4. Roan
Roan
I rake a hand through my hair, trying to shake off the layer of fatigue settling in behind my eyes. Exhaustion's creeping in—slow and thick, like fog—but I keep my eyes on the fire. Aria’s asleep again, her breathing soft and shallow as she leans against the ruined wall. The small fire crackles, painting her pale face in flickers of orange.
She looks younger in sleep. Or maybe just vulnerable. The bandage on her shoulder is already starting to spot through with blood again, and there’s a faint tremble in her hand, even now. I should be used to this—people falling apart in front of me, people I barely know depending on me to pull them out of whatever hell they’ve landed in—but this is different.
She’s different.
I press my palm to the hilt of my sword, feeling the worn leather beneath my fingers, grounding myself in its familiar weight. Usually, that’s all I need—steel, instinct, a plan.
This time, it feels like I’m winging it. Seeing her lying there, battered and alone, did something to me I can’t quite explain.
I don’t know what she is—not really. But no human should’ve survived a wound like that. Not without screaming. Not without breaking .
And still, she’s here. Quiet. Breathing. Alive.
And gods help me, I can’t stop watching her.
I stand slowly, joints crackling in quiet protest as I stretch. My cloak shifts with the movement, and I cross the ruin to the narrow archway that faces east. A breeze cuts through the stones, crisp and sharp, stirring my cloak around my boots and prickling goosebumps along my arms.
Dawn’s coming.
The sky’s gone from indigo to a soft bruised blue, a whisper of light brushing the treetops in the distance. No birdsong yet—just wind and silence. I scan the horizon, listening for anything that doesn’t belong: the snap of a twig, the crunch of careless boots, the hiss of drawn breath in the underbrush. Nothing. Just cold air and solitude.
I breathe out slowly, relieved and on edge all at once. “Well,” I mutter to myself, glancing back at Aria’s sleeping form, “no one trying to kill us this very second. That’s something.”
She shifts in her sleep, face contorting like she’s caught in another nightmare. Her hair falls across her cheek, and for a moment, she just looks…exhausted.
There’s still too much I don’t know. Everything about her is a warning dressed up in desperation.
Either way, it’s serious. Too serious for her to keep stumbling around the forest alone like this.
But how far does my responsibility go? My job’s usually pretty straightforward: guard a caravan, escort someone across dangerous territory, or handle rowdy drunks at a tavern door.
Taking care of a strange woman with secrets in her eyes isn’t something I’ve done before.
I wander back to the fire, crouching low to poke at the embers with a charred stick. Sparks leap into the air—brief, brilliant. Gone just as quick. It makes me think of her. Aria feels like something on the verge of vanishing.
One strong gust and she’ll disappear altogether.
She stirs, exhaling a faint sigh. I let her rest, a knot twisting deeper into my gut. She barely touched the water I offered, hardly glanced at the food. There’s a gauntness to her features that reminds me of folks who’ve starved for weeks.
But it may not be hunger for bread.
I tap the edge of the stone with my boot, remembering the strange glint of her eyes and that moment I thought I saw something flash behind her lips—fangs.
Gods, I must’ve imagined that, right? Unless…
Vampire.
The word tastes wrong in my mouth, even in thought. Not because I haven’t heard it before—we all have, anyone who’s done time near the borders. Whispered rumors in taverns. They say vampires are fast, near-immortal, beautiful in a way that makes your spine itch. They drink blood, vanish into mist, and some—if the stories are to be believed—can walk under the sun.
Those are the dangerous ones.
Now I might be sitting ten feet away from one, if my suspicions are right.
I glance toward the firelight, toward Aria. She doesn’t look dangerous now. She looks like she’s hanging on by threads.
And if she is a vampire, what then? Do I run? Drive a stake through her heart?
The thought curdles my stomach. She’s clearly in no state to attack anybody. She saved her own life by crawling here—barely. I look at her bandaged shoulder, thinking of how that thick blood seeped out. Different, that’s for sure.
Still, something doesn’t sit right. That wound on her shoulder? If she were really one of them, wouldn’t it have healed by now? From what I’ve been told, their bodies knit back together like torn cloth. But Aria bled. She bled a lot.
And now, hours later, she’s still weak. Still trembling. Still broken.
Unless she can’t heal. Not like this. Not when she’s too hungry.
The realization hits me low and hard, a cold weight in my gut. Too hungry to heal.
Shit.
My gaze flicks to her face again. Her lips are cracked, her color worse than it was. And if she is what I think she is—if she’s a vampire, and she's hungry—then we’ve got a problem. What happens when the hunger wins out? What happens when instinct takes over? My fingers brush the hilt of my sword instinctively, but I don’t draw it.
Because here’s the thing that matters: she hasn’t hurt me. She hasn’t even tried.
And if I leave her like this, she’ll die.
Aria stirs again. Her lips move like she’s speaking in a dream, but no words come out. I watch her brow furrow, see the flicker of fear pass over her face like a shadow. Another nightmare. And I’m just sitting here, arguing with my own damn conscience while she bleeds out beside me.
I sigh, dragging my pack closer, fingers brushing over the straps. Normally, I’d already be gone. Travel light. Don’t get involved. Don’t stay anywhere long enough to get entangled. But here I am, stuck in a half-collapsed ruin with a maybe-vampire whose name I only just learned.
And still, I can’t bring myself to leave.
Something in me wants to give her at least a chance—mend that wound, keep an eye out for whoever’s tracking her.
I rub my thumb over a seam in my glove, leather worn smooth from years of habit. Then I toss a stick into the fire, watching it spark and curl into smoke.
“Alright, Roan,” I mutter under my breath, “you’re in this now.”
If someone’s hunting her then I need to be ready. Not just for her sake, but mine. I won’t get caught off guard.
But who the hell is hunting her?
That’s the part that claws at me.
Hunters? Mercenaries like me? Or is it something worse— her own kind ? That thought sticks sharper than I expect.
I’ve never had to fight a vampire before.
The stories are always the same: faster than a blink, stronger than ten men, and clever enough to make you think you’re safe—until your blood’s already on their hands. But none of those legends account for this . For a girl curled in on herself by a fire, clutching a bandaged wound, half-starved and shaking in her sleep.
She doesn’t look like something out of a nightmare. She looks like someone still trying to wake up from one.
“You’d best not make me regret this,” I murmur, my voice low—part warning, part wish.
She doesn’t stir again. The only answer I get is the wind whistling through the cracks in these ancient stones. Staring at the small fire, I slip into a rhythm of waiting—listening for footsteps, scanning for flickers of movement.
She’s not a job, I remind myself. She’s a person in trouble.
I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know what she is, or what I’ve signed myself up for.
But I do know one thing: I made a choice. I stayed.
And until she’s back on her feet again—strong enough to stand, to look me in the eye without swaying—I’m not going anywhere.