Chapter 3

I tried to nod, but my body wouldn't respond at all. My mind drifted away, and the last thing I saw was Elin's outline slowly fading into the light.

I shut my eyes, feeling my blood slow to a steady, endless current—like an underground river flowing deep beneath the earth.

Outside the iron door, the lunar eclipse was over. Moonlight returned, silver and serene, washing over the manor's abandoned courtyard.

The fire in the hearth had died, and on the table, an open diary lay with its final page written: [We've finally found where we belong, not as husband and wife, not as hunter and prey, but as the twin anchors of the seal.

[When the blood moon rises again, humanity may forget this calamity, but the earth will forever remember two souls who willingly embraced the darkness.]

The wind drifted through the cracked window, rustling the pages. In the distance, the first rooster crowed, heralding the end of the long night.

The manor returned to its quiet, but the chamber below would remain sealed—until the next century's pact was due.

Darkness was the only reality. No sound, no warmth, not even a sense of time passing. I floated in the endless white glow, suspended like some ancient insect in amber.

Now and then, I could feel Elin's presence—a gentle tremor, pulsing through the blood that linked us, like the haunting song of a whale echoing from the deep.

I lost all sense of time. Maybe it was years, maybe centuries. In that endless sleep, memories of the past flickered through my dreams, surfacing in broken fragments.

I dreamed of my grandfather, his hand gripping mine as he lay dying. He smeared his dried blood across my brow and whispered, "The Castine bloodline must never end. But your destiny lies in the north."

I dreamed of my first days trying to live among humans—lost and uncertain. To escape my family's legacy, I ran off to a small town in northern Eryndor, posing as just another archaeology buff.

That was where I met Elin, digging at a Viking site.

She was crouched in a trench, her gloves caked with dirt, and when she looked up at me, sunlight filtered through the pines, turning her chestnut curls to gold.

In that instant, the predator in my blood went silent—like a hound suddenly tamed by the presence of a gentle deer.

"Are you here for the dig too?" she asked, smiling, her teeth bright and her eyes open, without a hint of wariness.

I nodded, my heart pounding—hardly the calm of someone who'd lived for centuries.

Our married life was calm, almost like something out of a fairy tale. By day, I helped her catalog relics and sketch out maps. At night, I'd lock myself in the study, claiming work as an excuse to avoid the urge to feed.

She never questioned my odd habits—just saw me as a quiet, thoughtful husband. But a week before the eclipse, she started having nightmares, dreaming of a key hidden in the ribs of a thousand-year-old corpse beneath the manor.

"I have to find it," she insisted, stubborn as a deer slamming into a wall. "It's the mission my ancestors left for me."

I tried to use the Coven's charm on her, but as the law said, it couldn't affect a spouse. She was too lucid and resolute.

There was a fire burning in her eyes, sparked by the faint abyssal bloodline in her veins. I could sense it, but I couldn't extinguish it.