Erin gets out
Zara could feel it. Beyond the door. A heartbeat. Weak, flickering, but alive. A familiar pull, like the wind remembering her name.
She stepped forward and placed her hand on the carved emblem in the center — a half-moon wrapped in flame. The symbol of Marcia’s old bloodline.
The silver box on her back shimmered.
And the door opened.
Not with a creak, not with a bang — but with a sigh. A breath held too long. And behind it, a room drenched in violet mist and glowing stones — a chamber made to trap magic, not kill it.
In the center of the room, there stood Erin.
\---
Erin stirred as the cold energy of the door dissolved. Her body was stiff, her limbs trembling. She had no memory of how she got here — only fragments of nightmares and shadows.
Fire that didn’t obey her.
Wind that howled back.
A voice — Alfonso’s — whispering lies through a mirror.
Then, the smell of silver. The sound of a breath that didn’t belong to the dark.
And a name, broken from her lips like prayer:
“...Zara?”
The woman who stepped into the chamber didn’t look like a rescuer.
She looked like a storm.
Zara’s braid was half-loose, her coat torn at the seams, a long red gash along her arm. But her eyes — sharp, silver-gray and furious — lit up when she saw the girl.
“Erin,” she breathed. “Thank the stars.”
Erin tried to sit up, but the chains held her tight.
“I—I don’t know what’s real anymore,” she whispered. “He did something to me. I think I—”
Zara crossed the circle without hesitation, ignoring the way the magic flared at her boots. “Don’t. Don’t finish that sentence. You’re real. This is real. And I’m getting you out.”
Erin stared at her. “You found the door?”
“I kicked it open.”
A soft, trembling laugh escaped Erin’s throat — the first real sound she’d made in days.
Zara knelt beside her and pulled out a vial from her belt — blue liquid glowing faintly.
“Elixir fragment,” she explained. “Not enough to make you immortal, but enough to weaken vampire spells.”
She poured a few drops on each link of the glowing chain. The metal hissed and smoked — then shattered with a snap.
Erin collapsed forward into Zara’s arms, shaking.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
“I thought I was alone,” Erin whispered.
“You never were,” Zara said, voice hoarse. “Marcia made me promise. If anything ever happened to her… I’d find you.”
Erin pulled back, eyes wide. “You saw her?”
Zara’s jaw tightened. “No. Not yet. But I will.”
She helped Erin to her feet, and the girl leaned on her, weak but burning with stubborn energy.
“She saved me once,” Zara said quietly. “When I was a kid. When the vampires took me from my father. She got me out. She hid me. Gave me a place to grow up without being hunted.”
“I remember,” Erin said. “You stayed with us when I was little.”
Zara smiled faintly. “Yeah. You bit my hand when I stole your bread.”
“You did steal it.”
“I was starving.”
Erin smiled weakly. “I was five.”
Zara looked at her — really looked — and her expression shifted from amusement to awe.
“You’re stronger than she ever knew,” Zara said. “And you’re not broken. Not even close.”
A sound echoed beyond the chamber — footsteps. Too smooth to be wolf, too fast to be human.
“Time to go,” Zara said, eyes snapping to the hallway. She reached back and handed Erin a dagger made of white steel.
“Can you still fight?”
Erin’s hand trembled but she closed it around the hilt.
“I remember enough to kill them.”
Zara’s grin was all teeth.
“That’s my girl.”
They slipped back through the halls like ghosts, side by side — hunter and elemental, wounded and defiant. The palace twisted around them, and traps flickered to life, but Zara knew the way. She knew every cursed stairwell, every chamber that turned into a maze.
She knew this place like a scar.
And Erin followed her like fire follows air.
But somewhere away from all these, Alfonso felt uneasy. The walls shivered as he stops his aunt.
He knew the door he sealed with his magic was opened by someone.
Alfonso angrily slapped Victoria " It had been opened. You are a fool. " He murmured.
And that meant Marcia would soon be awaken and get away. Alfonso tried to move, but couldn't as Victoria froze him.
" You scum. Dare to lay hand on me. " She angrily spat and left.
The vampire war beast roared — a deafening, low-frequency sound that shook the frost from the branches and sent smaller animals fleeing for miles. Its claws dripped venom. Chains wrapped around its limbs pulsed with enchantments carved in ancient vampire runes.
And standing in its path were two lone figures:
Gamma Jara and Henry.
“Please tell me you’ve got a plan,” Henry muttered, loading a second bolt into his crossbow.
Jara’s smile was thin. “Yes. Don’t die.”
“I’m very motivated by that.”
The beast lunged before either of them could speak again, and the ground cracked beneath its weight. Jara leapt left. Henry rolled right. It landed between them like a falling mountain.
Jara’s blades were already drawn, twin crescent arcs of tempered steel. She darted forward and slashed across its leg — sparks flew, but the wound barely scratched the hide.
“Too thick,” she grunted. “Magic reinforcement.”
“I noticed!” Henry shouted, firing a bolt at its eye. It missed — barely — but the beast swiped at him with a speed no creature that size should possess. Henry was thrown against a tree with bone-jarring force.
Jara dove in, striking for the creature’s exposed side.
This time, the blade cut deeper — just enough to make it snarl.
Blood trickled down the creature’s flank — black and steaming. Its attention shifted fully to her, eyes narrowing, claws clenching.
It came at her fast.
Jara spun and dodged, her heartbeat steady, calculating.
One mistake. That’s all it would take to be split in half.
She moved like wind through steel — ducking under its arm, dragging her blade across the back of its knee, kicking off its thigh to gain height.
She landed on its back.
“NOW, HENRY!”
Henry, still dazed, dragged himself up and flung a silver grenade from his belt.
It detonated just below the beast’s belly — a whoomp of fire and silver mist.
The creature screamed, its runes flickering wildly. Its skin smoked.
The beast staggered once.
Twice.
Then collapsed, a mountain of ruin crashing into the forest floor.
Smoke curled from its wounds.
Its breath stopped.
Dead.
Henry slumped to the ground, bleeding from a cut above his eye.
“You always this insane?”
Jara wiped blood from her face and retrieved her blade.
“Yes.”
He chuckled dryly, then coughed. “Next time, I vote fewer monsters.”
“We got their attention. That was the point.”
She pointed upward — the smoke from the explosion now rising in great plumes.
“Nick better be moving,” Henry muttered.