9. Aria
Aria
A hush settles over our makeshift campsite as the days slip by, each one bleeding into the next beneath the thick, dappled canopy.
We haven’t made for Elden Hollow yet. We’re close enough that Roan could lead us there within two or three days, but we both know it’s not safe to move just yet—not with my strength still returning, and not when we’ve had no sign of the enforcers. That’s the danger. No signs. Roan says they would’ve left some trace if they were nearby, but I’ve lived long enough among predators to know how silence can be its own kind of warning. A held breath. A stillness that masks teeth in the dark.
So we stay.
And I try not to count the days.
Part of me dares to hope they’ve lost my trail. The rest of me braces for the moment they prove me wrong.
We’ve settled into a daytime rhythm that doesn’t feel quite like survival anymore—though it’s not safety either. Something between.
It’s a strange adjustment, feeling the sun on my skin for more than brief stolen moments. I grew up in the dark—my clan kept strictly nocturnal hours, our lives defined by moonlight and shadow. But here, in the thick of the forest, the sun’s golden fingers slip through the canopy, warming the earth, touching my face.
I don’t mind it as much as I thought I would.
Every morning, I wake to the sound of Roan cleaning her sword. It’s always the first sound I hear—metal sliding over oiled cloth, steady and deliberate. I pretend I’m still asleep, but really, I’m watching her. The way her brow furrows in focus, the way her fingers move with practiced confidence, checking every inch of the blade. There’s something reverent about it. I wonder if she even realizes how graceful she looks, lost in her routine.
When she’s done, she doesn’t announce it. She just stands, stretches in that quiet, grounded way of hers, and slips into the trees to scout the perimeter. I never ask what she sees—if she finds any signs of passage, or if she just walks for the silence—but I always listen for her return. The moment I hear the crunch of her boots, I can breathe again.
In the afternoons, we hunt rabbits. I drink their blood; she eats their flesh. We rarely discuss it, though.
At dusk, we tidy camp. Roan moves like she’s done this a thousand times—checking the edges of the clearing, reinforcing our little fire pit, brushing away footprints and disturbed leaves. She always tries to wave me off when I offer to help, muttering something about my shoulder still healing. I think she just wants to give me space to rest.
Instead, I find ways to contribute—organizing our few supplies, collecting water, tucking flat stones around the hearth to reflect the heat. It feels small, but it’s something. Some sliver of control over a world that’s been nothing but chaos for so long.
It’s at night, though, that everything slows.
That’s when we talk—truly talk. We settle around the faint glow of embers or find spots near the trees where moonlight filters through, creating strange patches of silver on the ground. Roan sits close, her sword always within arm’s reach, but her posture is relaxed in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible when we first met.
I start small, sharing tidbits from my childhood: how I learned to read by sneaking into the clan library, stolen books, secret corridors, my befriending a stray cat…and heavier things like blood slaves, expectations. Each story feels like lifting a scab off a half-healed wound, stinging and yet strangely cathartic.
Roan listens quietly, eyebrows drawn together in concentration or disapproval depending on the tale.
One evening, after the fire has burned low and the forest is hushed with that particular silence that only comes just before midnight, I gather the nerve to talk about my mother.
“My mother’s name is Lysara,” I say, voice barely above the crackle of the embers. The name lingers on my tongue like old blood—sharp and cold and too familiar. “She’s the High Matriarch of the Crimson Court.”
Roan doesn’t move, but I can feel her attention shift toward me like the slow tilt of the moon. I don’t dare look at her yet.
“I never knew my father,” I continue. “She said he was a mistake. A thing she needed at the time.” I let out a breath, bitter and too loud in the quiet. “Apparently, he gave her exactly one thing she wanted. Me.”
There’s a difference between those who are born vampires and those who are turned . The turned ones—mortals who were given the gift, or the curse, depending on who you ask—cling to scraps of their former humanity. Some of them resist the hunger for years, even centuries, before it fully consumes them.
But the born vampires? We were never human to begin with. We are raised with teeth already bared, hungering not for milk but blood. There is no “before” for us. No other life to remember.
To some, that makes us even more monstrous than the things turned vampires eventually become.
I look up, but not at her. Just past her, at the shadows shifting along the tree line. “I used to admire her. I thought she was strong because she never showed mercy, never let anyone question her authority. I thought that made her powerful.”
I swallow the tightness in my throat, my fingers curling into the fabric of my cloak. “But strength without compassion… that’s not power. That’s fear.” My voice wavers. “And the day she turned that fear on me—really turned it on me—I realized she wasn’t powerful at all. Just cold. And hollow.”
The fire snaps, sending a thin spray of sparks skyward.
“She tried to break me,” I whisper. “Because I questioned her. Because I hesitated to hurt someone she said deserved it.”
“He was new,” I say quietly, staring into the fire as if it might swallow the memory whole. “A bloodslave. Barely two days into captivity.”
Roan doesn’t speak, but I can feel her eyes on me, steady and listening.
“He was still fighting. Still screaming that he didn’t belong there. Kept calling for help, for anyone who might listen.” My voice tightens. “They caught him trying to escape. Dragged him back in chains.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly too dry. “He couldn’t have been more than sixteen.”
Roan mutters something under her breath, a curse, maybe. I glance at her. Her jaw is clenched.
“They brought him into the courtyard,” I go on, the words slipping out like splinters. “Bleeding. Terrified. He looked at me with wide, terrified eyes, and I remember thinking he still believes someone might save him. And she—my mother—she handed me a blade.”
Roan’s expression darkens, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“She said it would be a lesson,” I murmur, voice cracking. “That he needed to understand what happens to those who defy the clan. She told me to carve the warning into him myself.”
I look down at my hands. They’re trembling.
“And when I didn’t… when I just stood there, she smiled. Like she’d been waiting for it. Like she’d always known I’d fail her.”
I shake my head, breath shuddering.
“In her eyes, mercy is weakness. And weakness is betrayal,” I finish.
The silence stretches between us. Heavy, but not empty. It’s Roan who finally breaks it.
“You got out,” she says quietly. “That’s something.”
The words are simple, but they land like a blow and a balm all at once. She doesn’t say it like a throwaway comfort. She says it like a fact.
I glance at her, and the firelight catches her jaw, her cheekbones, the dark sweep of her lashes. She’s watching me, not with pity or fear—but with something heavier. Something steadier.
And something shifts inside me.
It’s the way she holds still when I speak, the way she doesn’t interrupt or prod. The way she listens with her whole body. Like she’s memorizing me, piece by piece.
For the first time, I want to kiss her.
The realization rolls over me like heat from the fire—slow, intense, all-consuming. I want to lean in and press my lips to hers. Just once. Just to know if the steadiness in her voice feels the same on her mouth. If the softness she hides beneath all that armor is real when it’s this close.
But I don’t.
I swallow hard, dragging my gaze away before she can see too much. The fire crackles between us, and I force myself to focus on it instead. Because whatever this is—whatever it’s becoming—it’s dangerous. And I’ve already led Roan into enough danger.
Another night, as the moon glimmers overhead, Roan shares more about her own life. She talks in short, clipped sentences about jobs she’s taken, battles she’s fought, the near-misses that left scars on her arms and back. “Some people say I’ve got a death wish,” she admits once, a rueful twist to her mouth. “I don’t. I just never had anything worth…staying put for.”
Her words settle into me like stones dropped into still water, rippling outward. I catch myself studying her face—the scar along her brow, the sharp line of her jaw—and wondering how someone so capable could ever believe she had nothing tethering her to life.
But I don’t push. We’ve formed this quiet pact of sorts: we share only as much as we can handle, each revelation feeling like an offering in the dark.
Each night, I tell her more—about the petty hierarchies of the Crimson Court, about ritual duels and punishments disguised as traditions. Once or twice, her hand settles on my shoulder or knee, a cautious touch that sends a quiet warmth coursing through me.
She doesn’t say much in those moments, but she doesn’t have to. Her presence is enough.
And so the days pass in a peculiar dance of routine. We measure time by the light slicing through the canopy, by the caw of distant crows. At times, a heaviness settles over us when we remember the enforcers, but we manage to brush it off, lulled by the illusion of safety we’ve carved out for ourselves.
I keep talking, piece by piece revealing the story I never thought I’d share, waiting to see if Roan will look at me differently. And every time she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t lash out, a small flicker of something sparks in my chest.
A small part of me is convinced that I’d be happy to let forever pass like this.