Matthias Harlow
1253
Caed Dhu, Angren
I led the horses a ways from the camp before starting the work. They followed without protest, hooves sinking into the soft dirt, ears flicking at every sound in the trees. I chose a quiet spot near a grove, flat and far enough from the trail that no one would stumble on it by accident. There were a few shovels among the camp supplies, meant for latrines. It saved me the trouble of using my hands or a blade.
I untied the bodies one by one. They hit the ground with dull thuds, heavy and solid. I didn't bother arranging them neatly just close enough that the graves would be easier to dig. The soil was loose, damp from the humidity the black forest was known for, so the work went quickly. I realized, somewhere between the second and third grave, that I wasn't getting tired.
Right they don't tired. Despite what Stephanie Meyer's sloppy romance novels might've suggested, the vampires she wrote about were genuinely terrifying creatures. Beneath all the glitter and melodrama, they were apex predators, stronger, faster, and far more durable than anything nature ever intended to exist. Their skin was nearly indestructible, they could lift hundreds of times their own weight, run over 100 mph, and leap incredible distances. they were strong enough to stop a speeding car with one hand, to uproot and shatter trees with a single blow.
There were no convenient weaknesses, to killing them, no stakes through the heart or rays of sunlight to save the day. The only way to kill one permanently was to have another creature of similar strength tear it apart and burn the remains before they could knit themselves back together again. Otherwise, given enough time, even the most broken pieces would heal.
I grabbed the first bundle and tossed it into its designated grave. The canvas swallowed the sound, but the impact still landed heavy and final. The second bundle followed, then the third.
The lightest of them weighed around 130 pounds, but still tossed them down with the same casual, efficient motion of a person tossing pillows for all the strain their weights had on me. They were knights once; now they were just wrapped shapes in a hole I'd dug.
In any other world, I thought as I grabbed the shovel and starting covering the graves back up, I would be an incredible, unstoppable monster. But this world was full of monsters.
Leshens that commanded the forest itself; fiends and chorts with skulls like battering rams; basilisks and forktails that blackened the sky; drowners swarming every riverbank; and worse still, the higher vampires, creatures so ancient and dangerous that even witchers avoided crossing them.
Those things didn't just kill, they toyed with their prey, manipulated minds, vanished into mist, and walked among men unnoticed. Their regeneration dwarfed mine, their speed matched it, and they possessed something I didn't: control. They fed when they chose, not out of mindless hunger.
They could speak, reason, and wield power beyond human understanding. Proud, intelligent, and vain, they viewed themselves as the natural aristocracy of the night—predators with elegance, not beasts driven by thirst.
To them, I wouldn't be kin. I'd be an insult. An abomination. Their favored prey wearing a parody of their form. My only advantage—the only edge I held—was that my curse could spread to humans, creating more of my kind.
But if that fact ever became known, I had no doubt what would happen. They'd hunt me down, every last one of them, just to make sure my taint never had a chance to take root.
I finished the last grave and drove the shovel into the soil beside it. The air was still, heavy with the scent of damp earth and moss. For a long moment, I just stood there, staring at the mounds of freshly turned dirt, the canvas beneath them already darkening as moisture seeped through.
Before I even realized what I was doing, the words came out of my mouth—low, steady, automatic.
"May the Lady guide your souls to rest, and grant you peace beyond steel."
It was a knight's prayer, the cadence was familiar, the tone reverent, but the voice didn't feel like mine. It was de La Croix's. His memory. His faith. I caught myself halfway through, jaw tightening as the last word left my tongue.
The silence that followed was heavier than the soil I'd just moved.
Fuck, might as well. I had always hated funerals—a byproduct of having buried both my parents. They'd had me late, well past the age most people were thinking about raising children.
While other kids grew up with parents who cheered from the sidelines at games or helped with school projects after work, mine were already middle-aged when I was still learning to walk.
By the time I hit my teens, my father's hair had gone completely grey, and my mother needed glasses to read the simplest things. Our weekends weren't spent at parks or soccer fields; they were spent in quiet rooms, doctor's offices, or listening to old stories about when they were young.
I loved them, but I'd grown up with the constant awareness that they were running out of time. Every birthday was a reminder that I was getting older while they were simply getting closer to the end.
When they finally went, years apart, it didn't come as a shock, just a slow, inevitable closing of a door that had always been halfway shut. Maybe that's why graves never sat right with me.
They always felt less like endings and more like reminders of everything time had already stolen.
But this was different. I wasn't just burying the dead, I'd made them that way.
Louis, maybe, could be called an accident. A casualty of bloodlust I hadn't yet learned to control. But the other two… there was no excuse for them. That hadn't been hunger or panic; that had been choice.
Cold, deliberate, and calculated. Murder, no matter how I tried to frame it.
The least I could do was put them in the ground properly. Not for their sake—they'd already had their reckoning—but for mine. Some small, hollow gesture to ease my lack of remorse.
I added on to the prayer. "The righteous shall be recompensed, and the wicked shall meet their due, the Lady weighs every soul by deed, not title, if what I remember about the Goddess you prayed to is true, then this funeral is more than you lot deserve."
The words hung in the air for a moment before fading into the quiet rustle of the trees. The sun had swung across the sky in the time it took me to get here and dig up these graves, it would be sundown by the time I got back to camp, I exhaled slowly, brushed the dirt from my hands, and turned toward the horses.
The lead mare—Épine—stamped once as I approached, nostrils flaring but calm. She was a tall, dapple-grey courser, the kind bred for knightly parades and the shock of battle alike.
Her coat still bore faint streaks of sweat and dust, her mane tangled from the trek, and the polished silver of her tack had dulled beneath the grime. She watched me with dark, intelligent eyes as a patted her neck.
"Easy, girl," I murmured. "We've a bit of ground to cover before nightfall."
I took her reins, the leather cool and worn under my fingers, and swung into the saddle. Épine shifted once beneath me, then settled with a snort, her breath misting faintly in the forest air.
When I gave a sharp whistle, the other two horses lifted their heads and fell in behind us as I turned her back toward camp.
It was a little before sundown when I made it back to camp. I'd failed to account for how much faster the horses would move without the weight of corpses slowing them down.
Across the hollow, the camp still breathed slow and low. She had stayed.
Syanna—Rhenawedd, I reminded myself; I couldn't afford to slip in front of her—sat near the fire. It had grown stronger since I'd left, flames licking at a fresh stack of kindling. She hadn't moved far from the stump.
The chain lay slack where it had fallen, blackened links catching the light. The ground around it still carried the sharp scent of singed flesh and churned earth.
She'd done as I'd told her—rifled through Crespi's tent for clothes. The shirt she wore swallowed her frame, hanging off her shoulders like it had been made for a man twice her size.
The trousers were cinched high at the waist, belted so tight the leather folded over itself. She'd tied the knot twice
I noticed she'd at least tried to clean herself up—wiped away some of the grime and blood from her face and arms, though streaks still clung stubbornly to her skin.
Her hair, too, had been finger-combed into some semblance of order. It was a small effort, but it spoke volumes.
The horses snorted softly as I broke through the treeline, the crunch of hooves and leaves drawing her attention. Her head snapped up, eyes flicking toward the sound. I raised a hand in a loose gesture.
"Easy," I called out, voice low. "It's just me." She didn't answer—just watched. I could see the faint tension in her shoulders ease a fraction, though she didn't quite relax.
I swung down from Épine's saddle, the mare shifting her weight with a quiet huff. One by one, I led the horses to the hitching post and secured their reins. Épine turned her head toward me as I gave her neck a firm pat.
"I'll see to your coat later, girl," I muttered, half to her, half to myself.
When I finally turned back, Rhenawedd hadn't moved from her spot by the fire. The orange light traced her face in amber and shadow — the kind of face that looked carved for candlelight, not campfire smoke.
"You've decided to stay, I see," I said.
Her eyes flicked up, unreadable. "You took so long," she said, voice even and cool, "I had thought you'd changed your mind and left."
I snorted softly, tugging the reins loose from Épine's bit. "I try and keep my promises once I've made them."
A faint hum of acknowledgment — neither apology nor thanks. "Then I suppose I misjudged you," she said, brushing a lock of soot-dulled hair behind her ear. Her posture was careful — not the stiff wariness of a child fearing reprisal, but the deliberate poise of someone long accustomed to being observed.
"You've a strange way of showing gratitude," I said.
"I've little left worth showing," she replied, voice low. Then, after a pause: "I was not always… like this."
That piqued my curiosity despite myself. "No?"
She hesitated, the words slow, measured. "My family was once of the lesser nobility — east of the Sansretour. My father held a vineyard, small but reputable. After his passing, there were debts… and rivals eager to see our holdings dissolved. A quarrel over inheritance turned… unfortunate."
"Unfortunate how?"
Her gaze dropped to the fire. "A boy died. Not by my hand, but it mattered little to the courts. They stripped me of title and land. I was fortunate to escape with my life, as much of a life one can have in exile anyways."
I had to give her credit where it was due — she was an excellent liar. Not because she spoke smoothly, but because she knew exactly when not to. The tremor in her voice wasn't feigned, but placed — just enough to sound natural, not enough to make her story fall apart.
She understood silence, how to let it fill the spaces between words until the listener started doing the work for her.
Her eyes never wavered either; they held mine with the kind of steadiness only a practiced deceiver could manage — meeting just long enough to seem sincere, breaking away just before it became unnatural.
Honestly, if I cared, I suppose I'd have been offended at her lying to me. But I didn't. Not really. Lies were just another form of self-preservation — and she clearly felt she had plenty to preserve.
I studied her for a while, face giving nothing away. The camp had quieted with the dying light; the fire's glow painted the hollow in bands of gold and shadow. Smoke drifted upward, thin and lazy, mingling with the cool blue of the encroaching dusk.
The horses grazed nearby, their movements soft, rhythmic — the only sound besides the whisper of wind through the trees.
She sat there, wrapped in borrowed clothes far too large for her, the sleeves swallowing her arms, the collar hanging loose around her neck. For all her poise — the measured tone, the careful diction of nobility — she looked small against the firelight. Fragile, even.
A child by modern standards, though the world she came from would call her grown.
Should I have confronted her? Told her I knew who she really was — that the lie didn't fool me? The thought lingered, sharp and persistent. But what would that even achieve? She'd only double down or run.
So I said nothing. Just watched the fire crackle and die a little lower, and let her have her story.
After a time, I spoke, my voice breaking the quiet. "What do you want to do?" Her eyes flicked toward me, wary.
"In regards to?"
"To you. In general," I said, leaning forward. "I'll help you leave the forest. It's about three days to Dregsdon if we keep a good pace. Or…" I paused, glancing toward the trees where the shadows had thickened, "I could leave you by one of the hamlets along the way. Safer than staying out here."
She didn't answer right away, just stared into the flames, as though weighing every possible meaning behind my words. The firelight caught in her eyes, reflecting something halfway between caution and thought.
She didn't answer right away, just kept her gaze fixed on the fire. Then, after a moment, she tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing with that quiet, measured pride of hers.
"What is it you want, then?" she asked. "You've already made it clear I'm not your burden. So why bother offering me roads and choices?"
I shrugged, keeping my tone even. "Because leaving you here would feel like a waste." Her brow furrowed. "A waste?"
"Of effort," I said simply. "I didn't drag you out of that mess just to have you starve or get eaten by something with more teeth than sense."
Her lips pressed into a thin line, and for a moment I thought she might argue.
But instead, she exhaled — sharp, almost scoffing. I met her eyes. She held my stare for several heartbeats, like she was testing for deceit.
The firelight flickered across her face, softening the hard set of her jaw.
Finally, she said, "Then I'll decide when we arrive in civilization proper." I nodded once. "Good. We leave at first light. The longer we stay in this forest, the more likely something less talkative finds us."
That earned me a faint glance — not gratitude, not trust, just acknowledgment. But it was something.
Sylvia Anna Henrietta
He was lying — or perhaps merely choosing which truths to leave unspoken. While he was gone, disposing of the bodies, I'd finally had the luxury of stillness — time to think, to breathe, to let my mind catch up to everything that had happened.
And in that quiet, the inconsistencies began to surface.
When he confronted de Peyrac-Peyron, he'd spoken his name aloud.
I hadn't heard their entire exchange, but that detail had lodged itself in my thoughts like a splinter. At first, I told myself he might've overheard it earlier; I had, after all, called out to Milton before the fighting began.
It was plausible. Convenient, even.
But then there was the other thing. Small, almost forgettable — until I thought of it again.
"There's a change of clothes in Crespi's tent," he had said. Crespi. He shouldn't have known that name. He shouldn't have known which tent belonged to which man.
That left me with two explanations, neither of them reassuring: either he had been following us for far longer than I'd realized… or he had known those knights. And if it was the latter, then he almost certainly already knew me.
I decided to probe, carefully, without provoking.
"You said your name was Matthias," I began, keeping my tone mild, conversational. "That's a strange name for a Toussaintois."
He looked at me then, really looked, and for a moment I almost regretted speaking at all. Those eyes — blood-red and luminous — caught the firelight in a way no human's ever could. They didn't reflect it so much as consume it.
He was hard to look at, not because he was ugly. Far from it. His features were too symmetrical, too sharply defined — the kind of beauty that didn't quite belong to mortals.
The longer I looked, the more apparent that wrongness became, the stillness beneath his movements, the way his chest only rose when he spoke, the absence of the small, unconscious fidgets that marked living things.
Even at rest, he seemed coiled, not with tension, but with purpose , as though motion was a decision, not a reflex.
I had met sorcerers before — men and women who cloaked themselves in illusions, who sculpted beauty the way sculptors shaped marble. But even they, with all their glamours and illusions, had never seemed quite so other as this man before me.
"Toussaint?" he repeated after a pause, his tone unreadable. He tilted his head slightly, those ruby eyes never leaving mine. "What makes you think I'm from Toussaint?"
"You do," I said. "Your accent t's faint, but it's there."
He studied me for a long moment, something flickering behind his gaze that I couldn't name. Then, quietly, he said, "I promise you, Rhenawedd, I've never set foot in Toussaint. And truth be told, I'd rather not if I could help it."
"Then why do you sound like you're from there?" I pressed, .
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite annoyance. "The man who taught me to speak the common tongue hailed from Beauclair," he said at last. "His habits… lingered."
There was something final in the way he said it, a tone that suggested further questions would not be welcome. But even so, I caught the faintest tightening of his jaw as though the memory of that man was not a pleasant one.
I hesitated, then asked, "And before that? Where are you from, then?"
He shifted slightly, gaze turning toward the trees as though the question itself had a weight to it. "North," he said at last.
"Far north. Past the frozen seas. Beyond the lands you'd find on any of your maps."
"Skellige?" I ventured.
A faint huff escaped him — not quite laughter. "No. Colder. Wilder. Fewer people."
I frowned, unsure whether he was mocking me. "So… not the Continent, then?"
"No," he said after a moment, voice distant. "Where I was born, the days were short and the nights were endless. In winter, the sun barely touched the horizon—just a dim glow that never quite became daylight. The cold was a living thing there, creeping into your bones, biting through fur and leather alike. The snow swallowed everything—houses, forests, even the sea when it froze. And when the thaw came, it turned to mud and rain, the air thick with the smell of wet earth and strong trees."
There was no boast in his tone, no attempt to impress—just that quiet, matter-of-fact cadence of someone remembering a place no one else would ever see.
"That sounds dreadful," I said before I could stop myself.
"It was beautiful, it was a life." he replied simply. His eyes flicked toward me then, those red irises catching what little firelight remained. "Dreadful came after."
Whatever after meant, I didn't ask. Something in the way he said it—soft, almost reflective—made me certain that pressing further would mean he would end the conversation.
"Born, you said you were born there, do vampires have parents?"
"Of course they do," he said at last. "They don't just crawl out of the ground."
He leaned back slightly, gaze distant but steady. "The higher kind—I'm not talking about Alps or Bruxae, but the true vampires—they have kin, bloodlines. They grow, change, pass on what they are like any other race. They even form clans. I know of at least three, though the names escape me now."
"They? Not we?" I asked.
He actually laughed at that — quiet, humorless, but genuine all the same. "They'd kill you for even insinuating we're the same species," he said.
His eyes flicked toward the fire, the faintest glint of reflection in those red irises. "Higher vampires are… old. Older than men, elves, even the first monsters your kind learned to name. Some remember the Conjunction itself — the moment their world collided with this one. They don't die of age, or injury, they're actually immortal A civilization of near godlike beings living in the shadow of yours since the Conjunction of the Spheres."
He stilled, expression unreadable. "They're not beasts or curses, Rhenawedd. They're a people — proud, ancient, and entirely convinced of their superiority, most would argue they're right to think that way."
"But you said you were a vampire." I let the words linger in the smoky air, watching him carefully for any flicker of deceit.
"No," he said slowly, his gaze drifting back to me, "you said I was a vampire. I only acknowledged that, technically, you were correct."
I tilted my head, the firelight casting shadows across my face. "Then… what are you, truly?" My voice was measured, as though I was indifferent to his answer though I couldn't entirely mask my genuine curiosity.
He paused, fingers tapping at his thigh, and I felt the weight of his silence press against me. "I am to them what men are to elves… what dwarves are to halflings." His words were quiet, almost scholarly.
"Why are you suddenly so inquisitive?" he asked, a faint edge of amusement—or was it suspicion?—in his tone.
I let my eyes linger on the dancing flames before meeting his gaze. "I'm simply… curious," I said, choosing my words with deliberate care. "You are nothing at all like the stories of vampires I was raised on. I never imagined that creatures such as you could have names, let alone an entire… way of life., you were always just monsters to me. creatures that would steal a peasant from their beds."
During the time we were speaking, the sun had slipped beneath the treeline. The last of its light bled through the canopy in dull amber streaks before fading altogether, leaving the hollow washed in shades of grey and blue.
Night in Caed Dhu came quickly — not with the soft quiet of open fields, but with the slow, creeping weight of the forest itself. The trees pressed closer in the dark, their trunks black against the faint glow of the fire.
Every so often, the stillness broke: the distant hoot of an owl, the rustle of something small moving through the undergrowth, the far-off echo of a howl that didn't quite sound like any wolf she knew. The air grew cooler, heavy with the scent of moss, damp earth, and smoke.
He looked at me then, his face unreadable in the half-light, the red of his eyes dimmed to a faint ember. "Go to sleep, Rhenawedd," he said quietly. "We've a long journey ahead of us."
It was clearly meant to end the conversation — a polite dismissal, firm enough to leave no room for argument. I considered saying something anyway, some sharp retort to remind him I wasn't a child to be sent to bed, but thought better of it. There was no advantage in pressing my luck.
A part of me knew it was hypocritical, interrogating him the way I had. But distrust was the only constant companion I had.
The world had never given me the luxury of faith — not in others, and certainly not in the things that hid behind gentle words and calm eyes.
So I only nodded, a small, wordless concession, and rose to my feet. The firelight caught the edge of his expression — impassive, distant, already elsewhere. Without another word, I crossed the camp and slipped into Crespi's abandoned tent.
The canvas smelled faintly of oiled leather and stale wine. It wasn't comfort, but it was familiar — and for tonight, that was enough.
Matthias Harlow
It took about two hours for her to stop pretending and actually fall asleep.
I could tell — not just by the slowing of her heartbeat, but by the rhythm of her breathing, uneven at first, then deepening as exhaustion finally won.
Even then, she didn't rest easily. Her turns were restless, her movements sharp and unguarded.
I recalled that she had always been a terrible sleeper. Louis's recollections surfaced unbidden: long nights by the campfire, her tossing beneath a cloak, muttered words in her sleep that had set his nerves on edge.
It had been a constant frustration for the knights charged with her exile, one more reason for them to see her as a burden rather than a charge.
Now, hearing her struggle against whatever shadows hunted her dreams, I found the memory lingered with a strange weight.
It wasn't pity, not exactly — just realization. Some people didn't know how to rest, even when they were safe.
Her attempt at a subtle interrogation had stirred memories of home — the real one — good and bad alike.
For the first time in years, I realized that I missed it. The cold mornings that bit at your lungs, the clean sting of snow carried on the wind, the stillness before dawn when the world held its breath.
I missed the summers too — the ones where the sun barely dipped below the horizon, and nights by the bonfire blurred into the pale hours of morning.
But as soon as the thought took shape, another followed, darker and quieter. Would I even want to go back?
Would I see those mornings again — Alaska's skies stretching wide and endless, the soft orange haze over the water, the silence that only existed at the edge of the world? And if I could return… should I?
The monster I had become didn't belong there. The idea of bringing that curse back to my own world was enough to chill even my bloodless veins. I didn't know the answer. Not truly.
But I knew one thing. I would at least like the choice.
In this world, I wasn't the only one who'd ever slipped through the cracks between realities — though few could claim to have done it by accident.
I knew of at least two others: the elven sage Avallac'h, and Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon — Ciri, as she'd one day prefer to be addressed.
Of the two, only one could cross worlds freely. Ciri, the Child of the Elder Blood — a girl born with the gift to tear through time and space itself, to step from one reality to the next as easily as walking through a door.
Unlike her, Avallac'h, for all his age and knowledge, could only follow where the veil between worlds thinned, relying on mathematics, prediction. More science than magic, than instinct.
Ciri was my best bet — my only real lead. I even knew where she was, or rather, would be.
Avallac'h was another matter entirely. His movements were a mystery, scattered across centuries and worlds. I could faintly recall something about a hideout in Skellige, but even that was little more than a faint recollection.
No — Ciri was the easier thread to follow, the one with a future I could trace.
The only problem was that she was, at this time, just an infant — nothing like the woman who would one day bring armies to heel and step through time as easily as breathing.
But if there was one thing I had now, it was time. I could wait for her to grow, to come into her power.
What I would do then… I hadn't decided yet.
Sleep wasn't coming — not tonight, Nor tomorrow, never again. In the silence I sat in my mind wandered too far, to places I would rather not think about. So I turned my attention to something useful, to make use of the hours instead.
The camp was quiet, save for the whisper of the wind threading through The Black Forest's twisted pines. The fire had died down to little more than sullen embers, their glow barely touching the edges of the clearing.
I rose soundlessly, moving with the sort of care that had long ago become instinct.
The tents came down first. The old canvas creaked as I loosened the ties, folding them neatly to one side.
The girl didn't stir — though even if she had, she'd have seen little more than a shadow moving in the dark. I worked through the rest in silence, stacking packs, gathering stray gear, tamping out what remained of the fire until it was nothing but grey ash.
When that was done, I went to the horses. They shifted as I approached, snorting softly, their breath steaming in the chill. I murmured low to them as I brushed the dust and dried sweat from their flanks.
The rhythm of it was steadying: the sweep of bristles, the flick of tails, the quiet stamp of hooves in damp earth.
By the time I'd finished, the moon had risen higher, silvering the clearing. Everything was in order again — neat, quiet, ready to move.
I stayed standing a while longer, resting a hand against the mare's neck, watching the faint mist drift from her nostrils.
It was still some time before dawn, the world wrapped in a hushed, silvered quiet. I might as well pass the time, my eyes settled on the swords I looted from the knights, I drew the sword I was most familiar with, letting its cold weight settle into my hand, testing its balance with a flick of my wrist.
At first, I moved deliberately, tracing the forms I had stolen from de La Croix. Each step, each cut, each parry was slow, almost meditative, like I was teaching a human body to move with the elegance of a predator.
The steel whispered through the mist curling around the clearing, a soft, almost musical sound that seemed too gentle for the violence it promised.
I circled the clearing, lunged, pivoted, repeated the motions. My shadow stretched and twisted in the moonlight, a pale echo of my movements. At this pace, each swing was precise, every motion measured, and the world outside the clearing seemed distant, silent, irrelevant.
The air was cool, smelling faintly of wet earth and horse, and each breath I drew was sharp, crisp, and invigorating.
Hours passed. My motions began to quicken imperceptibly. The deliberate slowness of a human gave way to the rhythm of something sharper, faster.
The sword flowed from hand to hand, step to step, and I felt the familiar, exhilarating hum of power in my limbs.
The horses shifted nervously once, but the sound of the blade slicing the air seemed to soothe them.
Soon, my speed surpassed anything human. The world became a blur. Each swing created faint streaks of moonlight in the mist, arcs of silver that lingered briefly before vanishing.
The wind off my movements stirred leaves and dew in tiny whirlwinds, brushing across the clearing like the soft caress of a storm.
My muscles moved without thought, reacting faster than sight could follow. I could feel the tiniest vibrations in the ground through my boots, the subtlest shifts of air against my skin, each one a guide for the next motion, the next strike.
By the time the first hints of dawn brushed the treetops, I was a living tempest. My strikes overlapped, each one faster than thought, faster than breath.
Shadows seemed to warp around me, trees bending subtly as if leaning into the violence of my motion. I could hear the faint whine of air being cut, feel the steel thrumming in my grip like a second heartbeat.
Time itself seemed to stretch; the clearing slowed around me while I moved at impossible speed, my body and blade a single, seamless entity.
When I finally stopped, the world was bathed in the fragile light of dawn, and the forest stirred beneath a veil of soft gold and silver.
Mist clung stubbornly to the low hollows and the edges of the darkened trees, curling like smoke around the gnarled roots.
The first weak rays of the sun pierced the canopy in thin, trembling shafts, illuminating dew-drenched grass that shimmered like a scattering of tiny, cold stars.
Shadows, long and jagged, still clung to the ruins and the hollowed stone paths, reluctant to yield to the day, while the distant hills blushed pink and lavender as if the earth itself were waking slowly from a deep, uneasy sleep.
A faint breeze rustled the skeletal branches overhead, carrying the smell of damp earth, frost, and the lingering tang of night, and for a moment, the clearing felt suspended between two worlds—the dying night behind me, and the tentative, uncertain dawn stretching before me.
At the sight of sunrise, my thoughts shifted to the journey ahead and the problem I could not ignore: my skin.
How could I walk among people without having to come up with a believable excuse for why I looked like someone threw glitter all over me, I needed a way to cover myself, something that would not draw suspicion, yet conceal the unnatural sheen of my skin.
And then, like lightning, the idea struck. The armor. I could pretend to be a knight. I already knew the ins and outs of knighthood—the posture, the manners, the subtle hierarchies of address.
I could present myself as an overtly vigilant knight, a wandering soldier of fortune, and no one would question it.
The thought carried me toward the looted armor, secured in the saddlebags, dull in the early light. My hands hovered over the metal, weighing, measuring, imagining.
I would have to cobble them into a suit, a makeshift armorset, not perfect by any measure, but enough. Enough to cover the shimmer of my skin, to let me walk among men without drawing questions that I would hard pressed to answer.
Rhenawedd stirred, blinking against the early light. When her eyes landed on me, she flinched, scrambling back, tense and wary.
I stilled, caught off guard. She should have gotten over the vampire thing by now, I thought. Then I realized what had scared her; my armor. The hard plates, the helmet, the way I loomed over her it wasn't me she was afraid of; it was what she thought I was.
Slowly, I lifted the faceplate, letting it click into place at the top. "It's me," I said clearly, keeping my movements deliberate so I didn't startle her further. "Nothing has changed, they're still dead."
Her eyes narrowed slightly, still assessing. I took a step closer, keeping my hands visible. "I have to wear this," I explained simply. "It covers my skin. People would notice otherwise. I just need to be able to move among others without being questioned."
She remained alert, her stance defensive, but she stopped backing away. The tension didn't fully leave her, but she began to accept that the armored figure was still me.
Her first reaction was to play down her moment of weakness "I was not afraid, just startled." I humored her "I never said anything about you being afraid."
She didn't respond, her gaze drifting over the empty clearing measuring how much had changed overnight.
I watched the way her brow creased in curiosity, the slight frown of confusion on her face. Finally, she voiced her thoughts. "When did you take down the camp?"
"Last night, while you were sleeping."
Her eyes widened slightly. "Aren't you tired? And how come I didn't hear anything?"
I gave a half-smile, though it didn't reach my eyes. "I can't sleep, and I'd be surprised if you did hear anything, the way you were tossing and turning." I gestured toward the packed supplies and the folded tents.
"Come on, go eat something and get ready. I'll tear down the tent, like I said, it's a long road to Dregsdon."
She hesitated a moment, scanning the neatly stacked gear as if cataloging it all in her mind. Then she nodded and moved toward the supplies I'd left unpacked by the horses, likely to eat or freshen up before the journey.
I set to work. The canvas came down smoothly under my hands, ropes coiling neatly at my feet, the tent folded and placed with the rest of the supplies. The horses shifted under their saddles, impatient but accustomed to the rhythm of our morning.
About twenty minutes later, after securing the little supplies I hadn't packed, she climbed atop her horse. I gave a last glance to the clearing behind us—the mist curling low among the trees, the pale light of dawn just beginning to warm it.
Then, with the supplies secured and the horses ready, we began our journey, leaving the forest and heading toward Dregsdon.