the harbinger!"
"She's only flesh and blood!"Elia said with tears fell from her eyes
"She's poison."
Saraphine gritted her teeth as another cloth scoured her spine.
"You fear me," she whispered. "Because I remind you of your own silence. Of all the daughters you buried before me."
Verna raised a crucifix. "Be silent, child of ruin!"
But Saraphine looked up, eyes golden now, radiant.
"I remember now," she said. "The fire. The voices. The chains. I remember Everything."
The holy water began to bubble.
Fracture started.
The tomb shook.
A wind howled from nowhere.
Sister Ismene cried out as her crucifix shattered.
"What is this?" Verna shouted.
Saraphine stood, water streaming down her skin has they fluged her with big ropes..
"You called this a baptism," she said. "But it was a sacrifice."
"I kill all of you"saraphine shouted has pain surge into her
Heavy tears came out of her eyes...