Chapter 4 The Blood That Shouldn’t Exist
The Blood Hall was ancient—older than her throne, older than her kingdom, older even than the curse wrapped around her heart. Pillars carved from petrified bone lined the chamber, each etched with sigils of blood-binding, prophecy, and ruin. The air shimmered with old magic… hungry magic.
Lyrathia entered with a stride so silent it made the torches flicker in recognition.
Three of her highest blood scholars kneeled immediately. Cloaked in crimson, hoods shadowing their gaunt faces, they bowed low over a crystalline basin filled with dark liquid.
The scent hit her first.
Blood—but not any she recognized.
Not mortal. Not vampire. Not anything that belonged to this world.
“Rise,” she commanded.
The scholars obeyed, glancing nervously at the basin between them.
“You sent for me,” Lyrathia said, stepping toward the table carved from obsidian. “You claimed you discovered something… urgent.”
The eldest scholar—Marvash—cleared his throat shakily. “Your Eternity, we analyzed the… the intruder’s blood.”
“Kael,” she said without thinking.
All three scholars stiffened.
Lyrathia ignored the slip. “Show me.”
Marvash gestured toward the basin. The liquid inside rippled as though aware of her gaze, as if the blood itself could feel her presence. Strange.
She peered down.
Kael’s blood gleamed a rich, dark red—normal at first glance. But beneath the surface, faint streaks of silver shimmered like veins of moonlight, constantly shifting, almost… alive.
“What am I seeing?” she asked.
Marvash swallowed. “We have tested thousands of mortal samples over the centuries. None behave like this.”
He dipped a long needle into the basin. Instantly, the silver veins wrapped around it, resisting.
The metal hissed violently before snapping in two.
The broken needle clattered against the stone.
A soft chorus of shocked gasps filled the room.
“His blood rejected the sample?” Lyrathia asked, voice low.
“Rejected is too soft a word,” another scholar whispered. “It attacked the metal.”
Impossible.
Magic was meant to seep into mortal blood like water into sand. Mortals had no defenses. No resistance. They were vessels to be drained, shaped, broken, used.
“Watch,” Marvash said.
He lifted a vial of vampire magic—condensed essence, thick and glowing like molten crimson. Carefully, he tipped it over the basin.
The magical liquid touched Kael’s blood—
—and recoiled.
Not evaporated.
Not absorbed.
Recoiled.
The two substances refused to mingle, swirling apart like repelling magnets.
Lyrathia’s eyes narrowed. “This has never happened?”
“Never, Your Eternity,” Marvash whispered. “We tried multiple forms of magic. Blood-binding. Control weaves. Memory-haze. Even the lowest glamour. All were… rejected. Violently.”
A shiver rippled through the scholars.
Lyrathia felt it too—not fear. She couldn’t fear. But intrigue? Curiosity? A tightening awareness deep in her ribs?
That, she felt.
She turned to the scholars. “Explain.”
Marvash hesitated, then stepped forward with something wrapped in velvet cloth. “There is… one more thing.”
He unwrapped it to reveal a sigil stone—an ancient rune etched into a slab of moonstone.
“We tested his blood against the prophecy stone.”
Lyrathia’s head tilted. “Why?”
“It reacted.” He placed the stone beside the basin. “Look.”
Even from a distance, the sigil glowed faintly.
Lyrathia’s eyes darkened. “Tell me what this means.”
Marvash hesitated. “His blood carries power. Not magic… but something older.”
“Older than magic?”
“Yes, Your Eternity.”
A flicker—deep, painful—moved under her sternum. No. Not painful. Just… unfamiliar.
She approached slowly, lowering her hand toward the basin. The blood swirled lazily beneath the surface, the silver veins pulsing in a rhythm that reminded her of a heartbeat.
She stopped just short of touching it.
The magic in the chamber thickened, leaning forward like a creature eager to witness a forbidden act.
Her advisors tensed.
“Do not—” one began.
Too late.
Lyrathia dipped one fingertip into the blood.
A crack of energy snapped through the chamber.
A jolt raced up her arm, more violent than the spark she felt when touching Kael. This one burned—icy and molten at once—shooting directly into her chest.
Her eyes snapped shut.
Not from pain.
From sensation.
Real sensation.
The curse shuddered, its iron grip rattling like chains straining to break.
She pulled her hand back sharply.
The silver veins in the basin stilled.
Her fingertip glowed faintly.
The scholars dropped to their knees in terror.
“Y-Your Eternity,” Marvash stammered, “no mortal’s blood should be able to— to interact with you like that.”
“I am aware,” she said.
“Not even a vampire’s blood has ever—”
“I am aware,” she repeated sharply.
The scholars lowered their heads.
Silence pressed heavy around them.
Her heartbeat—silent for centuries—did not return. But something inside her thrummed. A vibration. A pressure. As if the curse was straining under the weight of something it was never meant to contain.
Lyrathia flexed her fingers.
The sensation lingered.
Kael’s blood had touched something in her. Something old, buried, forbidden.
But what?
Her gaze drifted back to the basin.
“Why does his blood resist magic?” she asked quietly.
Marvash hesitated, trembling. “We have only theories.”
“Speak them.”
The scholars exchanged terrified glances.
Finally, Marvash whispered:
“We think… he may not be mortal.”
A ripple of something cold and hot simultaneously slipped down her spine.
She stepped closer, voice razor-sharp. “Explain.”
“He is mortal flesh, mortal heartbeat—but his blood carries an essence that predates vampire magic. It rejects our kind. It… devours enchantments. And it responded to you.”
Lyrathia felt her jaw clench. “Responded how?”
“Your curse,” Marvash whispered, “should render you numb to all sensation. But when his blood touched you—”
“I felt something,” she said. The words tasted strange. Forbidden. “Only a flicker.”
“That flicker should not exist.”
She knew that. Had known it the moment she touched Kael’s jaw in the interrogation chamber. Her curse had not shattered—but it trembled.
And now Kael’s blood made it tremble more.
She forced her voice steady. “What does the prophecy say?”
The scholars bowed deeply, as though the very topic carried weight enough to break them.
Marvash recited quietly:
“When the queen of silence touches the blood of the forbidden one, her heart shall stir… and her ruin shall awaken.”
Lyrathia stilled.
The torches flickered violently.
The curse inside her recoiled.
Forbidden one.
Blood that should not exist.
A mortal who resisted her power.
A man whose touch stirred sensation for the first time in centuries.
Her voice came out soft, deadly, precise. “You believe Kael is the forbidden one?”
“We believe, Your Eternity,” Marvash whispered, bowing so low his forehead touched the stone, “that he may be the one destined to destroy you.”
Silence fell like a blade.
Lyrathia stared into the basin of shimmering red and silver.
Then she spoke, voice cold as ancient winter.
“Prepare another chamber,” she said. “He will be moved.”
The scholars blinked. “Moved, Your Eternity?”
“Yes.” Her gaze darkened. “To somewhere I can watch him more closely.”
The words she didn’t say echoed just as loud:
Somewhere he can’t run.
Somewhere no one else can touch him.
Somewhere I can unravel everything he is.
And somewhere…
Where the stirring in her chest could not be ignored.