The sun never rose in Sangrelle.
The eternal twilight cast a haunting spell across the high gothic spires of Castle D'Noir. The sky bled maroon and violet, and the ever-hanging dusk painted the marble columns and obsidian battlements in shades of perpetual longing. It was a realm suspended between life and death, and within it, Saphira D'Noir was the beating heart of both.
She stood in the royal courtyard, its floor a mosaic of crushed bones and etched runes, each step echoing like a warning. Her crimson cloak swept behind her, heavy and regal, lined with velvet and stitched with the crest of House D'Noir: a bleeding rose clasped by a serpent. Two royal sentries stood silent as statues, watching her every move.
But Saphira was not a princess tonight. She was a warrior.
With narrowed eyes, she tightened her grip on her twin-bladed saber, forged from the bones of a nightdrake an extinct beast once worshipped by the Eastern Blood Tribes. The blade pulsed in her hand, reacting to her fury.
She moved like liquid shadow. A blur of red and black, she danced across the arena, slicing through conjured illusions and sparring dummies with cold, mechanical precision. Sweat trickled down her temple. Her fangs extended slightly, her body still attuned to the aftershocks of the bloodbond ritual.
Kael. That cursed name.
His face haunted her vision even when she blinked. That damned half-blood with his storm-gray eyes and ragged nobility. She hated him. She craved him.
She hated that she craved him.
With a savage roar, she hurled the saber into the heart of the final dummy, watching it collapse in a heap of wood and straw. Her chest heaved, breathless, but not from exhaustion. From something darker. Hotter.
"You fight like a woman possessed."
She turned sharply, blade ready to call back to her hand by enchantment but froze. Kael Ravyn. Leaning against the entry arch, clad in black leather and steel, his face half-shadowed beneath his hood. Eyes sharp. Smile, maddening.
"And you sneak like a man with a death wish," she replied coldly.
Kael stepped forward. "If I wanted to kill you, Princess, I would've done so before you turned that last dummy into mulch."
Saphira didn't flinch. "You came to gloat? Or are you finally here to die?"
He chuckled. "Neither. I came because I couldn't stay away."
His words struck something raw in her, but she refused to show it. She wiped her forehead with her wrist, ignoring the heat building between them like an oncoming storm.
"The bond is not affection," she muttered. "It's a spell. Ancient magic. A chain."
Kael closed the distance between them in three steps. "Then why does it feel like fire in my chest every time you're near?"
He reached for her, and this time, she didn't step back.
His hand cupped her cheek, and she leaned into it before her pride screamed otherwise. Their lips hovered, breath mingling. When they kissed, it was not gentle. It was war. Tongues and teeth, desperation and defiance. She bit his lip. He gripped her hips.
For a moment, they forgot they were enemies.
Then she pushed him away, gasping. "No. Not yet."
He stood still, eyes burning.
"You're afraid," he said.
"Of this," she admitted. "Of wanting the man I was raised to kill."
A flutter of wings sliced through the thick silence.
A blood raven.
The creature dropped a sealed scroll at her feet. Black wax. Crimson threads. The High Council.
Saphira tore the seal open, her eyes scanning the words. Her face went pale.
"What is it?" Kael asked, already stepping closer.
"They've sanctioned your death. Tonight. Assassins from the Veilhunters."
Kael's body tensed. "They'll regret it."
In the undercrypt of the castle, behind a veil of forbidden spells and shadowflame, Elira D'Noir prepared her final betrayal.
Saphira's older blood-sister, once the heir to House D'Noir, now an echo clinging to ambition. She stood in a hexagram circle surrounded by ancient tomes and cursed relics. Before her knelt three Veilhunters spectral assassins cloaked in voidlight, loyal to coin and chaos.
"The mongrel prince dies before midnight," she commanded. "Make it clean."
One hunter tilted his head. "And the princess?"
Elira's smile was cold. "Let her live. Let her bleed. But make sure she watches him die."
Night dropped over Sangrelle like a coffin lid.
Kael stood in his guest chamber, a lavish space that still felt like a trap. He'd posted two of his own loyalists at the entrance, but he knew better than to trust bloodlines or brick.
He checked every corner twice, then three times.
The door burst open.
Saphira.Hair wild, sword drawn, eyes blazing.
"They're coming now."
The window shattered, sending razor-sharp fragments spinning through the air. Three Veilhunters descended like specters—silent, cloaked in darkness, their movements honed for the kill.
Kael reacted instantly, his blade flashing as he stepped forward. Saphira was already in motion, cutting upward with a crimson arc. The first assassin barely had time to gasp before her steel found his chest, his body collapsing in a heap of blood and silk.
Kael met the second attacker head-on. The clash of metal rang out, sparks scattering like embers. His opponent was fast—faster than most—but Kael fought with the relentless force of someone who had known war for far too long. A brutal strike knocked the assassin back, his grip faltering just enough for Kael to twist his blade deep into his ribs.
A dagger whistled through the air, its trajectory aimed straight for Saphira's heart.
Kael turned sharply, intercepting it mid-flight with a spinning kick that sent the weapon clattering against the stone walls. His gaze flicked to Saphira, ensuring she was unharmed, but she had already pivoted.
The final Veilhunter lunged for Kael's exposed flank. Before he could react, Saphira was there swift, precise, her saber driving through the attacker's back with a clean, merciless thrust. The assassin fell without a sound.
The room stilled, the scent of blood thick in the air. Their breaths came quick, sharp, synchronized in the wake of battle.
Kael's eyes moved to Saphira. A thin line of crimson marked her shoulder, a fresh wound where a blade had grazed her.
"You're wounded," he said, voice rough.
"Barely," she countered, refusing to acknowledge the pain.
Still, he stepped closer, fingers brushing the torn fabric, the warm slick of blood beneath. His touch was unexpectedly gentle.
"You saved me," he murmured, searching her gaze.
"Don't get used to it," she replied.
Yet the way their eyes held,heated, charged said otherwise.
He kissed her then, softly this time, as though the violence had carved a place for tenderness to grow.
She didn't stop him.
Far above, Queen Virelle of the Eastern Coven watched from her scrying pool. Blood and fire danced across the water's surface.
"The prophecy unfolds," she whispered. "May the stars forgive us all."