In the tower of Veridia, Val stood by the cold obsidian mirror as Kaelen reported the failure. "My Lord, the riders failed to contain the solicitor's eldest daughter. She is armed, quick, and escaped into the Devil's Teeth woods. The lead rider reports the mare was shot, and the family is now on foot."
Val did not shout. He did not move. Instead, the elements within him reacted. The temperature in the vast room dropped so suddenly that a thin layer of Water froze on the stone floor. Kaelen stiffened, sensing the absolute fusion of elemental rage.
"She is a Fae-Lesser Vampire, merely a lesser creature of the night, yet she has defied my most capable servants," Val his voice a low, lethal hum. "I will not risk the destiny of the bloodlines on the slow tracking of horses and swords. This pretense ends
"Kaelen, prepare the transit points. I will retrieve her myself," Val commanded.
The chase in the woods was a desperate, chaotic scramble. Ezra's limited Vampire speed was enough to pull her terrified father and sobbing sister through the tangled undergrowth, but it was not enough to create distance. They were tearing at their respectable clothes, their lungs burning, moving deeper into the woods near Grayhaven's outskirts.
"We cannot stop! They are Demon-blooded! They will track our scent!" Ezra gasped, glancing back.
Just as they burst into a small, rocky clearing—a hollow nestled deep within the wood—they stopped dead.
Standing in the center of the clearing, seemingly having materialized from the very air itself, was Val.
He was not mounted, and he was not armed with a sword, yet his presence was a thousand times more terrifying than his riders. He was clad in dark, tailored clothes, pristine save for a slight coating of fine, black dust. His eyes, fixed entirely on Ezra, were the only things that moved, burning with a composite intelligence.
Mr. Finch crumpled instantly, falling to his knees. Clara sank beside him, weeping silently.
"The escape is over, Miss Finch," Val stated, his voice carrying the authority of centuries.
Ezra raised the revolver, her hand steady despite the roaring fear in her chest. "Stay back! I am armed! I will shoot!"
Val merely smiled, a thin, chilling expression of absolute superiority. He made no move toward her, yet the air became heavy, crackling with controlled power.
"You are a creature of the night, Miss Finch," Val observed, acknowledging her identity. "A Fae-Lesser Vampire, if the scent is correct. You rely on quickness and small, metal pellets. I command the elements that created you."
He raised a single, gloved hand. The Earth beneath Mr. Finch and Clara instantly softened, becoming a heavy, clinging mire that locked their legs up to their knees. The mire was cold—so cold that Clara gasped from the shock of the elemental Water within the muck.
"The soil will hold them, and the cold will incapacitate them," Val stated calmly. He glanced at Ezra's father. "The solicitor is a valuable tool for the King's defiance. He would suffer greatly if he were to lose one of his daughters in the mud. Perhaps the younger one, the fairer one, might be left for the trackers. Or perhaps they are both simply expendable."
Val's threat was delivered without heat, making it infinitely more terrifying. He was using her family—the people her father loved and whom she protected—as a bargaining chip.
Ezra's resolution shattered. The knowledge of her limited power, of her mistaken identity, vanished. The only thing that mattered was the terror on her sister's face and the helpless resignation of her father.
She lowered the revolver slowly, letting it drop into the soft, silent earth.
"Stop," Ezra whispered, her voice cracking. "Stop hurting them. I will go with you.
Val nodded, the smile touching his lips again. The mire instantly hardened back into solid, dry ground, freeing the Finches. He stepped forward, covering the short distance between them with inhuman grace, and took Ezra's arm.
"A wise choice, Ezra," Val murmured, his grasp surprisingly cool. "The King's games are finished. Your destiny begins now."
"Why did my name sounds so good from his voice," Ezra whisper only to her hearing "Does it matters he clearly sees me as a vessel which he is wrong but who am I to correct him when his very air carry that of someone who does not which to be corrected,"
Arrg," Ezra sign even at an important moment she's still overthinking.
With a silent, wrenching shift of space and air—a maneuver of pure elemental Air—Valerian Selwyn, The Prime Nexus, vanished from the clearing, taking Ezra with him, leaving behind only two shocked, weeping mortals and the smell of ozone.