Chapter 35 Malachi
Malachi
The moment the door closed behind me, I leaned back against it and exhaled.
She was too quiet. Too soft in that bed. Every instinct in me wanted to go back in.
But I didn’t. Because if I did, I wouldn’t leave.
My skin still smelled like her—the clove-sweet water, the echo of her heartbeat against my chest. My hands, still damp, remembered the curve of her spine, the silk of her hair sliding through my fingers.
The way she pressed against me—soft and sure—like she believed I was built to hold someone like her. I wasn’t. Gods, I wasn’t.
I shouldn’t have gotten in with her.
But she’d asked. And I was too far gone to say no.
What was happening to me?
My footsteps echoed down the corridor, slow and heavy. I raked a hand over my face.
It wasn’t just desire. That would’ve been easier.
It was the way she looked at me. Trusted me.
The way she let herself be held. I’d carried her like she was fragile, when she was anything but.
She’d survived horrors the rest of us only spoke of in whispers.
And yet, she still made me feel something I hadn’t let myself feel in centuries.
That was the danger.
There was something primal between us—something I couldn’t name but felt in the marrow of my bones. A pull I’d spent too long resisting.
She was never supposed to matter. Not like this.
I’d touched her body. Washed the blood from her skin. Felt the weight of her trust like a blade at my throat. And gods help me, I wanted more.
I passed two corners before I realized I’d walked straight past Lysara’s chambers. Cursed under my breath, turned back.
When I reached the door, I knocked once—twice. Loud enough to wake her if she’d already turned in.
“Lysara,” I called. “I know it’s late, but—”
The door opened. Santiago answered. Hair mussed, shirtless, eyes bleary—but grinning.
“Uh. This is not what you think. Also, why do you smell like a field of flowers?”
I stared at him for one long, painful beat.Then let my gaze drop deliberately to the bruising on his shoulder and the red scratch trailing down his ribs.
“Did the cat win?” I asked flatly.
He looked down at himself, then back up, unfazed. “She fought valiantly.”
“I bet.”
Before he could retort, Lysara appeared behind him, robe hastily tied, cheeks pink. She stepped forward, her eyes already scanning mine. “What is it, Malachi?”
I hesitated.“She’s… changing,” I said quietly. “Kaelith gave her something—a sedative, he said. To keep her calm while it begins.”
Lysara stiffened. She didn’t need me to explain; she could feel it.
“Her skin was colder. Her pulse weaker. And it wasn’t easing, it was sinking deeper, like it meant to root itself in her bones.”
I dragged a hand down my face, already turning over the only path left.
Kaelith had shifted the balance. If I couldn’t stop what he’d begun, then I had to learn how to sever it—or keep him from claiming more than he already had.
The Nightmother. The old bonds. The first Vampyres.
Somewhere in their histories lay an answer.
Lysara’s lips parted, but no sound came.
“She needs someone with her. Someone who can anchor her if she wakes in the middle of it, confused and afraid. And someone who knows what signs to watch for if the change accelerates.”
Lysara’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’ll go.”
I glanced past Lysara, to Santi leaning in the doorway behind her.“And if something shifts physically, if there’s pain, he should be there. Just in case.”
I nodded once and turned before either of them could see too far past the cracks I hadn’t patched yet.Because if they did… they’d know I was afraid. And I didn’t know if it was for her—or of her.
“Malachi, wait.” Santi’s voice rang out, quieter than usual. I didn’t turn, but he caught up to me anyway, stepping into my path.
“We all know she’s more than what we see,” he said. “We all care for her.”
“I never said I cared for her,” I answered too quickly. “I care about what happens to Nyxarra. To the realms she’s tied to. If she turns into something we cannot manage…” I let the words hang, sharp and unfinished. “We’ve all seen the hints. “Her power isn’t dormant,” I said. “It’s restrained.”
Santi blinked. “Restrained?”
“She carries something old,” I continued. “Older than Kaerani’s flame, older than Sylvara’s bloom. Older than the goddesses themselves. The Veil answers her. Shadows reach for her. Gabriel bowed without hesitation. That isn’t new magic waking. It’s ancient power remembering.”
Santi swallowed hard. “You think she’s dangerous?”
“I think she was never meant to be contained,” I said quietly. “And Kaelith knows it.”
If he pushes her into the next phase—if he finds a way to bind her true inheritance, then he won’t just wield her power. He’ll command it. Shape it. Claim every breath of the Nightmother that still lives in her.”
Santi’s jaw clenched.“What does that mean?”
“It means Kaelith is no longer after just a bond,” I said, voice dropping to a whisper.
“The vampyric ritual ties bodies. Blood. Mortality.” I met his gaze dead-on.
“But the power in her isn’t blood-deep. It’s soul-rooted.
Nightmother-rooted. And there’s a binding older than the goddesses that can seize power like that and twist it into obedience. ”
Santi paled. “The First Binding.”
I nodded once.
“If Kaelith finds a way to lay that oath over her—if he binds her inheritance to himself—he won’t just use her power.
He’ll direct it. Shape it. Command it. And no one, no goddess, no army, no realm, will be able to stop him.”
Not even me.
The halls of Nyxarra had a different voice at night.
Gone was the din of politics and posturing, the rustle of silk and whispered maneuverings.
What remained was quieter, and heavier. The sconces along the corridor burned low with blue flame, casting tall, warped shadows across the stone.
My boots echoed too loudly, each step another reminder of the weight I carried with me.
I made my way toward the northern wing. The library.
“Seraphine.”
Her feet were propped on the table, one hand twirling a quill as she blew a lazy puff of violet smoke toward a lantern. Her onyx skin shimmered with residual magic, and her eyes sparked when she saw me.
“Well, well,” she said, swinging her boots off the wood. “You look like someone sat on your favorite dagger.”
“I need books,” I said, ignoring the bait.
“You wound me, Malachi.” She grinned, sliding off the table. “Not even a ‘how are you, Sera, you immortal wonder of knowledge and mischief’? You must be in a mood.”
“I’m always in a mood.”
She snorted. “Fine. What flavor of doom tonight?”
“The Nightmother,” I said. “Anything on her. And the Vampyres who followed her. And…” My jaw tightened. “Anything tied to the Moirae name.”
That gave her pause.
“Oh,” she said, tone shifting. “Bedtime stories are an odd request coming from you. What exactly are we looking for?”
“Truth.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she nodded and moved through the stacks.
Ten minutes later, she returned with a worn leather volume—spine cracked, edges gilded and flaking. She set it down in front of me with a smirk. “This one stayed hidden,” Seraphine said, tapping the cracked spine. “Kaelith banned it after the rebellion.”
I frowned at the cover. “This looks like a children’s book.”
She shrugged. “Well, yes, I disguised it as such to prevent it from being added to the burn pile. Truth spun pretty. Easier to swallow. You want answers? They’re in here.”
“I didn’t ask for a fairytale.”
“No,” she said, tapping the page. “But fairytales are just prophecies dressed in rhyme. Now hush and read, broody beast. You’ll like this one.”
The Nightmother
(As told by the Keepers of the First Flame)
There once was a woman of the night,
who walked alone among stars and secrets.
But she was not lonely.
Because she was all things—
Everything and nothing in between.
She held the dark
The first breath of silence,
the last kiss before sleep.
Until one day,
she met a man.
A man who loved her
like the trees love the sun—
always reaching,
always burning.
And she, the dark eternal,
loved him in return.
But the world would not allow such a thing.
So she did what many do
for love that is doomed—
she broke herself apart.
From her heart, she made Kaerani,
of fury and flame, passion and renewal.
From her breath, she made Sylvara,
of root and rot, bloom and harvest.
From her tears, she made Nerissa,
of tide and mercy, love and punishment.
And from her secret name,
the one no god had ever spoken—
she made Eryndis,
of veil and knowledge,
keeper of what should never be known.
Each daughter was a piece of her.
Each a gift.
Each a curse.
But there was one gift more.
Before she vanished into myth,
the Nightmother bore her last children—
two sparks split from the same dusk:
one of shadow-touched sun,
one of light forged in silence.
Not god. Not mortal.
The Nightmother’s line was hidden.
Scattered. Hunted.
But always marked.
Always watched.
Because one day,
the Nightmother whispered,
a daughter born of her blood and the mortal world
would awaken—
and when she did, silence would no longer sleep.
And when the world forgets balance again,
she will rise—not in wrath, but in silence.
The kind of silence that remembers.
The kind that does not ask permission.
The kind that reshapes the stars.
I sat, saying nothing for a long time.
Seraphine didn’t speak either, though I could feel her watching me. Eventually, I closed the book.
“That’s not a history,” I said, voice low. “It’s a warning.”
“It’s both,” she replied, gentler now. “You wanted truth, Malachi. You got it.”
Seraphine leaned back against the table, folding her wings. “Gods hand out licenses,” she snorted. “Marks. Permissions. Rules.”
Her eyes flicked back to the open page. “But some things are born owning themselves.”
I stood, jaw tight, eyes still on the curling script. “She’s part of it,” I said. “That bloodline. That story.”
Seraphine didn’t answer. But she didn’t need to.
“She doesn’t know,” I muttered.
Seraphine sighed, almost weary. “She knows enough to be dangerous. The way she touches old words without meaning to, the way shadows respond to her—those aren’t accidents. She may not understand it, but something inside her does.”
I let my hand rest on the leather cover, rough with age.
There were threads in this tale that matched the shape of her. It was myth—but not just myth. And if even a thread was true… Then Kaelith wasn’t just claiming her power. He was trying to harness something older than the goddesses themselves.
Something made of dark. Something the world had tried to forget.
“What happens,” I said quietly, “when that darkness wakes?”
Seraphine looked at me then. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Then, Malachi,” she said, “we remember why children fear the dark. Not for what they see, but for what waits when the light goes out.”