The rain had not stopped in two days.

It came in veils and waves, a thin silver curtain drawn over the woods at the edge of Virellyn. Trees dripped with it, the paths turned to shallow streams, and the sky remained a cold bruise of colorless cloud.

A figure moved through the trees.

Wrapped in a dark, tattered cloak, face obscured by shadow, Cael Arven moved with the ghostly rhythm of something almost forgotten. He bled as he walked. Silver blood, staining the earth where no human eye could see it. He held his side where the blade had pierced him, the wound corrupted with silver salts—a cruel trick of the vampire council’s assassins.

He had escaped, barely.

But he was dying.

Or worse—changing.

Crimson Decay. A sickness born of too many years resisting the thirst, too many refusals to feed, too many moments of remembering what it felt like to be... human. His once-immortal flesh cracked under the weight of it.

Still, something had pulled him here. Past border runes, past hunters and sentries and the ancient wards that once would have burned his skin. He walked unchallenged.

He shouldn’t have come.

But he felt her.

And that cursed fragment of his soul—the last flicker of warmth in an otherwise cold existence—had dragged him like a puppet on strings.

She was here.

Liora.

He reached a rise in the trees and looked down. There it was—Virellyn, nestled like a half-forgotten dream beneath the clouds. Smoke curled from chimneys. Lamps flickered behind wet glass. And there, near the market path, a small gathering had formed under the canopy of an old tree.

Cael’s breath caught.

She was there.

---

She wore a slate-blue cloak, soaked through by the rain, the hood half-fallen. Loose curls clung to her cheeks as she knelt beside a small child, wrapping a bandage around a cut knee. Her hands were quick, practiced. Her smile was soft, genuine.

He hadn’t seen that smile in a decade.

And the ache it stirred in his chest nearly brought him to his knees.

She didn’t see him. Couldn’t. Not through the veil spell that shimmered around his presence like morning mist. But he saw her. Every detail burned into the ruin of his memory.

She was alive.

And she didn’t remember him.

---

A creak of wood and the clatter of hooves pulled his gaze. She was climbing into a modest wooden carriage, the wheels already half-stuck in the mud. The villagers called farewells as she drove off alone down the forest trail toward her cottage.

Cael watched.

He should leave. His body was failing. His power flickered and cracked, the Crimson Decay spreading with every heartbeat. And still—he followed.

---

The wolves came out of nowhere.

They slipped from the brush like shadows, their eyes gleaming with sickness and fear. Driven by hunger and something darker—something that lived deeper in the forest.

There were three. One lunged at the horse’s flank, sending the beast into a panicked rear. The carriage rocked wildly. Liora screamed, trying to steady the reins.

The second wolf leapt for her throat.

Cael moved.

In a flash of wind and torn leaves, he was there—between her and the jaws of death. His hand closed around the wolf’s throat mid-air. Bones shattered. The creature dropped, lifeless.

The third snarled and lunged from the side. Cael didn’t hesitate. With a spin and a grimace of pain, he slammed his elbow into its skull. It crumpled.

Mud, blood, and silence.

He turned to her.

She stood frozen on the driver’s bench, wide-eyed, mouth parted.

Her eyes met his.

And for a breathless instant, something passed between them.

Recognition?

No—confusion. Wonder. Fear.

She saw only a silhouette in the storm, rain trailing off the edges of his cloak like mist.

Cael stepped back.

“Wait—who are you?” she called.

He vanished into the trees.

---

He didn’t stop until his legs gave out.

Collapsed in the hollow of an ancient oak, Cael curled into himself, pressing his bloody palm to his side. The Decay spread further now. His vision blurred at the edges.

But the memory stayed.

Her voice.

Her eyes.

And something else—something he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.

A heartbeat.

Faint. Echoed. But real.

It wasn’t his.

It was hers.

And it pulsed through him like a dying flame refusing to go out.