Chapter 3 | The Forbidden Grounds | Leah
The entrance to the Forgotten Walk is lined with two rows of broken pillars. The hemalume lamps died out long ago, leaving only rusted brackets that cast jagged shadows in the moonlight. I step over fallen stone beams, gravel crunching under my boots. Every step feels like walking across the spine of some sleeping beast, each crunch a warning.
The air changes.
The smell of arena rust and crowd sweat fades away, replaced by something ancient—tomb dust, old copper, and a sweetness I can't quite identify. Rotting flower petals mixed with rust. Like cracking open a thousand-year-old wine barrel. The cold cuts straight to the bone, every breath coating my lungs with frost.
I keep walking deeper. The pillars get taller, closer together. They're not ordinary stone—some kind of black mineral with a metallic shine, surfaces covered in tiny holes like they've been chewed by invisible insects. The moss under my feet isn't green. It's silver. Moon-silver moss, which only grows where pure moonlight reaches. They say each blade holds a century of moon-dew. It glows faintly when I step on it, lighting up the path ahead before dimming behind me—a road that only exists for me, and only for a moment.
Moonlight leaks through gaps between the pillars, painting pale stripes on the ground. The stripes move. Pulse. Like traces of some ancient ritual still breathing.
Murals appear on the pillars. Ancient paint flickering in the moss-light—vampire wars, the Progenitor Queen's coronation, Pureblood oaths. The paint is mixed from blood and crushed ore, still bright after three thousand years, looking almost flesh-like under the moonlight. I freeze. One mural shows the Progenitor Queen in profile, her face catching the light.
Her eyes are honey-brown. Just like mine—though hers hold a golden glow, like two small suns. In the corner, ancient blood-tongue script reads Bloodline Echo, the ink glowing the same silver as my Suppressor. Nullblood eyes are usually dull, like dusty glass beads. But the Queen's eyes swirl with golden fire.
I shake off the ridiculous thought.
The Progenitor Queen is a three-thousand-year-old myth, a legend, a name people drop at banquets to show off their bloodline.
She has nothing to do with a Nullblood raised in Ashen Row.
This is just trauma playing tricks on me, my mind's way of protecting itself—trying to connect my worthless self to something grand.
Then my legs won't move anymore. I slide down against a pillar, the rough stone pressing through my thin clothes, punishing my spine.
I bury my face in my knees and finally let the sob break free.
At first it's muffled, like a wounded animal. Then it becomes a howl—wild, ugly, not caring who hears. I cry until my skirt is soaked, until my throat burns, until the murals blur into smears of color.
Lucian's lies. Valeria's disgust. Blake's mockery. And me, spending a year hiding in arena corners—all of it comes pouring out.
Each breath gets harder than the last.
I call myself stupid. Cheap. Pathetic for daring to want anything. I curse Lucian, curse Valeria, curse this world that treats me like trash. Then I cry again, because cursing doesn't change anything.
I don't know how long it lasts. The sobbing fades to hiccups. I lift my head, wipe my face with my sleeve. My skin is wrinkled from tears, like paper left out in the rain.
The puddle in front of me catches the moonlight.
Tear-water mixed with dust, a small pool of murky liquid. I look down. And freeze.
The reflection shows my face—and my eyes. My irises glow faintly silver, moonlight melting into my pupils like dissolving silver beads. I yank off my silver scarf, exposing the faint bite scar—now pulsing the same silver as my pupils. Three years ago, the crazed vampire who bit me died muttering "You will awaken the true bloodline." I thought he was just insane. This isn't a normal reflection. Nullblood eyes don't glow. That's Bloodkind 101, drilled into us in basic classes.
I blink. The silver doesn't fade—it gets brighter. At the same time, the Suppressor stings, something inside burning. Not ordinary pain. More like resonance. Like something sleeping inside the metal just woke up.
I look at the band. The black metal shows a hairline crack starting at the number Seventeen, spreading outward like a spiderweb. That earlier sting came from here. The crack is barely visible, but under the silver moss-light it looks like a growing scar.
Then I smell it.
Bitter blackwood. Sweet blood-orange. The combination makes my heart race. The scent doesn't come from any direction—it's everywhere, an invisible net wrapping around me, an ancient call. Stronger than at the entrance. Closer. Like the source is breathing nearby.
Worse: my body responds.
Not with fear. With want. A craving rising from deep in my bones, making my fingers shake, my breath quicken, my blood rush faster. I need to move toward that scent. Need to be surrounded by it. Need—what? I don't know. My body knows; my mind won't translate.
I shake my head, trying to clear it.
This is forbidden ground. I don't know what's here—ancient curse, predator trap, or something even the Council fears. I should run back to the academy, face the mockery. Mockery won't kill me.
But my body won't listen.
I stand up, legs still weak, and walk toward the scent.
Each step feels pulled, my ankle muscles tightening and releasing like puppet strings. Silver moss glows beneath me, lighting a path deeper in. The pillars crowd closer, the gaps narrow, the air gets colder, my breath coming out in white clouds.
The blackwood-blood-orange scent gets thicker. Thick enough to make me dizzy. Thick enough to make me want to kneel. There's something in it that makes me want to cry—not from sadness, but from the feeling of being understood.
Like someone saying: I know what you are.
I know what you've been through.
I know you refuse to accept it.
I pass the last pillars and the corridor opens up.
A circular clearing. At its center stands a dead bloodthorn tree, branches twisted like an old man's fingers, bark crusted with dried blood. The moss is thickest here, its glow turning the clearing bone-white, like a frozen moon-lake. And beside the roots—
Someone is lying there.
Silver-black hair spilled across the moss like dark silk. He's lying on his back, tall, wearing a torn black velvet coat, his chest and stomach covered in wounds. I cover my mouth, the blood draining from my face.
The wounds are purple-black, edges glowing with a sickly green. Not from blades—curse marks. Shadeblight—the Crimson Fang clan's forbidden curse, fed by living fear. Three centuries ago, when the arctic court fell, House Frost used this poison to massacre House Noct's guards. Victims' wounds rot before dawn; without treatment, the toxin follows the bloodline to the heart. The cure—bloodrose, shadowmoss, lunite. Ancient recipe. Requires Third-Rank bloodline precision.
Bloodkind textbooks mention this toxin. Crimson Fang curse. Victims' wounds rot before dawn; without treatment, the toxin follows the bloodline to the heart. The cure—bloodrose, shadowmoss, lunite. Ancient recipe. Requires Third-Rank bloodline precision.
My mind goes into autopilot.
Not thinking—something deeper takes over, like a machine sealed away for thousands of years suddenly starting up. Three drops of bloodrose juice. Seven shadowmoss strands. One pinch of lunite powder. Grinding order: stone first, moss second, bloodrose juice last to activate it.
When channeling intent, visualize silver moonlight flowing into the wound.
This isn't basic knowledge.
This is restricted magic, Pureblood-only learning.
A Nullblood, in forbidden ground, mixing Third-Rank magic.
If the academy finds out—expulsion, or worse—stripped of my enrollment, exiled to the border, tried as a thief of noble knowledge.
But I look at his face. Sharp features, high forehead, pale lips from the poison. Even unconscious, his face holds an untouchable dignity, like a sleeping iceberg. Third-Rank Prince. I've seen this face in portraits. Kael de Noct, Council-transferred Senior Adjudicator. The man scheduled to officially take his position in three days. His left hand wears a blackwood ring carved with the Noct crest—the twin-winged serpent the Progenitor Queen designed three centuries ago, said to suppress Bloodthirst.
He's unconscious, breathing weak but strangely slow—Prince-level vitality is ten times normal, so even with Shadeblight, his heart beats at a glacial pace. Nearly ten seconds between beats, like an ancient drum echoing through the empty clearing.
I refuse to accept it. The thought comes back, stronger than before, fire reigniting in my chest.
They said I belong scrubbing floors, not touching magical plants. They said Nullblood veins carry dust. They said my existence is a mistake. But now, Kael's life is in my hands—the Prince who will judge countless Nullblood fates, his survival depending on someone his kind treats as trash. Moon-silver moss strands prick my palm, reminding me: This is your proof, Leah. Not for them. For yourself.
They used my heart as a bet. They said I never mattered.
Then I'll save a Prince and show them.
I kneel on the moss, hands pressed to my knees, scanning the clearing.
Silver light spreads below like thin frost, my palms nearly see-through.
Bloodroses cluster at the clearing's edge, deep crimson petals like drops of frozen blood under the moss-light. Silver-edged leaves mark high quality. Shadowmoss creeps through cracks in the pillars, black thread-like fungus that leaves purple stains when touched, like a weeping wound.
Lunite—I find pieces at the base of a pillar, silver-white ore gleaming faintly in the moonlight. They say it only forms near Progenitor Queen relics, crystallized moon-dew.
I have everything I need.
I tear a strip from my skirt—already ripped by thorns during my run, now even shorter. I wrap the bloodrose petals, shadowmoss, and lunite together and start grinding.
My palm splits on a sharp edge of lunite. Blood seeps into the mixture, turning the color from purple to a deeper, almost black crimson. The sound of lunite shattering rings sharp in the silent clearing, like plucking some ancient instrument.
I speak the old prayer.
My voice is barely a whisper, but every word is exact. Textbook pages surface in my mind as if they've always been waiting there, as if someone carved this knowledge into my bones before I was born. The prayer is in Old Bloodtongue, supposedly Pureblood-only, but my tongue shapes the sounds naturally, like a fish returning to water.
The mixture glows.
Faint purple at first, then shifting to silver. Light spills from my palm, lighting up my hands.
Not reflected moonlight—my skin is glowing. Silver light flows like water between my fingers, dripping onto the moss, making it glow brighter. I stare, stunned.
But the man convulses.
His fingers spasm. A low groan tears from his throat.
The Shadeblight is attacking his nerves. Time's running out.
Before dawn, if the toxin isn't purged, his heart will start to rot.
No time to think. I kneel beside him, lift his head onto my lap.
His hair is ice-cold, silk-fine, sliding through my fingers with a shiver.
I pry his mouth open and feed him the paste. The instant my finger touches his lip, a faint, almost dreamlike tremor passes from his body into mine.
The moment my fingertip meets his tongue, electricity devours me.
Not a metaphor. Real current, racing from my fingertip up my arm, straight to my heart. Like being struck by lightning, except the lightning comes from inside. My vision explodes in silver-white. My ears fill with a shrieking hum, like ten thousand bats taking flight inside my skull at once.
As if every nerve ending wakes up after a lifetime of sleep, every cell screaming a single word—
Mine.
Not my thought. Instinct surging from somewhere deep in my body, stronger than fear, more primal than desire. Like someone flipped a switch at the deepest genetic level, and every light turned on. I want to pull this man into my arms. Want to be swallowed by him. Want—
He swallows.
The paste slides down his throat. His body jerks. The purple-black wounds release threads of dark violet smoke, the toxin evaporating. His brow furrows, a low snarl tearing from his throat, fingers clawing at the moss, scoring black tracks through the silver.
I press down on his shoulders, holding him still. The muscle under my palms is stone-hard even unconscious, like a mountain collapsing from within. My fingers dig into his coat, feeling the taut, burning skin beneath the fabric.
"Hold on." My voice sounds distant, hoarse but steady. "Please don't die."
The vapor thickens, sharp and sweet, like some ancient rotting flower. His convulsions ease, his breathing steadying from ragged to even. The purple-black edges of the wounds pale, revealing skin beneath like wet sand after the tide.
I look at my hands. The silver light fades, but the heat in my palms remains, like I've been gripping hot coals. The Suppressor stings again, stronger, something inside fracturing, reshaping, screaming. Cracks spread from Seventeen around the entire band, forming a web.
The puddle reflection shows my eyes still glowing. Silver irises like two small moons, identical to the Progenitor Queen's in the mural.
I cradle his head, feeling his breathing stabilize. The blackwood-blood-orange scent rolls off him, stronger than before. That heart-pounding smell—its source is him.
Not a curse. Not a trap. Something like... fate.
I don't know what it means. But I know from this moment, something has changed. Something older than blood-oaths, more irresistible than destiny, has been set in motion.
Footsteps behind me, barely audible.
My spine locks, my heart stutters. Academy pursuers? Some guardian creature of the ruins?
I turn.
Under the moonlight, ice-blue eyes watch me.
Vertical pupils. Predator's eyes.