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The forest was thick with mist and the smell of damp earth, heavy enough to cling to skin and cloth alike. Moonlight filtered through the canopy in pale veins, casting narrow paths of silver across the undergrowth. Every step she took was measured, deliberate—boots sinking into moss without a sound, coat brushing past ferns with no more disturbance than a passing breeze.
She moved in near-silence, invisible and unnoticed. The long coat she wore—deep charcoal wool lined with velvet at the collar—fit her frame like it had been tailored with blood in mind. Beneath it, a leather corset cinched her waist, complementing the fine silver-threaded embroidery that traced the cuffs of her gloves. Indigo strands of hair, stubbornly visible despite the effort to tame them, curled at her collarbone.
She paused at the base of a knotted tree, fingers ghosting toward the weapon at her back. Not drawn. Not yet.
There—between the trunks. A flicker of motion. She lowered herself, one knee brushing the loam, and narrowed her gaze. The distance made details difficult to discern, but the figure was unmistakable. Pale skin, unhurried gait.
It hadn’t seen her.
At least, she hoped it hadn’t
She rose again, careful not to snap a twig underfoot, and slipped forward through the dark, trailing the creature deeper into the woods.
She spotted it again by a stream, half-shrouded in mist, lit only by the fractured moonlight glinting off the water’s surface.
It looked like a woman sat atop a moss-slick boulder, one knee propped up, the other dangling just above the current. A book rested open in its lap, held carelessly in one cloth-wrapped hand. It wasn’t reading anymore, but its eyes lingered on the page like they might drift back at any moment.
Its clothes were an odd patchwork of restraint and defiance. Heavy boots, scuffed and mud-caked, braced it against the stone. A wide leather belt circled its hips, fixed with a brass buckle and a pair of dangling iron rings that might once have held tools or weapons. Its trousers were black, tucked into the boots, and patched at the knees. Over them it wore a sleeveless leather jerkin, weathered and creased, the collar half turned up like it couldn’t be bothered to stay down. Beneath that—nothing but a close-fitting linen undershirt, the neckline tugged unevenly to one side and sleeves cut short at the shoulders, baring its arms to the cold.
Thick wraps covered its hands and forearms from wrist to elbow, dyed a deep crimson and fraying at the edges. One was stained, possibly with blood, though it was hard to tell in the dark. The wraps looked worn in, like they’d been retied a hundred times with the same rough fingers.
Its hair was short, uneven, and vivid in the moonlight—deep magenta with streaks of pink catching the air whenever it moved. Two rings looped around the shell of its ear, the metal catching just enough light to betray the movement of its head as it turned the page.
It didn’t look like prey.
It looked like something that should’ve been hunting.
The hunter knelt in the shadow of a gnarled root, fingers working in silence as she reached behind her shoulder and unbuckled the long case slung across her back. The leather creaked faintly, a sound swallowed by the damp hush of the forest. One by one, she withdrew the components of her rifle—stock, barrel, scope—and assembled them with practiced care, each piece sliding into place with muted, mechanical precision.
The weapon itself was beautiful in a cold, meticulous way. Old-world craftsmanship sharpened by something more modern, more exacting. The stock was carved from black walnut, oiled to a soft sheen and cool to the touch. Set into the wood just behind the grip was an intricate inlay of silver and onyx: two ornate, crossed keys, centered by asymmetrical mirrored K’s; the leg of the left K curled, like a trigger. The craftsmanship was unmistakable—no common gunsmith would waste silver on ornamentation that fine.
She eased herself prone, pressing into the loam, and inched forward until the rifle’s barrel rested across a low, flat rock. Her movements were methodical, slow enough to seem still. Not even her breath stirred the mist curling along the forest floor.
From a narrow pouch at her hip, she retrieved a single bullet. It glinted like moonlight trapped in metal—pure silver, cool and gleaming, its casing engraved with the same crest as her rifle. Even in the dark, the etched metal caught the light, as if it held its own.
She slid the bullet into the chamber, thumb brushing the bolt forward until it quietly clicked into place. One final breath. One final adjustment.
And then she waited.
She inched the rifle forward another fraction, until the weight of it settled fully into the rock beneath the barrel. The forest was dead quiet—no wind, no distant call of a night bird, only the hush of mist drifting through the trees. Her gloves muted the click of each tiny dial as she adjusted the sights, twisting the brass knobs beside each lens with the careful pinch of forefinger and thumb. One turn to correct the range. Another to account for the angle of elevation. A breath to steady. Then one more to tighten the focus.
The lenses aligned with a soft whisper of shifting glass.
The image sharpened.
There it was—still perched on the boulder, legs braced, book in its lap. The pages fluttered faintly in the breeze, though the woman didn’t seem to notice. Its lips moved, barely. Not reading aloud. Mouthing something. A name? A line?
The hunter’s finger curled lightly around the trigger.
She flicked off the safety with her thumb.
One final breath, slow and controlled, slipped past her lips. She held the exhale, locking her lungs still as she tightened her focus down to the center of the scope. Her finger began to tens—
You’re aiming in the wrong place.
The words bloomed behind her eyes like a drop of ink in clear water.
Her breath stopped. For a heartbeat, she didn’t move—finger hovering over the trigger, spine rigid, gaze still fixed through the scope.
Then, slowly, she lifted her head.
The forest remained unchanged. The mist clung low to the ground. The stream trickled past its rocks without hurry. And the vampire on the boulder… still sat exactly as it had before, flipping a page with idle patience, lips pursed faintly in thought. No sign it’d spoken. No sign it’d heard.
No sign it was anything but alone.
The hunter’s jaw tensed.
She shifted her weight and ducked back into position, eyes narrowed as she reacquired the target through her scope. Her grip on the rifle was steady, but her heart beat louder than it had moments before.
It’s nothing, she told herself.
She’d spent enough time in these woods to know what they did to the mind. The longer one stayed, the more the forest began to whisper—half-memories, flickers of doubt, the echo of thoughts that weren’t quite your own. The Zaunite wilds had a reputation for it. Cursed roots. Air thick with spores. Places where reason thinned.
She steadied her breathing.
One more adjustment to the scope. One more careful twitch of the barrel. Her breath flowed out in a slow, practiced stream. She held it. Lined up the shot.
So… just not gonna take my advice then?
The voice again—clearer this time, and more amused than before.
Her head snapped up, faster this time, shoulders tensed like a pocket watch wound too tight.
Still nothing. The forest stared back at her with that same maddening stillness, trees leaning in as if they, too, were waiting. No one around. No movement. And yet the voice lingered in her skull like the aftertaste of something bitter.
She swallowed hard.
This wasn’t right.
Her mind raced—What did I miss? The job had been clear. A routine hunt. Her final test before full sanction. The target was supposed to be isolated, dormant, unaware. Come to this blighted stretch of Zaunite woods, confirm the signs, make the kill. In and out. Quick, clean, efficient.
Instead… a voice. No visible threat. No explanation.
Had she crossed some threshold she hadn’t noticed? Walked into a warded space? Missed a sigil in the trees? Her training had covered mental manipulation, but this didn’t feel like illusion. It felt intimate. Personal.
The pressure behind her ribs began to climb, cold and tight. Her fingers flexed on the rifle, restless.
It’s a trick, she told herself. It has to be. I missed something. I missed something.
A rustle to her left snapped her attention to the underbrush. She swung the rifle toward the sound, eyes narrowing into the dark—nothing visible, just the sway of leaves and the faint scrape of something against bark.
She turned back toward the stream.
The boulder was empty.
It was gone.
The water ran quiet as before, untouched.
She froze. Breath held. Pulse hammering behind her eyes.
You did this all wrong.
“Name’s Vi, by the way. How about y—”
She spun on instinct, muscles snapping into motion before thought could catch up. The rifle was already halfway up when she reversed her grip and drove the stock backward with the full force of her weight, slamming it square into the stomach of the figure standing far too close behind her.
It landed—solid, direct, exactly where it should’ve knocked the wind from anyone.
But Vi didn’t move.
Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even exhale.
She looked down at the polished stock pressed against her abdomen with faint curiosity, then lifted her eyes. One brow arched, the corner of her mouth twitching like she was struggling not to laugh.
The hunter’s breath caught from the sudden, sinking realization that something had gone very, very wrong.
Vi’s free hand moved faster than thought. In one seamless motion, she caught the rifle by the barrel, twisted it out of the hunter’s grip, and turned the weapon effortlessly. A heartbeat later, the butt of the stock slammed into the hunter’s midsection with bone-rattling force.
The impact knocked the breath from her lungs like a punch to the chest. Her vision stuttered. Her knees gave a little, boots slipping on wet earth. She staggered back, gasping, one hand braced against a nearby tree as her body fought to remember how to breathe.
As the woman doubled over, a strangled sound catching in her throat, Vi caught her easily—one arm slipping behind her back, the other bracing her shoulder. She guided her down with surprising gentleness, coaxing her to sit against the trunk of a nearby tree.
“Easy,” Vi said, voice low and steady. “You’re alright. That breathless thing? Happens. Won’t last long.”
The hunter’s fingers curled weakly in the dirt, boots scuffing the moss as her lungs struggled to catch up with the rest of her. Vi crouched beside her, one hand resting just above the woman’s knee, the other tapping once against the spot she’d struck.
“See, me,” she went on, with that same frustratingly casual tone, “don’t have that problem. Don’t need to breathe. Comes with the whole ‘undead’ thing.”
She leaned in slightly, close enough that the hunter could make out the faint glint of a fang when Vi grinned.
“So, y’know—points for effort and all, but maybe aim somewhere more… motivated. Or don’t they teach that in that fancy Kiramman Vampire Hunter school of yours?”
The hunter’s eyes widened.
Vi’s smile widened right back.
A ragged gasp tore from her throat as she finally managed a breath. Her chest hitched, lungs stuttering. She swallowed down the ache and forced her chin up just enough to meet Vi’s eyes, her voice barely more than a rasp.
“Fuck… you...”
Vi blinked, then laughed—low and amused, like she was watching a kitten try to bite through leather.
Her gaze flicked to the rifle, now lying just out of reach, half-buried in leaves. Then back to the woman slumped against the tree, cheeks flushed with pain and fury.
“Not convinced that’s what you came here to do, Kiramman.”
“You’re an abomination,” the woman spat, voice still hoarse but laced with venom. “A blight on this land.”
Vi’s expression flattened. Whatever glint of amusement had lingered in her eyes vanished.
She scoffed, loud and incredulous, and took a step back, raking a hand through her hair as she began pacing in the damp earth. The book was still in her hand, its spine cradled in her palm like she’d forgotten it was there.
“You’ve got some fuckin’ nerve,” she muttered, shaking her head. Her boots left shallow impressions in the moss as she stalked in a slow arc, then turned and gestured with the book. “I was sitting—sitting, mind you—minding my own business. On my land. Reading poetry, for fuck’s sake.”
She pointed now, sharp and accusatory, back at the tree where the woman still sat recovering, cheeks pale against the bark.
“And you—you come crashing in, rifle in hand, no hello, no name, not even a warning shot. Just boom. Straight to murder.”
Another scoff. She resumed pacing, steps quickening. “I get it, I do. ‘Vampires, bad,’ point the holy relics at the pale girl, whatever. But maybe—and this is just a wild fucking thought—you don’t try to assassinate someone before you figure out whether or not they’ve actually done something wrong.”
She stopped, pivoted, and looked the hunter up and down.
“Least you could’ve done was tell me your name before you tried to shoot me in the heart. Or is basic courtesy not part of the Kiramman curriculum anymo—”
The woman lunged forward in a blur of movement, pain forgotten, fingers closing around the rifle as she rolled into a crouch and brought it up in a single, practiced motion.
Vi didn’t flinch.
The book in her hand snapped up with fluid ease—just a fraction faster than the barrel. The round tore through the leather cover and exploded out the back, sending a confetti of charred paper and binding thread into the air. Vi staggered slightly with the impact, the remains of the book smoldering in her hand.
She stared at it for a beat, lips parted. A page flapped loose, fluttering to the ground beside her boot.
“That was a first edition,” she said, voice tight with disbelief.
Before the woman could adjust for a second shot, the rifle was ripped from her hands—Vi’s foot catching it mid-barrel and kicking it wide. The next moment was a blur. A rush of air, the scrape of bark, the world tilting sideways.
And then Vi was behind her.
Strong arms locked around her like iron bands—one pinning her wrists flat across her stomach, the other curling up and around, palm braced firm beneath her chin. Her breath caught again, not from impact this time, but the sudden, suffocating stillness of being restrained.
She could feel Vi’s lips against her ear, steady and infuriatingly calm.
“Alright,” Vi murmured. “Now we’re done playing.”
Vi’s easy demeanor felt almost calm behind her, but the tension in her grip told another story—tight, unyielding, simmering just beneath the surface. Her hand shifted beneath the hunter’s chin, fingers pressing gently but firmly as she tilted her head to the side, baring the pale column of her neck to the moonlight.
Fangs slid into view.
Not theatrical or monstrous, but quiet and sharp, her teeth drawn slowly like small blades.
The woman thrashed against her grip, teeth gritted, boots scraping for leverage in the earth. It didn’t matter. Vi held fast. The struggle might as well have been ornamental.
“Is this what you want?” Vi asked, her voice low, almost soft. “Is this who you think I am?”
The hunter snarled. “You’re not a who. You’re a thing. Vile. Rotten. A stain that needs to be cleansed from the world before it spreads further.”
The arm around the hunter’s waist drew tighter, the pressure blooming in warning. Vi leaned in, close enough that her lips brushed the curve of the hunter’s ear, her voice dropping to a guttural growl.
“You really think this is the life I wanted?”
Each word landed like a strike.
“That I chose this?”
The hunter tensed beneath her, still trying to fight, still trying to wriggle free, but there was no give in Vi’s grip.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” Vi snapped. “Didn’t ask to wake up starving and changed and alone. Didn’t ask for the nightmares. Didn’t ask to bury everyone I ever—” She cut herself off with a bitter laugh, then shook her head.
“All I fucking wanted,” she said, voice cracking now with something darker than anger, “was to sit by a stream and read my fucking book without some fucking Kiramman crawling out of the trees trying to fucking kill me.”
Vi shoved her forward, and the woman stumbled, knees hitting the ground hard as she caught herself against a twisted root. Her ribs ached from the restraint, her stomach from the blow. The cold of the forest floor seeped in through her coat.
Behind her, Vi stooped and picked up the discarded rifle. With clunky but effective movements she dismantled it—scope first, then bolt, then barrel—all coming apart in her hands like a child’s toy. Each piece was tossed with enough force to disappear into the underbrush, vanishing into the dark beneath ferns and thickets.
The woman watched, lips parted in silent fury, shoulders tight. She huffed through her nose, the sound more frustration than fear. “Fantastic.”
Vi glanced back, the corner of her mouth curling but not quite completing a smile. “Oh, don’t pout,” she said. “I’m sure a rich girl like you’s got a dozen more back home in her mansion.”
She turned her attention to what remained of the book, crouching to pick it up. Her fingers flipped through what pages still clung to the spine—most were torn, many charred or pierced clean through. Ink had bled into pulp. Words erased.
Vi huffed and tossed it to the ground in disgust.
The book landed with a wet thunk on the moss.
“Don’t come back,” she said as she walked away, boots crunching soft against the forest floor. “But if you do—”
She paused, just long enough to toss the last words over her shoulder.
“—you owe me a new book.”
Time passed.
Seasons turned over like cards, and the forest thickened with green, then gold, then grey, in an endless loop. Mist still clung low to the ground. The stream kept running.
And every few months, without fail, the hunter came back.
Always with a new rifle—sleek and polished, sometimes customized, sometimes straight from a noble armory. Always with the same grim determination in her eyes, like this time, this time, she’d be faster. Smarter. Colder.
It never worked.
It was almost mechanical now. Vi would be reading, or fishing, or stretched out in the moonlight with her boots crossed and a dog-eared book in hand. She’d disarm the hunter, break the rifle apart piece by piece, and scatter the parts like breadcrumbs the forest would greedily swallow. She never needed to try hard. Didn’t even break a sweat. She knew every trick the hunter had learned in the time between visits.
Once, the woman had tried a crossbow.
Vi had looked offended.
Each time ended the same way: the Kiramman woman knocked flat on her back or pinned to a tree, cursing through gritted teeth, cheeks flushed with shame and fury. Vi would tell her to go home. Sometimes she added a joke about noble schools needing better instructors. Sometimes she just rolled her eyes and walked away. And always, always, the hunter left empty-handed, teeth grinding in frustration, cursing a ghost that somehow kept seeing her coming.
And still, the hunter returned.
Like clockwork.
She crept through the undergrowth, each step muffled by damp moss and years of fallen pine needles. The forest had grown quieter over time—less sinister, somehow—but the ritual remained the same. Rifle strapped to her back, breath measured, gaze fixed ahead.
And there she was. Same place as always.
The vampire sat at the stream’s edge, half-shadowed by the curve of a weeping tree, legs crossed at the ankle, head tilted over the pages of a worn book. The mist curled around her like a veil. Moonlight glinted off her hair.
The hunter crouched, unslung her rifle, and began to line up her shot with practiced ease. She twisted the scope into place, and adjusted the sights.
You smell nice.
The voice unfurled in her skull with all the casual grace of someone leaning in far too close at a dinner party.
New soap?
She froze, one hand still on the barrel. Her eye twitched.
“Gods, you’re annoying,” she muttered, the words too low to carry—though that hardly mattered now. “Do you know how hard it is to kill someone who won’t shut up long enough to get shot?”
That hurts, Vi’s voice murmured in her head, laced with mock offense. I even brought a thicker book this time.
A pause.
You could just come sit, you know. Stream’s still nice. I’ll even scoot over.
The hunter huffed through her nose, equal parts exasperation and begrudging amusement.
The rifle drooped slightly in her hands.
Every visit was beginning to feel less like an ambush and more like… an appointment.
The hunter remained crouched a moment longer, the forest pressing close around her as if it was leaning in to hear her better. Her fingers tensed against the rifle’s grip, knuckles pale beneath her gloves. Everything in her training screamed that this was wrong—that she should retreat, regroup, wait for the next opportunity when her target wasn’t expecting her.
But she wasn’t sure there would be a moment when Vi wasn’t expecting her anymore.
With a quiet huff, she rose from her hiding place. The rifle hung low, angled toward the earth, barrel clear of her boots. The weapon was assembled, loaded, safety on. She wasn’t stupid.
Cautiously, she stepped into the clearing.
The mist shifted at her heels. Each footfall stirred a curl of silver-white from the ground, the air thick with the scent of damp moss and river stone. Her eyes stayed fixed on the woman perched on the boulder—legs crossed, spine straight, another dog-eared book open in her lap.
Vi didn’t move. Didn’t reach for a weapon, or vanish into smoke. Wholly unbothered, she simply turned another page in her book.
What if she’s just luring me into some trap to kill me?
Vi glanced up, the corner of her mouth tugging upward.
“Relax,” she said, tone dry but not unkind. “I’m not luring you into some trap so I can kill you.”
She held up the book in one hand, the other resting loosely on her knee.
“Well… I was luring you,” she added, “but mostly because I thought you might be in the mood for a sit.”
The hunter didn’t reply. Her grip on the rifle stayed firm. Her boots stopped just short of the stream’s edge.
This could still be a trick.
But gods help her, she was curious.
Vi followed the hunter’s silence with a slow blink, then tipped her head toward a small basket nestled in the grass beside her.
“You hungry?” she asked, tapping the lid with two fingers. “Brought extra this time.”
The hunter stiffened, gaze flicking from Vi’s face to the basket like it might also sprout fangs.
Vi raised her brows, then huffed out a short laugh. “Right. Of course.”
She lifted the cloth cover with a bit of a flourish, revealing a modest spread: thick slices of dried venison, a wedge of cheese, and half a rustic loaf torn unevenly at one end. The smell of thyme and smoked salt drifted up.
The hunter didn’t move.
Vi reached in, tore off a small piece of bread, pinched a chunk of cheese, and popped both into her mouth. She chewed slowly, savoring, brows arched as if daring the other woman to keep being difficult.
“Shee?” she said around a mouthful. “Nah poithened.”
The hunter didn’t look convinced.
Vi swallowed, then added with a shrug, “I mean, I could lie and say it is, if that’d make you feel better. Maybe that’s the new test at Kiramman school—eat the vampire’s charcuterie without dying.”
That earned her a glare, which she accepted with something that looked suspiciously like delight.
“It wouldn’t matter if it was poisoned,” the hunter snapped, her voice tight, jaw clenched. “You’re already dead.”
Vi chewed the last bite slowly, then swallowed and gave a shrug that made her coat shift at the shoulders.
“Fair point,” she said, not even slightly offended.
The hunter narrowed her eyes. “You’re… you’re eating human food.”
“For the love of Janna, you really didn’t pay attention in class, did you?” She reached for another hunk of bread, tore it, and popped it into her mouth. “What did they tell you—that we burst into flames if we taste garlic and choke on wine?”
The hunter said nothing, which was answer enough.
Vi released a haughty laugh. “We can eat regular food. Most of us just don’t bother. Doesn’t do much beyond tasting nice. And before you ask, no—it doesn’t replace anything. Still need blood.” She glanced down at the cheese in her hand. “But bread and cheese and a good salted meat? That’s comfort.”
Her eyes flicked up again, a little sharper now.
“You of all people should know the difference between what feeds you and what keeps you sane.”
The hunter’s fingers curled tighter around the rifle’s grip.
“Relax,” Vi said, licking a crumb from her thumb. “I ate earlier.”
That did the opposite of relax her.
The rifle came up in a flash, barrel leveled squarely at Vi’s chest. Her stance was textbook—shoulder firm, trigger finger poised. Eyes cold.
Vi didn’t so much as flinch.
Instead, she rolled her eyes with the weary air of someone who’d watched the same stage play one too many times.
“Gods, not this again.”
She leaned back on the boulder, stretching out her legs like they were simply discussing the weather, or trading gossip over tea. The remnants of the picnic sat undisturbed beside her, cheese half-eaten, crumbs caught in the weave of the cloth.
“Put it down, Kiramman,” she said, voice low and dry. “If I wanted you dead, you’d never have made it past the treeline.”
The hunter didn’t lower the rifle.
Vi shrugged. “I only feed off forest animals. Elk, mostly. Couple of fat raccoons. One very mouthy owl. No people. That’s the deal.”
She met the hunter’s gaze without flinching.
“Just kidding about the owl.”
“That’s barbaric,” the hunter snapped, eyes still fixed down the barrel.
Vi’s head tilted in annoyance
“Would you prefer I fed off people instead?” she asked, her voice laced with false curiosity. “Would that be less barbaric?”
The hunter’s grip didn’t waver, but her jaw tightened.
Vi pushed off the boulder, standing to her full height. She stood there, arms loose at her sides, the low mist curling around her boots.
“I’ve heard about those famous Kiramman galas,” she said, tone turning just a touch cooler. “All that roast pig and honey-glazed duck. Lamb basted in wine and rosemary. Half a dozen animals at every banquet—dead, dressed, served on silver platters.”
She took a step forward—not threatening, but heavy enough to make the ground crunch beneath her boot.
“I feed off animals,” she said. “I don’t kill them. I take what I need, and then I heal them. With my own blood.”
Another step.
“I give back.”
Her eyes flashed fiercely, but not with hunger or malice.
“You’ve killed more living things than I ever have. So don’t stand there, wrapped in embroidered leather and righteousness, and call me the barbarian.”
The hunter’s finger twitched on the trigger.
But for the first time, she held her shot.
Vi watched her with the wariness of someone eyeing a cornered animal—ready to step back, but not quite ready to give up.
“If we’re done with all the bullshit,” she said, brushing crumbs from her coat, “I’d like to sit and talk for once. Not dodge bullets. Not wrestle in the dirt. Just… talk. Please.”
The hunter didn’t answer. Her hands stayed tight on the rifle, heart hammering hard against her ribs.
It’s a trap, her own voice barked in her head. Of course it’s a trap. This is what they do: get in your head, lull you into something soft, and then they strike. Or worse—they turn you. They make you like them.
But that wasn’t the only voice.
Another rose to challenge it, quieter but no less firm.
She’s had dozens of chances. Dozens. She could’ve ripped your throat out the first time. Or the second. Or the fifth. She never has. Hell, now she’s bringing snacks.
The rifle lowered by inches.
At the very least, the voice reasoned, you could do something no other Kiramman ever has. You could listen. You could learn.
With the release of a pent up breath, the hunter stepped closer to the boulder. She didn’t take her eyes off Vi as she crouched beside the basket and tore off a hunk of bread and cheese, her fingers trembling only slightly as she sat down on a nearby stump.
Vi didn’t say anything. Just watched with one brow lifted in quiet triumph.
The hunter took a bite of the bread.
Then the cheese.
The crust was golden and still faintly warm. The cheese was sharp, creamy, laced with something herbal—tarragon, maybe. She took another bite before she could stop herself.
Her stomach sank with betrayal.
“Gods damn it,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s delicious.”
Vi shifted her weight, boots scuffing gently at the moss, and glanced sidelong at the woman on the stump. Her voice, when she spoke, had softened just enough to feel out of place in the clearing.
“So…” she asked, cautious in a way she rarely was, “you like it?”
The hunter didn’t look up, chewing slowly like she was trying to find a way to say no that wasn’t an outright lie. But after a pause, she sighed and gave a curt nod.
“It’s quite good,” she admitted, the words landing lifelessly.
Vi lit up, subtle but unmistakable. That small flicker of pride that bloomed in her eyes wasn’t smug—it was warm, almost human.
“I baked the bread myself,” she said, brushing a hand over the leg of her trousers like the compliment had unsettled her more than the rifle. “Used to be terrible at it. Kept forgetting the proofing time. Took years to get it right.”
The hunter blinked.
“You’ve spent years perfecting… bread?”
Vi snorted, plucking a sliver of cheese for herself. “Well, yeah. And that cheese you’re eating? Been aging that wheel for almost a decade. I’ve got a little cellar tucked into a stone shelf back in the western hollow. Cool, dry. Ideal conditions.”
The hunter stared at her. “You’re saying you have hobbies as a baker and cheesemonger… spending your time perfecting recipes for food you can’t even live off of?”
Vi shrugged, biting a chunk from the bread in her hand.
“I’ve got all the time in the world now,” she said, not quite meeting the hunter’s eyes. “Figured wasting it on getting a recipe right was better than wasting it on… everything else.” She chewed for a moment, then swallowed. “I like it. It’s quiet. Predictable. Bread never tries to shoot me in the woods.”
The hunter didn’t respond right away.
Instead, she watched Vi—really watched her—as the vampire sat cross-legged on the mossy boulder, delicately plucking another sliver of cheese like it was part of some sacred ritual instead of simply a late dinner. The way she spoke about bread and cellars and proofing made her sound more like a hermit or a homesteader than something that fed on blood. Something dead.
It was… disarming.
Why would something like her care about baking?
The hunter opened her mouth to ask, then glanced down at the crust still warm in her hand and realized she had a better question.
“How did you know I’d be here tonight?” she asked, keeping her tone level, eyes narrowing just slightly. “To have all this ready?”
Vi didn’t answer right away. She dabbed a crumb from her lip, set the cheese back down, then leaned back on her hands, looking up through the canopy as though checking the sky confirmed her theory.
“You usually come about halfway between a waxing or waning moon,” she said.
The hunter blinked.
Vi tilted her head. “Not exact, but close. Always at night, of course. Always when there’s just enough darkness to hide in, but just enough light to line up a clean shot.”
A faint smirk curved her lips.
“Seemed like tonight fit your pattern.”
The hunter looked away quickly, suddenly uncomfortable at the idea of being studied—tracked, even—by the very creature she’d spent years training to hunt.
Vi leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, fingers laced loosely in front of her. Her voice was quieter now, less flippant, less needling.
“You know,” she said, “aside from the whole trying-to-shoot-me-in-the-heart bit… I actually kind of like when you visit.”
The hunter’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t look up. She focused instead on a stubborn patch of crust she was picking from the bread with her thumb.
Vi watched her for a moment longer, then continued.
“You’re the only human who doesn’t bolt the second they see me. No screaming or begging for your life. I could do without you pointing one of your stupid rifles at me, but, you know… baby steps.”
She smiled, but it couldn’t quite reach her eyes. A sadness softened the edges of her voice as it quieted.
“Pretty sure it’s easy for you to forget, but I used to be human too, you know.”
The hunter stilled.
Vi’s gaze drifted to the stream, to the water slipping silver over stone. “Didn’t ask for this. Didn’t choose it. Woke up alone after I was turned in a place I didn’t recognize with a thirst that wouldn’t stop and a body that didn’t breathe. And every person I tried to explain it to—every friend, every family member, every neighbor—I watched them run. Or scream. Or die.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t look away.
“They’re all gone now,” she said, quieter still. “And I’m still here.”
The hunter shook off the burning sensation prickling behind her eyes.
Vi sat in a companionable silence a moment longer before adding, almost to herself, “So yeah. I guess even a rifle in my face beats being forgotten.”
They spoke for a while longer, the silence between sentences growing less hostile, more contemplative. The hunter remained on the stump, still holding her rifle, but it rested loosely against her leg now. Vi remained on the boulder, her posture casual, but there was a rawness beneath the ease—a bittersweet note tainted by memory.
“I was turned by a vampire named Silco,” Vi said at last, the name spat more than spoken. “Didn’t have much choice. He gave me two options—turn, or watch my sister die.”
The hunter looked up at that, startled not by the words, but by the way Vi said sister—with reverence, with grief. Like cherishing a blade that’d been shoved into her side.
“I chose to turn,” Vi went on. “And in return, he let her go.”
“She lived. Had a real life. Or at least… something close to one. I stayed away. Kept my distance. But I know she got a few good years.” Vi’s voice caught, just slightly. “I watched from far enough off that she never saw me.”
Vi’s hands curled over her knees. “Didn’t matter in the end. She died anyway. Not from old age, or illness. Just… life, you know? Little wounds that add up until a body gives out. And in the end, I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t even say goodbye.”
Something shifted in the hunter’s chest, subtle and unwelcome. She didn’t let herself feel for creatures like this—was trained not to. But Vi’s grief didn’t feel performative. It wasn’t even dramatic. It was quiet. Lived-in. Real. And for a moment, it struck her that maybe this wasn’t a monster pretending to be a person.
Maybe it was a person trapped in a monster’s shape.
She wanted to ask more, to pry and dig, but something from before was tugging at her insides. A ghost she’d seen mentioned before.
“Silco… I’ve heard that name.”
Vi’s eyes flicked to her. “Yeah?”
“He runs a chem ring out near the lower ridges. Sells a purple serum blended with vampire blood. It allegedly gives the user temporary speed. Strength. Makes them feel immortal.”
Vi’s face darkened, a dangerous flare of anger flickering behind her eyes.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s him.”
The hunter watched her a moment longer. “You hate him.”
“Hate doesn’t cover it,” Vi said. “He makes monsters out of desperate people. Hooks them on blood like it’s wine. I’ve seen what that shit does to them—sick, twisted half-things that don’t know if they’re alive or dead.”
She leaned back, her voice low and bitter. “We already lose enough when we’re turned. He takes what’s left and sells it.”
The hunter nodded, slowly.
And, for the first time, didn’t look at Vi like a thing.
Vi watched her in silence for a time, the moon still pooling silver between the trees.
She tilted her head, her face carrying a tired curiosity.
“So,” she said, voice even, “why do you keep coming back here? I’d love to know what difference killing me would make.”
The hunter didn’t answer right away.
She looked down at her hands instead—scarred knuckles, calloused palms. Her grip on the rifle tightened slightly, then eased again.
Because you’re dangerous, she told herself. Because monsters don’t change. Because it’s what a Kiramman is trained to do—cleanse, protect, destroy what can’t be redeemed.
But even as the thoughts surfaced, they rang hollow. Like echoes of a doctrine she’d memorized instead of believed.
Vi had done nothing but spare her, over and over. Talked to her. Baked for her. Sat beside a stream and read poetry while the hunter waited in the shadows, pretending this was still a war.
She swallowed.
“I thought I knew,” she said at last, her voice low and uncertain. “But now… I’m not quite sure.”
It was the closest thing to honesty she’d allowed in years.
Vi didn’t gloat in victory, only nodded, like that answer made more sense than any other could’ve.
The quiet lingered for a long moment after the hunter’s answer. The forest pressed close around them again, the mist thickening at their ankles like it, too, was holding its breath.
“You wanna hunt a real monster? Cleanse something rotten from this world?”
The hunter looked over, brows drawn. “What do you mean?”
Vi’s gaze stayed steady. “I mean… what would a Kiramman vampire hunter do—hypothetically, of course—if she found out there was a vampire-run shimmer facility hidden in the ruins of Goldweald?”
The hunter’s posture stiffened. She opened her mouth, but Vi held up a hand.
“Just a theory,” she said, voice smooth. “Let’s say these vampires are old. Dangerous. And clever enough to make shimmer with blood so potent it burns through a human’s veins like wildfire.”
She paused, eyes narrowing slightly.
“And according to someone who’s… let’s say been tracking the patterns—those same vampires are planning to hit Amberfel on the next new moon. Not just for blood. For expansion. They want more bodies, more control, more shimmer. And once they have Amberfel, the rest of the valley won’t be far behind.”
The hunter was frozen, the rifle forgotten in her lap.
Vi leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, voice just above a whisper now.
“What does our hypothetical Kiramman do then?” she asked. “Does she keep chasing one vampire who hasn’t hurt anyone?”
Her eyes didn’t waver.
“Or does she go after the ones who actually deserve to die?”
The hunter sat stiffly, back ramrod straight on the moss-slick stump, her eyes locked on Vi but her thoughts spiraling in every direction.
Why is she telling me this? Why betray her own kind? What’s the trap here? What’s the angle?
She narrowed her eyes, voice cold with suspicion. “How do I know this isn’t some elaborate trick? That you’re not feeding me lies to send me chasing ghosts while you plan something else?”
Vi didn’t seem offended. She just shrugged, slow and unconcerned, like the question was expected.
“You don’t,” she said plainly. “You won’t. Not until the day after the new moon, when you either find a massacre in Amberfel. Or you don’t.”
She shifted slightly, resting her chin on her fist.
“But that’s the choice, isn’t it? You can spend the next week planning to shoot me again, or you can figure out what kind of person you want to be. What kind of hunter.”
The fire had faded from her voice, but not the clarity. There was no performance here. No manipulation.
It was terrifying how genuine she seemed.
The hunter stared at her for a long beat. Then asked, quieter, “Why would you betray him? The vampire who turned you?”
Vi’s smile was faint and humorless.
“Because fuck him, that’s why.” She leaned back, voice dry. “Silco didn’t turn me to save my sister. He turned me to own me. Thought I’d spend eternity doing his dirty work. Thought I’d rot myself into a monster, just like him.”
Her eyes met the hunter’s again.
“He doesn’t get to have me. Not then, not now.”
And for once, the hunter had no argument ready. The words broke something in her chest, shifting the balance of her thoughts. The suspicion didn’t vanish, but it cracked, just enough to let something terrifying in.
What if she’s telling the truth?
Her body moved before her mind caught up. She stood fast enough that the bread and cheese tumbled from her lap, forgotten in the grass. Her boots scraped a muddy gash into the moss, but she barely noticed.
I have only a week. At most.
Her pulse roared in her ears. Her thoughts tripped over each other—how to get word to the wardens, who she could trust, who’d laugh her out of the war room when she said she got intel from a godsdamned vampire. But if even half of what Vi said was true—
She dropped to one knee beside her rifle case, hands moving fast, shoving the broken-down weapon into its padded slots with shaking fingers.
“I have to go,” she muttered, more to herself than to Vi. “I have to warn them. I have to move now if there’s any chance of organizing a strike—evacuate Amberfel, fortify the watchtowers—gods, they’ll never believe me—”
She yanked the buckles closed, slinging the case over her shoulder in one practiced, breathless motion.
There was no more time for questions. Only action.
She turned, one boot already in motion—then stopped.
Her eyes met Vi’s across the clearing, breath still ragged from the rush of urgency, of fear, of purpose. But something in her steadied, just for a second.
“Thank you,” she said earnestly, for once.
Vi blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in tone.
The hunter reached into the pouch strapped at her hip and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. Its edges were worn but lovingly cared for, binding tight, corners just gently curled with age. Without ceremony, she tossed it underhand across the clearing.
Vi caught it easily.
She looked down, fingers brushing over the cover. She turned her gaze back to the hunter, lips parting—but before she could speak, the woman gave a single wink.
“Hope you like it,” she said, already backing toward the trees. “It’s a first edition.”
Then she turned and ran, vanishing into the dark like a shadow swallowed by mist.
Their rhythm changed.
Seasons shifted again—spring folding into summer, the stream swelling and receding with rain, the scent of pine giving way to damp leaves and frost—and the visits continued, more frequent now
Every month or so, like clockwork, the hunter returned.
Not with a rifle raised. Not anymore.
Sometimes Vi had information—whispers of movement in vampire circles, new blood trade routes, names that needed to disappear quietly. But other times, they spoke of simpler things. Of books. Of favorite meals and lost cities. Of what the stars used to look like before the sky was choked by smoke near the old capitals. Of who they were, and what they’d been before everything changed.
The hunter found herself looking forward to those nights more than she ever admitted. She couldn’t tell anyone, of course. No one would understand—not her commander, not her betrothed, not the other hunters who still trained under the old creed. Vampires were evil. Irredeemable. A disease to be purged.
And yet… Vi was funny. Sharp. Kind in small, disarming ways. She always brought something—herbed cheese, a hand-cured sausage, jam sealed in wax, still warm bread when she could risk the fire to bake. The hunter always brought a book in return, tucked into the folds of her coat. Rare ones from her estate. First editions. Once, even a journal with empty pages and a new fountain pen, though she pretended it was a mistake when Vi raised a brow.
Sometimes the hunter arrived first, waiting on the mossy boulder by the stream. Other times, Vi was already there, leaned back against the tree trunk with her boots crossed, watching the stars through the shifting mist.
They would talk until the horizon paled—quietly, urgently, as if every word might be their last. Vi always left before the sun could break through the trees, slipping away with one last glance, coat flaring behind her.
It got harder each time.
Harder to say goodbye. Harder to pretend the ache in her chest was anything other than a quiet, lingering affection. They didn’t speak of it, not directly. But the silence that followed each farewell said enough.
Vi sat on the same old boulder, boots planted in the soft earth, her coat pulled tight against the cold even though she didn’t need to.
The stream murmured nearby—closer than it used to be.
She remembered a time, decades ago, when it had flowed twenty feet to the left, winding its way between a pair of trees that were now fallen and rotting. Back then, the water had been faster, the banks wider. She used to sit beneath the trees when she was still new to all of this, when she could barely stand the quiet.
Now, the quiet was the only thing that ever stayed.
She rested her elbows on her knees and stared down at the silver ribbon of water as it slipped by, slow and tireless. The earth here was soft. Eroding. The stream had shifted inch by inch each season, and one day—not soon, but inevitably—it would run directly against the stone beneath her. And after enough years, enough centuries, it would wear this boulder down to pebbles. Then silt. Then nothing.
And she’d still be here. Watching.
Still alive. Or something close enough to it that it made no difference.
The world would keep growing and dying in circles—empires collapsing, forests burning and regrowing, cities rising over their own bones—and she’d be the same. Unmoved. Unchanged.
Vi closed her eyes for a moment, chin dipping. It was a heavy kind of thought, but not new. Just heavier tonight, with the moon full and no sound in the trees but the wind.
She didn’t sigh. She hadn’t needed to breathe for years.
But she wished she could.
Vi shifted on the boulder, eyes scanning the tree-line for the third (or maybe fourth) time that hour. The moon was high, the mist low, and the usual hush of the forest pressed in like a closing hand.
She should be here by now.
Vi tried not to let it bother her. Hunters were unpredictable. Maybe she’d been delayed. Maybe she’d finally decided not to come. Maybe—
A breeze rolled in, cool and sharp with damp earth and pine.
Vi stilled.
Her head snapped toward the east, nostrils flaring as something familiar—someone familiar—threaded through the wind. The hunter’s scent was there, subtle but distinct. Worn leather, salt, a touch of wildflowers from whatever soap she’d stubbornly insisted wasn’t floral. But beneath it—
Blood.
And something else. Musk. Wet fur. Snarling breath.
Vi was moving before she finished the thought, boots cutting fast and silent over the underbrush, her coat falling to the ground behind her like a shadow torn loose.
She darted through the trees, following the scent trail through twisted roots and broken branches, until the sounds met her ears—snarls, growls, the unmistakable clash of claws against cloth.
In a clearing up ahead, the hunter stood with her back to a tree, rifle braced in one hand, blade in the other. A pack of wolves circled her—four of them, gaunt and desperate, eyes glassy with the shimmer-sick madness that told Vi they weren’t natural. They were tainted.
Vi surged forward like a blade drawn from the dark, grabbing the nearest wolf by the scruff and hurling it into a tree with a crack of bone. The others turned—too slow. One lunged; she caught it midair, drove her fist through its throat, and let it fall limp at her feet. Another tried to flee, but she was faster, already on it, already ending it.
When the last body hit the ground, the clearing fell silent.
Vi turned.
The hunter stood frozen, blood streaked down one arm, blade still clutched in her fist. Her breathing was ragged, but her eyes—those beautiful cerulean eyes—were tightened with pain and frustration.
Vi crossed the space between them in three strides.
The hunter’s sleeve was torn, soaked through with blood. The scent hit Vi all over again—fresh, bright, copper-strong.
She frowned, voice tight. “You’re hurt.”
Vi crouched beside her, gaze fixed on the gash winding down the hunter’s arm. Blood trickled in slow rivulets, catching what little light the moon managed to pour through the canopy. The scent was almost overpowering—hot, metallic, alive. It walloped her like a bell struck too hard, reverberating through ribs and spine, rattling her skull. Her mouth parted before she could stop it. Fangs slipped free, a reflex as old as the hunger itself.
The forest tilted, if only for a moment. She saw nothing but the red of it, smelled nothing but salt and heat and the fragile pulse just beneath skin. Her muscles coiled without her consent. She could feel her balance shift forward.
No.
She clamped her jaw tight, hands curling into fists at her sides, grounding herself in the dirt beneath her boots. Her eyes closed. She didn’t look yet, didn’t dare. It took effort to step backward, to remind herself who she was now—what she was—and who this woman was to her.
When she opened her eyes again, the hunter had moved too. One step back, shoulders drawn taut. Her gaze locked on Vi’s mouth. Not her face. Her mouth.
Vi raised her hands slowly, like she was calming a frightened horse. “You’re alright,” she said. “It’s done. I’ve got it under control.”
Silence stretched. Her heart hadn’t stopped racing. Vi could hear every beat of it from steps away.
She lowered her arms, lifted her wrist to her lips, and bit. Her teeth sank in clean and deep. Blood welled up, thick and slow. She held it over the gash, letting the drops fall in careful intervals.
They sizzled faintly as they hit skin. The wound puckered, then closed, new tissue forming in its place with quiet insistence. The scent of blood changed—dulled, sealed, safe.
The hunter looked down at her arm, then up at Vi, confusion flickering in the set of her brow. “Thank you.”
Vi almost smiled. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve done wors—”
She stopped, words caught like a snare around her throat. Her posture stiffened, chin tilting faintly to one side.
She was listening.
Not to the wind. Not to movement.
To the steady rhythm of the hunter’s pulse—rich and full, as distinct as a drumbeat in an empty room. It filled the air like a scent, like warmth in winter. Not just life, but her life.
Vi’s eyes remained fixed—on the hunter, and then beyond her.
That sound again.
It wasn’t the hunter’s heartbeat. She could still hear that—steady, strong, grounding—but beneath it pulsed something smaller. Faster. Barely there, like the flutter of wings in a closed hand.
Vi straightened slowly, drawing back her bloodied wrist and letting the sleeve fall over it. Her expression was stoic, her body rigid, alert in the way a soldier goes still just before being ordered to stand down.
“Do you remember that gnarled tree stump near the eastern border of the forest? The one with the roots shaped like a spiral?”
The hunter blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Yes,” she said. “I remember.”
Vi nodded once. No more than that.
“If I ever have something for you—intel, a warning, anything—I’ll leave it there. Wrapped and sealed. You’ll know it’s from me.”
She paused. Her eyes found the hunter’s again, and this time there was no trace of warmth left in it.
“Don't ever come back here.”
The hunter’s mouth parted, but no words came.
“This place, these meetings… they’re done.”
She stepped back, and the clearing seemed to recoil with her. The stream still ran, the trees still stood, but something essential had shifted, like a thread had snapped between them, pulled too tight for too long.
The hunter stepped forward, jaw set, defiance in every line of her posture.
“No,” she said, her voice low and firm. “You don’t get to choose where I do and don’t go.”
Vi stopped mid-step.
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. She turned back slowly, face shadowed in the half-light of the clearing. Whatever flicker of fondness had lived behind her eyes in the moments before was gone—buried under something colder, older.
“You think this is a game?” Her voice cracked like thunder between the trees. “You think you can just wander in and out of this place, like there aren’t things watching? Listening? Like I don’t know what I’m hearing inside you?”
The hunter flinched, confused, but didn’t retreat.
Vi stalked forward, closing the distance between them in an instant. She reached for the rifle slung at the hunter’s shoulder. The woman’s hand darted to it, but Vi was faster—she always was. She wrenched it free with a sharp jerk.
The hunter opened her mouth to protest.
Vi grabbed the barrel with both hands, and without so much as a grunt of effort, bent it—steel warping with a high-pitched groan as the muzzle twisted into a useless curve.
She held it between them like an accusation, letting the ruined weapon speak for her.
“You walk into cursed woods to meet a vampire,” she snarled, “you fight shimmer-mad wolves, you bleed in front of me, and now you want to argue with me? Like this is just another hunt for you? Like you understand anything about what’s coming?”
Vi dropped the ruined rifle at her feet. It landed with a dull thud in the moss.
“You’re selfish,” Vi hissed, voice splintered with something jagged—fury, fear, something darker in between. “You think this forest owes you its secrets, that I owe you anything, just because you keep coming back with a book and a smile and another godsdamned rifle like that makes it fair.”
She stepped closer, her presence suddenly suffocating, the edges of her shirt catching in the breeze like wings about to unfurl.
“You don’t belong here,” she growled, each word striking like iron. “This place is poison, and the next thing that finds you won’t be me. So you’re going to leave, and you’re going to stay gone.”
The hunter opened her mouth to respond, but it was buried in a breath instead. She moved slowly, cautiously, one hand lifting between them, not to strike but to touch, to rest her hand against Vi’s cheek, to see her, to ask what words couldn’t seem to shape.
She never made it that far.
Vi’s fingers snapped around her wrist like a vice. Her eyes flared, pupils blown wide, the shimmer of moonlight catching on the bared points of her fangs.
“Don’t,” she growled, the word dragged from somewhere deeper than her throat. “Don’t touch me.”
The hunter froze.
Vi didn’t let go.
“Get the fuck away from me,” she hissed, voice trembling with a fury too wild to cage. “And don’t you ever put yourself in danger like this again. Not for me. Not for anything.”
The forest held its breath around them.
Rain had begun to fall in quiet sheets, soft at first, then steadier—each drop carving its own path down the bark of the trees, darkening moss and stone. It dappled the hunter’s coat, clung to her lashes, caught in her breath as she stood there, chest rising and falling too fast for someone trying to appear calm.
She looked toward the trees where Vi had started to vanish, her voice quiet, but cutting through the hush like an arrow loosed too late.
“I thought we were friends.”
Vi stopped mid-stride.
For a moment, she didn’t turn—just stood there in the rain, shoulders rising, then falling, hands clenched at her sides. When she faced the hunter again, her expression had fractured. Rain traced the sharp line of her cheek, catching on the trembling corner of her mouth. Her eyes shimmered, and not from the water.
“You thought wrong,” Vi said, voice cracking around the edges. “You think a few books and moonlit talks make this something real? You think that undoes what I am?”
Her hands lifted, then fell uselessly.
“I’m dead,” she said. “You’re not. Oil and water. We’ll never mix. And I’m a fool for thinking—” She caught herself, jaw tight.
“You never should’ve come back,” she muttered, not looking over her shoulder. “And I never should’ve let you stay.”
Then she was gone, swallowed by the trees, the sound of her steps drowned beneath the rain.
Years folded over each other like pages in a forgotten book, the edges curled and yellowing with time.
The forest changed slowly at first, then all at once. The stream shifted course twice—once during a flood that uprooted the old willow near the clearing, and again in a drought that bared the bones of river stones Vi remembered stepping over in her youth. Trees she’d once leaned against with a book in hand now stood hollowed, bark rotted through, their trunks collapsing in slow, moss-covered deaths. She buried a fox once. Watched its kits grow wary of her, then vanish. Even the birds forgot her name.
The world moved on with casual cruelty. Villages grew into towns, some crumbling into relics. Hunters stopped passing through the Zaunite forest. Maps redrew themselves without her. No one came looking. No one remembered to.
And still, Vi remained.
She kept to the shadows, to the hours without sun, listening to time pass through frost and rain and thaw. The stream’s voice changed with the seasons, but never spoke to her. She’d stopped talking aloud years ago—what was the point, when the trees only listened out of obligation?
She built no shelter. She laid no roots. Her belongings were scattered caches, stashed in stones and hollowed trunks. The only thing she collected anymore was silence. The weight of it filled her chest like a second heart.
She had once measured her life in conversations. Now, she measured it in the curve of the moon, in the way mist moved across a clearing. The rhythm of leaf-fall. The first bloom of ghostcap mushrooms. How long it took a tree to forget the shape of her leaning.
Twenty years passed, and she did not age. Her reflection stayed the same, though she stopped seeking it long ago. The world softened and withered and reinvented itself a thousand times.
She didn’t. She couldn’t.
That was the curse—not the thirst, not the blood.
The curse was stillness.
Even in her self-imposed silence, Vi hadn’t entirely severed herself from the world.
She still left messages. Tucked them into wax-sealed envelopes and pressed them into the hollow of the gnarled tree stump near the forest’s edge—the one with roots that spiraled like a curled hand reaching from the earth. Each letter precise, efficient, impersonal. Coordinates. Numbers. Names. A warning scratched in ink. A map marked in blood.
And more than once, on those moonless nights when the wind pushed the branches low and the forest held its breath, she’d come to deliver a message only to find the hunter already there.
Always in the same place, seated on the lip of the stump, rifle propped beside her, boots muddy from travel. She never called out, but she waited.
Vi would stay in the trees, perfectly still, high above or deep within the brush. Watching. Always watching. She told herself it was caution.
But it wasn’t.
It was fear.
Because every time she saw her, the hunter looked a little older.
First it was the way she moved—just a touch slower, just a little stiffer after sitting too long. Then it was the eye patch. A jagged scar slicing above and below her left eye, the skin pinked and pulled tight at the edge of the band. Vi had wanted to ask what happened. Wanted to know. But she never stepped forward.
Later came the hair—once long and wild and tied back in that loose knot that always came undone when she laughed. Now it was short. Cropped neat. Gray streaking through the indigo in bold, defiant swathes that caught the moonlight.
Vi felt time like a knife whenever she saw her.
And every time the hunter left, she left a book behind.
Sometimes it was a slim volume of poems. Sometimes a novel with dog-eared corners and margin notes in a hand Vi would come to learn better than her own. Once, it had been a worn journal filled with maps and sketches—drawings of shimmer plants, notes on nest behavior, musings about the sky.
Vi never took them right away. She’d wait. Wait until the scent of the hunter was long faded, until she was sure she wouldn’t turn around and find her there again, waiting for something Vi couldn’t give.
Only then would she step into the clearing, kneel by the stump, and take the book in both hands.
She always read them.
And she always put them back.
The rain had passed hours ago, but the trees still wept quietly, dropping beads of water from their leaves like tears they didn’t want to admit shedding. Vi sat on the old boulder, knees drawn up, arms looped around them, watching the stream churn quietly over stones that had once been dry land. Her coat clung damp to her shoulders, more for habit than comfort.
Then she caught it—subtle, but unmistakable. A scent carried on the breeze. Worn leather. Powder smoke. Rosemary soap.
Her chest tightened before her thoughts could catch up. She closed her eyes and reached out along that familiar thread buried deep behind her ribs, whispering without words:
You’re a long way from home.
The response came quicker than she expected. Stronger.
Just visiting an old friend, the voice replied, softer now, but warm in a way that made something in Vi’s throat ache. If she’d like company.
Vi opened her eyes, the forest suddenly less hollow, less still. Her fingers curled against the stone beneath her, grounding herself in the moment as if she’d imagined it, and the nightdream might slip away.
She would, Vi answered.
The mist had settled low over the clearing, softening the edges of the stream and making the moonlight smear across the water like spilled milk. From her perch on the boulder, Vi didn’t turn when she heard the footsteps.
The scent was close now. Familiar in a way that threaded its way beneath her skin like veins.
Boots slipped against wet leaves. Then the hunter stepped out from the treeline, framed by moonlight and shadow, older than before and still unmistakable. The patch over her left eye was held in place with a leather band, the scar that curved above and below it half-caught in the light. Her hair was cropped close now, silver bleeding through the indigo in streaks that made Vi think of cold fire.
She didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there for a moment, as if unsure whether the spell would break if she moved.
Vi finally spoke, voice quiet but wry. “No rifle this time?”
The hunter smiled—just a small one—and tapped the handle of a short shotgun strapped across her back.
“Had to make a few adjustments,” she said. “It’s hard to be a sniper with one eye. So I stopped being such a long-range type of girl.”
Vi let out something close to a laugh. It caught in her throat but didn’t vanish entirely.
She watched her for a long moment. The woman standing just beyond the reach of the boulder wasn’t the same sharp-edged hunter who once leveled a rifle at her chest with trembling hands and steel in her voice. Time had etched its signature—soft creases at the corners of her one good eye, faint lines across her brow, silver woven through cropped strands of deep blue. Even the way she stood now was different. Measured. Still fierce, but no longer needing to prove it.
“I’d offer food,” Vi said, voice quieter now, a shade more tentative. “But I wasn’t expecting company tonight.”
The hunter tilted her head, expression unreadable in the half-light. “May I sit with you?”
Vi swallowed back a pain in her throat, then patted the stone beside her. The same place the rain always smoothed first. The spot she’d never let herself hope someone would take.
The hunter approached and sat, her movements careful, honoring the weight of a moment like this.
Vi turned to look at her. Really look at her.
The silver in her hair caught the moonlight, a quiet kind of glow. Her profile was marked by time, yes, but never diminished by it. Vi could still see her—the stubborn mouth, the narrowed eye when she was thinking too hard, the sharp wit that had always come a moment after the softest gesture. All of it was still there, just weathered and worn in now.
“Still you,” Vi murmured.
The hunter leaned back, bracing one hand on the cool stone behind her, her eye tracing the lazy movement of the stream as it curved beneath the hanging limbs. Rain still clung to the leaves overhead, every now and then falling in soft drops that plinked into the water below. She turned to Vi with a small laugh, warm and edged with fondness.
“You look like you haven’t aged a day.”
Vi glanced over, her smile quiet but sure.
“You’ve aged beautifully.”
That earned a soft snort from the hunter, but she didn’t look away. For a long breath, they just sat like that—watching each other, weathered and unchanged in the same breath.
Then Vi nudged her gently with a shoulder. “Come on. Catch me up.”
The hunter raised a brow.
“Not the shimmer raids,” Vi said. “Not the nest clearing or the border patrols or all the ways you kept the valley from turning to rot.”
She turned, her gaze steadier now. “I want to hear about your life. The part you built when you weren’t trying to save the world.”
The hunter was quiet for a while. The kind of silence that gathered meaning as it stretched.
A nervous smile curled at the edge of her mouth. “I’m sure it won’t be the grandest tale you’ve heard.”
Vi shook her head. “Doesn’t have to be.”
And the hunter began to speak, voice steady. Measured like someone pouring from a cup they hadn’t touched in years. Not as a soldier, not as a Kiramman, not as someone tasked with holding the line between life and death—but as a person. A friend. As someone who had lived, grown, grieved, and carved out joy where she could find it.
And Vi listened, each word a gift she’d waited decades to receive.
She told Vi about life at the Kiramman estate. How the halls had grown quieter as time moved on, the old training yards repurposed, the library restored with more care than she’d once thought to give it. There was a greenhouse now, too, built on the bones of what used to be a barracks—her idea, oddly enough.
Then, after a long pause, she told Vi about the child.
She hadn’t known she was carrying, not at first. The signs were subtle, masked by the stress of travel, the long weeks in the field. It hadn’t been planned, and for a while she hadn’t even known what to feel—grief, hope, terror. Maybe all of it. But in the end, the child had arrived in early winter, healthy and strong. Vi listened without interrupting, the words landing like rain on stone—soft, but persistent.
“I wanted to tell you,” the hunter said, her thumb brushing over the edge of her glove. “There were so many things I wanted to share. Books you would’ve liked. A song I heard in Amberfel—I thought of you when I heard it. Even a stew I had once, spiced with black garlic and honeyed fennel. I thought… maybe I’d bring you some. One day.”
She looked at her hands. “But you weren’t there.”
Vi stayed quiet for a moment, her gaze distant, locked on the curl of water eddying around the base of the boulder.
“My parents died when I was young,” she said. “Just me and my sister after that. We lost everything. Fell through every crack until there was no light left to fall toward.”
She blinked, once, slow.
“You almost died the last time you came here. I couldn’t put another child through that. Not by choice. Not because of me.”
The hunter turned, the ache plain on her face, but Vi was already looking at her again.
“And I’m sorry,” Vi added. “For how I left it last time. For the things I said. I was… scared. For you. For what I’d heard growing inside you.”
The hunter gave a slow nod. “I know.”
The moonlight caught in the lines of her face, in the streaks of silver at her temples.
“I was scared too.”
Vi reached into the inside pocket of her vest and withdrew a small, folding knife, blade sharp but worn at the edges, the kind that had clearly seen decades of use. From the other side, she pulled a single apple—deep red, polished from habit more than necessity. She turned it once in her hand, then pressed the blade in near the stem.
The skin gave way with a crisp sound, and Vi carved a clean slice, turning the fruit slowly in her palm. She handed the piece to the hunter without a word.
The hunter took it. Their fingers brushed, brief and unintentional. There was no need for thanks. She just lifted the slice and took a slow bite, the faint crunch competing against the murmurs of the stream.
Vi cut another piece for herself.
They sat like that for a while, passing the apple back and forth in turns, the knife clicking softly between them, the night wrapping around the clearing like a cloak. No words or tension filled the space. Only the hush of breath and leaves and running water, and the simple act of sharing something unremarkable, made all the more precious for it.
Somewhere above, a bird shifted on a branch and let out a short, sleepy trill.
The moment felt like it’d been kept alive in glass—fragile, suspended, whole.
Vi passed the final slice of the apple into the hunter’s hand, but didn’t reach for another herself. She sat still, the knife balanced loosely across her palm, gaze lowered to the smooth rind that would’ve been dappled with teeth marks without company. Her throat worked around a swallow that had nothing to do with food.
“I mean this,” she said after a long silence, her voice catching at the edges. “Thank you.”
The hunter turned her head slightly, brow furrowed.
“For your kindness,” Vi added, a little steadier now. “For not running. For coming back. For talking to me like I was still something that could be spoken to.” Her eyes tinted with unshed tears. “I’ll remember you. Maybe not forever. I don’t know how long forever is. But as long as I’m able, there’ll be something there—an echo. A memory shaped like you.”
The hunter looked at her, quiet for a moment, and then gave a small, tired smile. She reached over, threading her fingers through Vi’s and gave her hand one good squeeze.
After a moment, the hunter reached down, bracing her free hand on her knee, and stood with a small grunt. Her movements had that telltale caution of someone learning to live in a body that no longer obeyed quite the way it used to. As she adjusted the strap of the shotgun across her back, she winced faintly.
“I should be getting back,” she said. “My legs regrettably aren’t what they once were. Picked up a shrapnel injury in a nest down south. Took months before I could walk without feeling like I’d cracked a bone. I can still run, but only if I don’t mind paying for it in the morning.”
Vi stood too, careful not to close the space too fast.
“Be careful on the way back. Please.”
The hunter nodded, but her gaze lingered.
Neither of them moved to leave just yet.
The hunter hesitated, her gaze searching Vi’s face for something. She shifted her stance slightly, mindful of her leg, then asked in a voice that was quieter than the night around them:
“Would you… like a hug?”
Vi blinked. The question landed more awkwardly than it should have, but she still let out a dry laugh, more out of disbelief than amusement.
“I’m not sure I even remember what that is,” she said, shaking her head faintly. “It’s been… fuck, uh, it’s been a long time.”
But she didn’t refuse.
The hunter stepped forward, arms open, slow and without pressure. Vi carefully closed the space between them, as though the gesture itself might break if she moved too quickly.
When they finally embraced, the hunter froze—not because of fear, but because Vi was warm.
Not tepid. Not cold marble or corpse-still. Warm.
Alive-warm.
She’d expected the chill of undeath, of blood slowed to stillness. Instead, Vi felt like a hearth at dusk, body heat radiating through worn fabric. The hunter didn’t speak. She only held her tighter.
Vi hadn’t moved at first. Her hands hovered behind the hunter’s back like she wasn’t sure where they were supposed to go. But then shaky and real, her arms folded around the woman who had once sworn to kill her.
Something cracked behind her ribs—quiet, invisible, undeniable.
It’d been over a century since anyone had touched her with kindness. Decades since a gesture hadn’t come with fear or force. The warmth of it burned through the dust she’d wrapped around herself like armor.
In that moment, Vi didn’t feel like a shadow. Didn’t feel like a curse waiting to happen.
She felt seen.
And she held on. Just a little longer than she meant to, her grip tightening too hard around the hunter.
The warmth, the stillness, the fragile peace shattered beneath a sudden, crushing weight in her chest. An instinct. Older than thought. Older than fear.
Her head snapped up.
Without a word, she shifted, pulling the hunter behind her in a fluid motion, one arm braced protectively in front. Her eyes locked onto the dark beyond the clearing, where the mist had gone too still, like it was holding its breath.
Something was coming.
A shape emerged from the tree line. Not rushing, or skulking, but lazily strolling, the measured steps of an inevitable presence.
Her silhouette cut clean through the mist, towering and imposing, her steps soundless on the damp earth. The coat she wore was long and split at the sides, black leather lined in dark plum, its shoulders broad, its collar high. Crimson threading traced patterns across the hem—more sigil than embroidery. Beneath the coat, dark armor clung to her torso in overlapping ridged panels, bone-like in design, shaped as if molded to her frame rather than tailored. Her boots were worn, stained at the soles, caked in the color of old blood and dirt that never quite scrubbed out.
Both of her arms hung relaxed at her sides, thick with muscle, the skin scarred but intact. Just flesh and strength and centuries of violence carved deep into every joint.
Her face was striking—angular and sharp, with a long scar curving from the corner of her mouth across her cheek, pale against the dusk of her skin. Her left eye gleamed faintly violet in the moonlight, not natural, and certainly not human. Her lips were painted the color of dried wine, and her fangs were just visible as she smiled—slow and humorless.
The clearing held still around them, the trees themselves knowing better than to interrupt.
The hunter’s breath caught the instant Sevika stepped into view.
She didn’t need a second look. That face had been etched into enough briefing papers. Silco’s iron right hand, centuries old, cruel, tireless. A battlefield unto herself.
And now she stood across from them like something conjured from the bones of a nightmare.
“Well,” Sevika drawled, her lip curling into something too toothy to be called a smile. “Isn’t this a pretty little picture.”
Her gaze swept over the two of them, resting just long enough on the way Vi’s arm stayed protectively outstretched.
“Silco’s gonna love this,” she growled, her voice thick with venom. “All this time, wondering who’s been spilling his secrets to the bloodbags. And look at that—his creation. Playing pen-pal with the enemy.”
Vi didn’t outwardly flinch, but her mind urgently spoke.
She’s too strong. I can’t take her, but I can keep her busy while you run.
The words threaded into the hunter’s thoughts like a cold wind against her ear, and she felt Vi tense—shoulders drawn tight, every part of her coiled to protect, not to fight.
Then something shifted.
The hunter’s hand moved between Vi’s side and her arm, slow, practiced. No tremble. No hesitation.
Vi felt it, the hard press of the shotgun’s grip passing through the space between them.
And then—boom.
The clearing lit in a burst of fire and thunder. The shotgun roared like the crack of a storm, the recoil slamming back into the hunter’s shoulder even as she braced it. Incendiary rounds tore through the night, each one catching flame as it hit.
Sevika staggered.
The pellets struck her chest, embedding deep in her armor—and then erupted, each one flaring bright as phosphorus. The sigil-laced coat caught first, then the bone-plated armor beneath, which shattered in a shriek of cracking shell and scorched leather.
She roared, staggering backward, clutching her chest, flames licking up one arm. Her snarl was no longer smug. It was furious.
And Vi—for a fraction of a second—looked at the hunter like she’d never seen her before.
The next seconds unraveled in chaos, as if time itself had cracked and spilled.
The hunter pumped the shotgun, firing again. Another blast of fire-split rounds tore through the air, but Sevika was already moving, more shadow than flesh. She struck out with a boot, sending the hunter sprawling into the mud, the shotgun skittering out of reach.
Vi was on Sevika in an instant, driving a shoulder into her ribs. The impact sent both of them crashing into the underbrush, fists and fangs and snarled curses tangling in the dark. The earth trembled beneath their struggle. Leaves tore. Branches snapped like brittle bones.
Vi landed a blow to Sevika’s ribs hard enough to splinter bark behind her, but Sevika just laughed—low and hungry—before slamming an elbow into Vi’s gut and pivoting with the force of centuries behind her weight.
Then came the punch.
A solid, cracking hook that caught Vi clean across the jaw. Her head snapped sideways with the force of it. She staggered—then fell.
Mud met her back. Her ears rang. The trees spun.
She forced herself upright, blinking against the stagnant blood in her mouth—and froze.
Sevika stood several paces away now, breathing heavily, smoke still curling from her half-burnt coat. The hunter was in her grip, disarmed. One of Sevika’s arms locked tight around the hunter’s waist, pinning her arms to her sides. The other had a brutal fist tangled in her cropped hair, jerking her head back to bare her throat.
The hunter fought, thrashing, but Sevika held her like she weighed nothing at all.
Vi’s breath caught in her chest.
“No,” she said, and took a step forward. “Sevika—”
The other vampire’s grin split wide, fangs glinting beneath the flickering embers on her coat.
Vi raised her hands slowly, palms open.
“Please,” her voice broke, something raw and desperate bleeding through. “Don’t. She’s not part of this. You want me? Fine. But don’t hurt her.”
Sevika didn’t move.
Vi stepped forward again, feet sticking in the mud, eyes locked on the woman she once knew, the monster she now faced.
“I’m begging you! Let her go. We can leave right now. I’ll go with you, just you and me. We’ll go together.”
Sevika threw her head back and let out a roar of laughter—deep, guttural, echoing off the trees like some ancient predator announcing a kill. The grip she had on the hunter tightened, pulling her closer, the hand in her hair yanking her head back until her neck stretched pale in the moonlight.
“Do you think you’ve made a friend?” Sevika spat the word like a curse. “Is that what you think this thing is?”
She leaned closer to the hunter’s ear, inhaling her scent, lips curling as she bared her fangs.
“This isn’t your friend, Vi. She’s meat. A pet you got sentimental about. Nothing more than a mutt you forgot to put down.”
Vi’s hands shook.
Sevika’s violet eye gleamed. “I can’t fucking wait to tell Silco. Oh, he’s gonna be so pleased. His precious stray, all dressed up like a person, feeding intel to the very thing she was made to kill. He’ll want to meet her. Maybe keep her as a pet of his own.”
She shifted her stance, dragging the hunter back a step, letting Vi see the flex of her fingers at the hunter’s throat.
“Maybe he’ll torture her, learn all her secrets,” Sevika mused, voice rich with cruelty. “Maybe he’ll turn her. Sink his teeth in and leash her like the rest. Make her yours, in a way that hurts.” She smiled, slow and wide. “Wouldn’t that be poetic?”
The hunter didn’t struggle anymore. Not out of surrender—but calculation.
Vi’s entire body trembled.
Something deep inside her stirred, old and buried and rising now like wind before a storm. But still, she didn’t lunge. Not yet. She was listening—for the hunter’s heartbeat, for the break in Sevika’s rhythm, for the chance to break her free.
The clearing blurred at the edges. Rain still whispered through the trees, but to Vi, everything narrowed to the crushing weight of Sevika’s grip and the pale line of the hunter’s throat stretched taut in the moonlight. Her hands stayed raised, frozen mid-gesture, helpless.
She reached out one last time.
I’m sorry. Her thoughts cracked like glass under pressure. Gods, I’m so sorry, I can’t—I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop this—
Violet. The hunter’s voice came through like water in a stream. Listen to me.
No, Vi replied, panic rising like bile. No, don’t—don’t say it. I can fix this. I can find a way to get you out. I just need—just give me time—
You don’t have time. We don’t have time.
Vi’s chest felt hollow. Her knees buckled slightly, but she caught herself. Her voice, even in thought, was breaking.
Please, she said. You have a family—
—Who he’ll destroy when he tortures their names out of me, the hunter answered. There was no bitterness or sorrow, only a resigned certainty.
Vi clenched her fists, bloodless, trembling at the injustice of their circumstances.
Promise you’ll give me a true death. One with dignity. Not chained. Not broken. Not twisted into something else.
Vi’s eyes filled, the tears not falling, only hanging there like glass about to break.
I’m sorry, she whispered again. I’m so sorry.
I know you are, the hunter said. And I know, whether or not it’s still beating, that you have a good heart.
There was a pause. A deep, empty breath held in silence.
I promise.
Vi’s wrist flicked in a single, swift motion. A barely visible twitch. Nothing dramatic—just a shift of intent.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Even Sevika paused, some instinct warning her too late. A second passed, then another.
A thick tear streaked down Vi’s cheek.
Sevika’s smirk faltered. Her grip loosened.
She staggered back two steps, confusion overtaking confidence, her mouth opening as if to curse—or scream.
But no sound came.
Then she fell.
By the time her body landed fully, there was nothing left but a heap of ash and charred leather. At the center of it, embedded upright in the grass, was Vi’s knife—small, simple, and stained black with old blood and silver along its edge.
Vi didn’t look at it.
The hunter had crumpled with Sevika’s fall, but Vi caught her just before she hit the ground. One arm around her back, the other steadying her beneath the knees, like a vow unspoken. The hunter’s weight was real. Warm.
And fading.
Vi’s hands shook.
“No—” Her voice cracked in her throat, but she leaned closer, pressing her forehead to the hunter’s temple, already reaching for her own wrist, ready to bite, to bleed, to give.
The hunter’s eye fluttered open—just for a breath.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “My friend.”
And then she was gone.
The world fell away around Vi, again.
She let out a sound then—something not meant for words. A noise carved from pain buried too long, torn free by loss both too old and too fresh to name. It rang out through the trees, raw and shattering, vibrating through soil and stone and bone.
Vi held the hunter’s body close, arms locked tight, as if she could anchor her to the world of the living by sheer will alone.
But there was no magic for this.
No blood that could undo it.
Only Vi, alone again—rage and grief spiraling in her chest like a storm with no place left to go.
The world had changed in four years.
Not in any grand, literary sense—not with flags toppling or cities burning—but in quieter, more insidious ways. It changed in the creeping way rot sets into wood—quiet and unnoticed, until the damage is already done. Forests grew back over old tracks. Maps were redrawn in ink that bled. People disappeared, and the world forgot them.
Vi hadn’t changed. Or forgotten.
She sat motionless on the boulder, one leg crossed over the other, book resting in her lap like an old companion. The stream murmured at her feet.
Tonight, the breeze shifted just enough to carry something faint and familiar. She caught the scent and smiled to herself without looking up, one pale finger easing beneath the edge of a page.
Perched prone atop the moss-slick stone of a flat-topped boulder, the hunter adjusted the last sight on her rifle with deliberate care. The metal was cold beneath her fingertips, always cold, no matter how long she held it. She twisted the side dial with a practiced flick of her thumb and forefinger, coaxing the crosshairs into perfect clarity.
Below, the stream whispered over rocks, its murmur lost beneath the hush of wind weaving through pine boughs. Her target sat on a boulder near the bank, legs folded beneath her, utterly still but for the turn of a page. Pale blue sleeves fluttered slightly in the breeze. Her head tilted in concentration. The book’s spine glinted where the moonlight caught it.
A tick of the finger disengaged the safety, the muted click soft and familiar. Her breathing slowed. Years of training coiled in her limbs. She curled her finger around the trigger, resting it there with ghostlike pressure.
She exhaled, slowly.
Held it out.
You’re aiming in the wrong place.
The voice slipped through her mind like water seeping through cracks in old stone. It wasn’t spoken so much as felt—a hush against her ribs, a whisper behind her teeth. Unwelcome, but known.
She flinched. Only slightly, but enough to lift her eye from the scope.
The forest stretched below in its hush of silver and black, branches skeletal against the sky. Down by the stream, the woman hadn’t moved. Still seated on the boulder, still reading, as though the night itself were holding its breath around her.
No glance upward. No twitch of the ear. No acknowledgment at all.
Just a page turned, smooth and slow.
The hunter’s jaw tightened. She dragged in a breath through her nose and settled back behind the sights.
It’s nothing.
Zaunite forest played tricks like this. Everyone knew that. Old poison in the dirt, stories soaked into the roots. A hundred years of blood and shimmer and gods best left unnamed. She’d camped too close to one of the ruins. That was all. Mind games. Leftovers.
It’s nothing.
The crosshairs aligned again. She let her breath out.
Held it.
So… just not going to take my advice then?
The voice came gentler this time, almost amused. Closer, somehow—as if it had leaned in to look over her shoulder.
A rustle broke the stillness, low and dry, like something brushing against dead leaves just behind her left shoulder.
She turned instinctively, rifle tilting with her. The undergrowth there was thick, tangled with briar and rot, but nothing moved now. No figure. No shadow. Just the wind shifting through the brush. She swung her gaze back toward the stream—
The boulder was empty.
The woman, the book, the magenta hair catching moonlight—gone.
Not a ripple in the stream. Not a footprint in the moss.
“Name’s Vi, by the way. I knew—”
The hunter surged to her feet in one breathless motion, muscles snapping tight. She brought the rifle up with her and drove the stock forward, straight into the woman’s gut. The blow landed hard, dead center. She felt the recoil through her arms, a jolt that should’ve doubled the other woman over. But there was no give. No grunt of pain.
Vi remained perfectly still.
Her eyes dropped to the rifle pressed against her torso. Then, without haste, she lifted her gaze again. Something wry played at the corners of her mouth, amusement at hearing an old joke but still finding it funny.
The hunter didn’t retreat, but her fingers flexed against the grip. The strike should have made her opponent stagger, even if she wore hidden armor. No armor she knew absorbed force like that.
The moonlight slid across the side of her face, catching on the edge of her jaw, and for the first time, the hunter noticed how still the air had become. No wind. No night birds. Even the stream below seemed to hush.
Vi’s hand snapped up, fast enough to blur at the edges. Fingers wrapped around the barrel, just ahead of the scope. With a short, brutal twist, the rifle ripped from the hunter’s grasp.
Before her hands could make an attempt at wrestling it back, Vi turned and hurled the weapon into the underbrush. The crash of branches swallowed its landing, far too deep into the dark to recover it quickly.
They stood alone, shadow and silver between them, the scent of crushed moss rising underfoot.
And the hunter, for the first time that night, began to wonder if she’d made a mistake.
Up close, the vampire was nothing like the gaunt, predatory wraiths described in old field reports. She stood a few inches shorter, but the difference felt irrelevant now—overshadowed by the sheer presence she carried.
Her body radiated strength. Not just the hard definition of a trained fighter, though that was there—visible even in the low light, in the way her shoulders filled out her frame, in the pull of muscle that shifted beneath her shirt with every move. No softness to her but skin. No waste. She was built like a forged weapon, tempered and precise.
And gods she was fast. Too fast.
The hunter struck first—an elbow aimed at the ribs, followed by a hard hook toward the collarbone. Both blows landed with full force, but Vi took them like someone being tapped on the shoulder. No reaction. No stagger. Her body absorbed the hits with unnerving ease.
She tried a third strike, but Vi caught her wrist and twisted, pivoting with unnatural grace. The world spun, bark slammed against her spine, and before she could reach for her knife, Vi was already pressing forward.
Their bodies collided—not with violence, but with inevitability.
Vi crowded her back against the tree, hips braced, thigh slotting between her legs to pin her lower half in place. One hand caught both wrists and drove them up above her head, locking them against the rough bark. The other rested beside her face, fingers splayed against the trunk, knuckles nearly brushing her temple.
The pressure was unmistakable. Full contact—chest to chest, hip to hip.
She could feel every inch of the vampire. The taut lines of her abdomen pressed through shirt and coat, solid as iron beneath fabric worn soft with use. Heat radiated off Vi in a way that made no sense—slow and steady, like a banked fire burning low beneath skin that should have been cold. That warmth rolled over her cheek, her throat, seeped in beneath her collar. It shouldn’t have unsettled her as much as it did.
Her breath stuttered before she could stop it.
Vi wasn’t trembling. Wasn’t even tense. She was alarmingly solid, like stone carved into a shape that fit her perfectly.
She strained against the grip, but it was like trying to push down a wall. Vi held her fast, with no sign of effort, only that same quiet, unreadable focus.
Vi spoke no words, only looked with those steel eyes, tinted with a whisper of blue—watching her like she was a question still waiting to be answered. But something had shifted.
It wasn’t the pressure, or the heat bleeding through layers of fabric. It was her face.
Vi was watching her, staring. Not like a predator sizing up a kill, but like she was trying to memorize every detail. Brows drawn tight, mouth parted, as if she were on the verge of saying something but didn’t know how to begin.
And her eyes… they glistened.
It wasn’t a trick of the moonlight. Not reflection. Not shimmer. Her eyes were wet.
Tears, barely held back, rimmed her lashes.
Tears weren’t part of the stories. Not in the Academy’s texts, not in the whispered prayers traded by hunters at dusk. Vampires didn’t cry. But this one wasn’t part of any story she’d read before.
“Your eyes,” Vi murmured, voice low and distant, like speaking from the edge of a dream. “They’re the blue of early morning before the sun crests the rooftops. Like river glass scattered across frost. Like the part of the sky birds disappear into when they fly too high to follow.”
Silence stretched, not heavy but oddly reverent.
“You have her eyes,” she whispered. “I'm glad the world knew better than to change them.”
Her eyes?
Her stomach twisted. Heat rushed up her neck. It felt like something had slipped loose behind her ribs. The fight response flickered uselessly in her limbs, caught between logic and instinct. Every inch of her screamed that she should break free, strike, run, but her body refused to obey. Not when those words hung in the air, pulling at something still fresh and hollow inside her.
She wasn’t sure if the vampire had broken her grip—or if she had simply stopped trying to escape.
Gone was the loose confidence, the half-curious tilt of Vi's mouth. What remained was something quieter. Wrecked. She stared like she’d seen a ghost. Not the kind that haunted. The kind that hurt.
Her features were appraised with a careful slowness, as if looking too fast might cause her to vanish. She watched as the vampire's lips parted, then closed again, some sound trapped behind her teeth.
And then, with the softness of breath she didn’t need to draw, she spoke.
“Caitlyn.”
One word.
Not a question. Not a mistake.
Spoken with reverence. Like it had once meant something. Like it still did.
The sound of it hit harder than any physical blow the vampire could’ve landed. Caitlyn flinched, pain erupting from deep within her, where the shape of her name shouldn’t have felt so known. Cold spread through her limbs, an aching freezing sense that the world had shifted, subtly but irrevocably, and she was the last to understand why.
Vi stepped back. Her hands lowered, but her eyes never left Caitlyn’s.
The forest around them whispered and stirred, stream murmuring behind her like nothing had changed. But everything had.
Caitlyn couldn’t move. Her heartbeat pounded like thunder in her ears, echoing off the hollow space where certainty used to be. She stared at the vampire she’d tried—and failed—to kill.
A woman who knew her mother’s eyes.
A woman who knew her name.
Vi had mourned Cassandra in private. Grieved her in silence while the years crept by like rot beneath floorboards. She’d tried to avoid remembering everything at once. Not in full. Not when it still hurt to imagine the sound of her voice or the way she used to glance sideways before saying something clever.
But Caitlyn... she carried Cassandra’s fire. That same watchful stillness behind impossibly blue eyes. That same jaw she clenched it to keep from trembling. And now Vi stood staring into the face of the only person left who bore witness to the woman who’d once been her friend. Who'd treated her with dignity, like someone worthy of care and companionship. Caitlyn was living, breathing proof that Cassandra had existed—had mattered. That something good had survived the decades between them.
Vi didn’t dare reach for her.
She only looked.
And for the first time in four years, the ache in her chest wasn’t just grief.
It was memory.
It was hope.