The storm had not fully broken by the time Lysandra woke.
Her breath shivered in her chest, rising and falling in sharp, uneven gasps. Pain pulsed along her side, where fingers—rough, merciless—had struck her only hours before. She lifted her hand instinctively to touch the wound… but the skin there was whole.
Smooth.
Untouched.
She froze.
The lantern beside her bed still flickered with the soft after-scent of burnt oil. Outside, the early blue light of dawn seeped through the wooden shutters. Nothing looked different. Her small cottage was as it always was: the neatly stacked herbs, the polished wooden table, the single cot.
But she felt different.
There was a strange warmth inside her chest, like embers that refused to die.
And beneath the warmth… something else.
A whisper.
Soft. Ancient. Not in words, but in feeling. Something that felt like being watched—but from inside herself.
Lysandra pressed a hand against her sternum, as if she could steady the tremor in her heart.
Then she remembered.
The man.
No—not a man.
The creature with the storm-dark eyes and the unbearably still presence. The one who had stepped between her and death. The one who had lifted her in arms stronger than any mortal's.
Kael.
His name came to her suddenly, like she had always known it—carved into the dark.
The bite.
The way the night had blurred.
The way the warmth inside her had exploded as he drank from her.
Her breath hitched, and she curled her fingers into the blanket.
He had bitten her… and she had not died.
No human survived that. Not whole. Not without losing something—blood, memory, life.
But she felt more alive than she ever had.
Her palms glowed faintly, the warmth under her skin shimmering like trapped sunlight. She swallowed hard.
"What did he do to me?" she whispered.
The morning offered no answers.
But she knew one thing:
She had to find him.
⸻
Kael had not slept.
Sleep was a luxury he had abandoned centuries ago; his kind rested when their bodies demanded it, not when the sky darkened. Tonight, even the bone-deep weariness of battle could not quiet the war inside him.
He stood in the thick line of trees overlooking Lioren, the mist rising from the marsh curling around his boots. His cloak hung heavy over his shoulders, streaked with soot from the fires that had nearly devoured the village.
But none of that troubled him.
What troubled him was the way his body changed even now.
His lungs pulled in breath like they remembered the old rhythm of being alive. His fingers trembled—not with hunger, but with something dangerously close to feeling. The blood he had taken from Lysandra still surged within him, warm and disobedient.
He looked down at his palm.
It glowed faintly red.
Just as her hands had.
That should not have been possible.
He clenched his fist. "You have undone something in me, healer."
The last word lingered in the cold air.
He could still smell her—wild herbs, sunlight, and the metallic sweetness of power. He should have left her behind. He should have walked away before dawn. That was the rule he had followed for hundreds of years:
No attachments. No witnesses. No weakness.
Yet he remained.
Not because of desire. Not because of loneliness.
But because her blood—her power—had stirred something inside him that he had thought dead forever.
A heartbeat.
A slow one. But a heartbeat all the same.
He had not heard such a sound in centuries.
And whatever gift—or curse—she carried had made it possible.
He needed answers.
He needed control.
And he needed to ensure she survived whatever awakening had begun inside her body.
⸻
Lysandra stepped outside her cottage, clutching her cloak around her shoulders. The village stirred quietly around her. Women swept steps still wet with rainwater. Men gathered near the broken gate, muttering about the bandits who had vanished into the marsh.
The moment they saw her, the whispers grew.
"There she is…"
"She healed half the village yesterday…"
"But who healed her?"
"I saw the wound! No human survives that."
She lowered her gaze quickly.
She had never liked attention. Healing was meant to be gentle, private—an exchange between healer and wounded. Not something to be gawked at.
But she needed answers more than she needed silence.
She walked toward the tree line—the last place she remembered seeing him.
"Looking for someone?"
Her breath caught.
Kael emerged from the shadows like a storm taking shape. The world around him seemed to sink into silence. He moved with unnatural grace, every step measured, every breath steady despite the faint tension in his jaw.
He looked… different.
Less pale. More alive.
And yet more dangerous than ever.
"Why are you here?" she asked, though her voice came out softer than intended.
Kael studied her like she was a puzzle carved in gold.
"You were injured," he said simply.
"I healed."
He tilted his head. "You healed too quickly."
"I always do."
"Not like that," he said, stepping closer.
Her heart hammered once—too loud, too fast.
Kael noticed.
He always noticed.
"What did you do to me?" she whispered.
His eyes flickered—not with guilt, not with hunger, but with something complex and ancient.
"I bit you," he replied honestly. "But that is not what changed you."
"Then what?" She lifted her glowing palm. "I feel like something is inside me. Watching me. Waiting."
Kael's expression darkened. "Because your gift is awakening. And my bite… may have accelerated what was already there."
"What was already—"
"Lysandra!"
They jerked apart.
A young boy ran toward them, breathless. "Come quick! You need to see this!"
Lysandra hurried after him, Kael following silently, aware that villagers stared at him with suspicion and awe.
The boy pointed to the center of the village.
There, in the mud, lay a man—one of the surviving bandits.
Or what was left of him.
His skin was gray. His lips were blackened. And on his chest, carved as if by invisible fire, was a symbol Lysandra had never seen before:
A circle of thorns around a single drop of blood.
The old women gasped. Men stepped back.
Kael went still.
Lysandra whispered, "What… what does this mean?"
Kael's jaw tightened.
"It means," he said quietly, "that the priests have found you."