The war room in the eastern wing of the Vale estate was built like a bunker: stone walls, thick beams overhead, maps sprawled over the long oak table like a battlefield autopsy. A pair of flickering wall sconces threw shadows across the faces of the two men seated at its center—men who had once fought side by side and who now fought politics with the same ruthlessness.
Lord Marcus Vale, Commander of the Eastern Human Territory Defense Force, tapped his fingers over a faded battle map marked with rebel movement. His greying beard was neatly trimmed, but the creases at the corners of his eyes had deepened since the Treaty. Across from him sat Commander Alric Thorne, leaner, sharper, with silver streaks in his temple and suspicion carved deep into his features.
Thorne finally spoke. "The Archanum claim it was a fae saboteur who leaked the guard routes to the rebels. The Fae Court claims it was an Archanum illusionist. The Tribunal, as always, says nothing." Marcus's jaw tightened. "And three of my men were incinerated in a tunnel that shouldn't have been discovered, let alone rigged with elemental wards. They're not just disorganized, Marcus muttered, dragging his knuckles across the parchment. "They're getting smarter. That attack on the patrol unit outside Braxen Hollow? Coordinated. Clean. No survivors."Someone's funding them. Training them. Gods help us if it's one of the factions."
Marcus exhaled through his nose. "Desperation breeds unity, it seems."
"Or prophecy," Thorne replied dryly. "There are whispers—old ones—about something stirring beyond the tear. Something that's driving these bastards to move faster. Marcus didn't flinch. I've heard the same. From my daughter.
Thorne's eyebrows rose. You mean the one who calls the Binding Circle 'state-sanctioned trafficking' and said she'd rather marry a corpse than a vampire? Marcus gave a tired smile. Yes. That one. She's not wrong, Thorne said, unblinking. "But if she says something's coming... I'd believe her. That girl sees smoke before the fire, even knows it's burning. Marcus nodded slowly. "She hates them. The supernaturals. All of them. With a purity I sometimes envy. She sees the wolves beneath the robes, no matter how gilded."
They sat in silence for a while, the storm pressing against the windows, wind howling like old ghosts. Beyond the estate walls, the world smiled and danced under the peace of The Orion System. But inside this room, the men who knew better watched that peace cracking like ice beneath a soldier's boot.
Across the hall, the drawing room of the Vale estate gleamed like the setting of a perfectly curated painting—gold-trimmed windows cast soft light across velvet settees, crystal goblets chimed with laughter, and the air was thick with perfume, powdered sugar, and thinly veiled ambition. The storm outside hadn't yet broken, but its promise lingered in the darkened clouds and the pressure in the air, like the hush before a symphony's first note. Lady Helena Vale sat in regal repose near the hearth, her silver-threaded gown immaculate, her smile honed to the edge of a stiletto. Around her, the room buzzed with gossiping noblewomen and their eligible daughters—wolves in pearls with titles, waiting for the binding season.
The topic of obsession was some poor merchant's daughter who had turned eighteen last week and, lo and behold, been soul-bound to an Alpha King from the Northern wilds. According to Lady Isolde, the binding mark had appeared at dawn—scorched right into her wrist. By breakfast, the family had been gifted a villa, three ships, and a dowry large enough to make a duchess weep. The room swooned. Even Lady Corenna, who usually scorned "vulgar generosity," had pursed her lips and whispered, "Well, at least he was noble-blooded."
None cared that the girl had reportedly wept the entire day, and that no one had seen her since. What mattered was the king's wealth. The connection. The power. The fairy-tale dresses and invitations to court. One of the daughters—Elira, or Alora, it didn't matter—clutched her teacup with trembling fingers and murmured that her binding birthday was only two months away. "If it's an Alpha King," she giggled, "I hope he's dark-haired. With claws. The dangerous ones are always more romantic."
Sarah Vale sat at the edge of the gathering like a dark jewel among polished glass, legs elegantly folded, spine straight with a defiance that needed no words. She was seventeen, with six months left before the Binding age, and already there were whispers—nervous ones—about whether she'd be claimed, or worse, if she'd refuse. Her beauty was the kind that unsettled—striking rather than sweet, carved in contrasts. Pale skin against a curtain of dark, unruly hair streaked with rebellious bronze, full lips rarely smiling, and eyes like storm glass—sharp, changeable, and always watching. She wore no lace, no pastel silks like the others, only a fitted black dress with silver embroidery curling up her sleeves like thorned vines. She did not glitter, she gleamed—quietly, and she looked at the room as though it bored her to death, or worse, offended her very soul.
She hadn't spoken since the gathering began, not even when her mother had tried to draw her in with comments like "Your turn is coming, dear. Imagine the options with your bloodline." Sarah didn't need to imagine. She could already see the strings—binding tattoos carved into flesh, free-will traded for jewels, power snatched under the illusion of destiny. Soul-bindings began at eighteen, and some noble families—more than a few in that room—were known to fake them. Rigged spells, illusion-marks, or bribed priestesses... all to secure a match with a powerful supernatural: vampire lords, Fae dukes, even the lesser shifter barons. As long as the coin was right, anything could be arranged.
Across the room, Elise Vale—sixteen, incandescent, and hopelessly infatuated with the idea of a fae courtship—was holding court of her own. Draped in a blush silk robe and strewn across a velvet chaise, she clutched swatches of shimmering fabric to her chest like sacred relics. "Violet," she announced, breathlessly, to the viscount's daughter beside her, "with silver embroidery like moonlight on frost, and star pins in my hair. Something celestial. Something worthy." Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur, eyes glittering. "He said he liked stars. The Fae Lord from the Sapphire Glade—his emissary noticed me at the solstice rite. It could be fate." She clasped her hands to her heart with enough drama to warrant applause, and the other girls tittered on cue, already dreaming up titles and invitations. Near Elise, their youngest sister Mira sat cross-legged on a stool, her small fingers stained with ink as she sketched a crooked tiara in her lap. She was ten, with a fierce little grin and a crown complex no one dared tease. She was already practicing her curtsies and reciting noble lineages like lullabies. Mira didn't just dream of being chosen—she planned it. She wanted a vampire lord, she once whispered to Sarah, because they were elegant and tragic and could fly. Mira hummed softly as she worked, a tune that sounded like a nursery rhyme warped by ambition.
The room glittered with soft laughter and the rustle of silk—Lady Helena's friends and their daughters, all sipping plum wine and trading gossip like currency. The soul-bindings were coming faster this year, they said, particularly among the waterborn fae and the Noctis. A noble girl from Caer Nyss had been bound to a fae prince just last week, and her family received not only land but an entire retinue of enchanted guards.
One woman, draped in too many jewels and too little sense—whispered that her cousin had tried to forge a Binding. Not a clever one either. She'd spelled the sigil onto her own shoulder, desperate to trap an ancient vampire lord into marriage. He was powerful, childless, and inconveniently beautiful in that brooding, bloodstained way the old ones always are. And for a moment, it worked. The mark flared. The contract pulsed. The Binding stirred.
Then he arrived.
Three days later, the vampire appeared—bare-chested, barefoot, and very much not amused. He took one look at the false sigil, sniffed once like a man catching a whiff of spoiled wine, and said nothing. Just smiled. Thin. Sharp. Fatal. They say he drained her dry right there on the floor, not out of rage but principle. The Noctis do not tolerate fraud. And they certainly don't appreciate romantic ambushes.
Her family tried to claim political offense. The Noctis Court sent back a single reply: "She was not bound. She was bait."
Since then, no one's dared forge a Binding when it involves the Noctis—not out of respect, but out of raw, bone-deep fear. Not because it can't be done. But because the Noctis don't do forgiveness. They don't give warnings. And if you cross them, they won't kill you quickly. They'll drain you drop by drop, smile as they do it, and then send your ashes home in a gilded vial—if they're feeling sentimental. Mercy isn't in their nature. And second chances? The Noctis don't believe in such fairy tales.
Sarah didn't hate the system. She loathed it. With a hatred so deep, so absolute, it rooted beneath her ribs like poisoned thorns. She hated the way these women spoke of girls like they were livestock. She hated the way they dressed up servitude in silk and called it romance. And most of all, she hated the Binding Circle—the so-called sacred tether between soul and fate. Sarah wanted nothing to do with fate. She'd burn every urn, every altar, every supernatural who thought the world owed them obedience. And when the storm finally broke—outside or within—she hoped it would drown every lie in this cursed house.
So she smiled in the drawing rooms. Nodded at the proper moments. Played the part, they dressed her in. But under the silk and expectation, Sarah was flint and storm. And when the reckoning came—when the charade snapped under the weight of truth—she wouldn't run.
She would ignite.