Chapter 102 | The Waning Moon’s Prison | Kael
I was locked in a transparent room.
Not a prison. At least they didn't call it that. They called it the "Adjustment Cocoon." A cube with six faces all made of light, no door, no seam, containing only me—and constantly draining my power.
Leah was taken away. The Light-Keeper who took her said: "The Light Source Priestess only sees the Silver Moon."
Not the Waning Moon.
I tried to break through three times. First with Shadow-Step—my body had just turned to shadow particles when the light wall bounced me back, like crashing into a burning-hot iron plate. Second with prince-level aura—the instant I released it, the light wall grew brighter instead. It devoured my aura, like a plant devouring sunlight. Third, I directly punched it with my fist.
My knuckles split. Blood seeped out, dark red, but evaporated the instant it hit the ground.
Three thousand years.
Three thousand years, and never had I been like this—powerless. Not a metaphor. Literally powerless. My wings were shrinking, from dark red colossi to a pair of atrophied, wrinkled appendages. My vertical pupils were losing sensitivity to dark light. I even began to feel—cold.
Vampires don't feel cold. Unless—
Unless we are dying.
I sat in a corner of the light wall, back against the cold light. No temperature, but a strange tingling, like countless fine needles pricking my skin. I closed my eyes, feeling Leah through the Bloodbond.
She was far away. Emotions agitated, confused, and that uniquely hers, heart-aching sense of responsibility. Someone was telling her something. She was listening, her pulse accelerating.
I wanted to tell her: Don't believe them. Don't make any promises. Don't—
Don't be like I was for the past three thousand years, swept along by power and prophecy.
But I couldn't transmit. The Bloodbond was still there, but like a string stretched too long, thin to the point of breaking. I could feel her, but couldn't transmit complete thoughts. Only fragments—fragments of fear, fragments of love, and my own—
Weakness.
I hated this weakness.
What I hated more was discovering I was growing used to it. Used to having no aura, no power, without that armor of "three thousand years undefeated." I was just Kael. A being growing cold, growing small, growing—
Growing into something even less than a Nullblood.
The door—if that could be called a door—opened.
Not a Light-Keeper. It was a person. With flesh and blood, with breath, with footsteps.
I opened my eyes.
A woman stood in the doorway. Not the Light-Keepers' light body, but a real, solid person. But her skin was translucent, like the thinnest porcelain, veins beneath flowing not blood, but light. Golden hair hung to her ankles, pupils were two miniature moons—one gold, one silver.
"Kael de Noct." She said. Not a question, a confirmation.
"Who are you?"
"I am Elune." She said. "Light Source Priestess. Master of the Spiral Spire."
She walked in, the light wall parting like water before her. She stopped in front of me, looking down at me—I was sitting now, which for a prince was a humiliating posture. But I couldn't stand. My power had drained too much.
"You are weakening." She said. Not sympathy, a statement.
"Obvious enough."
"Do you know why?"
"Because the rules here reject me."
"Wrong." Elune squatted down, meeting me at eye level. Her scent was not floral, not herbal, but something more ancient—like moonlight on stone for a thousand years. "Not rejecting you. It's your way of existing that clashes with the light here."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning—" her pupils slightly contracted, the two small moons rotating in their sockets, "you are the embodiment of darkness. And here is the realm of light. The dark moon in broad daylight can only die."
My heart skipped a beat.
Not a metaphor. Really. I felt my heart miss a beat, then frantically speed up to compensate. Blood surged through my veins like soldiers who had lost their commander.
"What about her?" I asked. "Leah. Silver Moon."
"The Silver Moon will glow here." Elune said. "Will glow brighter and brighter. Bright until—"
She paused.
"Bright until she no longer needs the Waning Moon."
I clenched my fist. The wound on my knuckle split open again, but no blood flowed. I no longer had much blood to flow.
"You are sowing discord." I said, voice hoarse.
"I am stating physics." Elune stood up, the light wall closing behind her again. "But there is a way for you to survive."
"What?"
"Abandon darkness." She said. "Let the Silver Moon's light purify you. Wash away your vampire essence, wash away your prince's mark, wash away—your possessiveness of her. Become a servant of light. This way, you can stay by her side. Not as a companion. As a servant."
I laughed.
That laugh was dry, like dead leaves rubbing in autumn wind. Three thousand years, I had heard countless deals. But this—this was the most humiliating.
"I refuse." I said.
"Even if it means you will die?"
"Even if it means I will die." I said, ice-blue vertical pupils—if they still had their last dignity—looking directly into her eyes. "I have lived three thousand years because I am darkness. If I become light, I am not me. And would she love someone who is not me? No."
Elune looked at me. For a long time.
Then she turned and left. Before the light wall closed, she left one last sentence:
"Foolish. But also—touching."
The light wall closed. Light surrounded me again, more suffocating than darkness.
No, not darkness. It was light. Light everywhere, more suffocating to me than darkness.
I closed my eyes, leaning against the light wall. On the other end of the Bloodbond, Leah's emotions were swinging wildly. She was making a decision. She was being pushed toward some direction I didn't know.
And I could do nothing.
Three thousand years, the first time—
The first time I don't even have the strength to stand up.
But the instant this thought flashed—
I noticed a corner of the light wall. There was an almost invisible fine line there. Not a crack, but some kind of—engraving. Very fine, very shallow, but I recognized that shape.
It was ancient vampire script.
"Don't believe the light."
I recognized that handwriting.
Ophelia.
She had been here.