The Festival of Dawning was a lie.

  Ella knew it, even as she stood in the throng of bodies along the riverbank, shivering beneath a borrowed cloak. The chill in the air wasn’t from the night — it was from what lay just beyond it. Her dagger was hidden beneath her belt, the hilt a familiar pressure against her side. She touched it once, briefly, to remind herself why she was here.

  Candle-boats drifted across the black water like fallen stars. Bells rang from the towers, hollow and cracked. In the distance, choirs sang songs to gods that had long since turned their faces away.

  Silk rustled. Incense burned. The crowd whispered prayers like wishes, as if they could undo the centuries of rot beneath the city’s gold mask.

  The humans prayed.

  The vampires hunted.

  And Ella was neither.

  The borrowed cloak hid her better than any prayer ever could.

  She wasn’t here to beg for salvation.

  She was here to deliver it — with a blade.

  The old cathedral waited at the city’s edge, crumbling and forgotten, like a beast too ancient to die. Ivy had clawed its way up the stone walls. Windows yawned like empty eye sockets. The place had been condemned decades ago, but the whispers never stopped: that the Crimson Ones still gathered here, that the Veil wore thin, that the dead gods bled into this place like smoke into bone.

  It was there she’d find him.

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  Her boots splashed through narrow, flooded alleys. The city sloped downward here, as if even the earth had tried to bury the truth beneath mud and shadow. Each step was colder than the last. The hum of celebration dimmed behind her.

  Her heart thundered. Not from fear. Not from excitement.

  Purpose.

  She didn’t see the broken stone until it caught her foot.

  She stumbled, hard, catching herself against the moss-slick ground. Her hand scraped the edge of a stone, and pain bloomed across her palm.

  Blood.

  A single drop slipped from her skin and struck the cathedral’s steps.

  The air shifted.

  A soundless wind brushed her cheek, raising gooseflesh along her arms. The candles by the river seemed impossibly distant now. Something pressed at the edge of her awareness — something she couldn’t name.

  She turned—

  And something was already behind her.

  Fast. Silent.

  She spun, dagger flashing.

  A hand caught her wrist — strong and cold — stopping the blade inches from a throat she hadn’t seen.

  "Careful," said a voice, low and velvet-rich. "You’ll bleed yourself empty."

  Ella froze.

  The boy standing before her looked like he belonged to another time. Another story.

  Hair the color of old ashes, like smoke worn thin.

  Eyes like a storm bruised the sky.

  Skin too pale, too flawless — untouched by the world.

  And beneath that surface… something wrong.

  Not monstrous.

  Worse.

  Unknowable.

  He tilted his head, studying her like a question he didn’t understand. Then, slowly, he reached for her hand.

  Ella tried to pull back.

  He was faster.

  He bent—not to bite—but to kiss the cut on her palm.

  Just a brush of lips.

  Soft. Cold.

  The world lurched.

  Light burst behind her eyes. Her body locked.

  She saw—

  A crown of thorns.

  Wings made of smoke.

  A kiss soaked in blood.

  And beneath it all, a voice.

  Her name, spoken like a vow. Or a curse.

  Ella.

  She tore herself free, staggering back, breath burning in her lungs.

  "What are you?" she gasped.

  The boy — the thing — lifted his head. His expression shifted. Not smug. Not cruel.

  Just… confused. Almost hurt.

  "I'm Lucien," he said softly, as if that answered anything.

  She gripped the dagger tighter, every instinct screaming to run — to fight — to do anything except stand in his gaze.

  Lucien didn’t move.

  He didn’t lunge.

  He just watched her, wide-eyed and wondering.

  As if he was waiting for her to speak again.

  As if he didn’t understand what he was.

  Ella backed away slowly. Her boots scraped the wet stone.

  And then she turned and fled.

  The city swallowed her.

  She didn’t look back.

  But she couldn’t outrun the feel of his mouth on her skin.

  The way the visions had clawed at her skull like caged things.

  The whisper that curled in her blood, soft and terrifying:

  Lucien.

  Not human.

  Not safe.

  But not her enemy either.

  Not yet.!