Eternal Ruin (Immortal Dark #2)

Prologue Lessons from the Last Sage

Lessons from the Last Sage

On the Origin of Vampires

Like all ruinous things, he came from the abyss.

The abyss stretches between two intersecting mountains mistaken for an unmoving collection of dark clouds. Yet the people native to those mountains know two truths:

One, whatever falls into the abyss never returns. No trace of bone is found at the bottom of the cliffs. Human bodies vanish as if folded into the universe, never to be seen again.

Two, on the night of an eclipse, a man emerged from the abyss, with skin dark as night and hair the burning white of stars. He carried death beneath his feet, and every blade of grass he touched wilted, the earth rotting below it.

Before that man appeared, the villagers’ greatest predator on those mountains had been lions, but even those beasts bled when struck—not this creature.

No weapon, no arrow, no spear pierced his iron skin.

The natives fled, but the blackened ground snared their legs, held them helpless as the creature opened his gash of a mouth and bared its fangs, draining their blood as they screamed.

They called him Varos the Night Lion.

The First Vampire.

After years of blood and death, the abyss would offer up one more soul. This man wore a glowing mask and a red ring, with silver weapons strapped to his body. The bottoms of his feet glowed like balls of sun, and where he walked, the earth healed, the rot clearing at once to a lush green.

The natives fell to their knees and wept. At last, their salvation was here.

They called him Yonas the Sun Bird.

The First Sage.

*Accurate to the myth found in Ye Abyssi Tarik, pages 3–6.