Trials of the Fated (The Veilheart #1)
Prologue
The war between the fae of Syltheriel and the vampires of Noctheron had raged for decades. They fought night after night on the blackened fields of Oxhaven, a place so stained by blood and starlight that the soil singed when touched.
Each night brought ambushes and skirmishes. Each dawn, both sides retreated—the vampires fleeing the sun, and the fae returning to tend to their wounded and perform stardust rites for the dead.
Until one day, they did not wait for night.
The vampires, led by King Emris and his son, Prince Dimitri, defied the pact of nature and war.
They cloaked their soldiers in sun-shrouds, woven with blood wax and dark magic. With that unnatural protection against dawn, they attacked under the sun.
Something the fae had never imagined would be possible.
Caught off guard, the fae woke to find their camp in flames.
Kallan Rosenthal, lover and oathsworn protector of Princess Serenya Eldarien, saw only one priority: Get her out.
She fought him. Not with magic, but with resolve.
"We do not run, Kallan. Our soldiers will die thinking we abandoned them."
"You are more than a soldier, Serenya," he said. "You are what they still have to hope for."
He dragged her toward the edge of the camp, cutting through flame, fangs, and shadow.
They were almost free.
Almost .
One of the vampire warlords dropped from the trees, steel gleaming, fangs bared.
Kallan pushed Serenya out of the way, and the magic coursing through his blood ignited his blade. Fire poured along its edge, bright and fierce.
But it wasn’t enough.
The warlord’s strike split through him, steel spilling his blood.
“Kallan!” Serenya’s shadows rushed from her like a storm, wrapping around him, trying desperately to mend what her healing could not. His body failed even as her magic fought to hold him.
Serenya knelt on the ground beside him, his blood on her hands, the distant firelight flickering in her tear-filled eyes.
He cupped her face, his voice ragged. “Go. You must live. Even if I cannot.”
“I won’t lose you,” she begged, choking on tears. “Not you. Not like this.”
"I will find you...in the next life. I…swear it, Serenya."
With that vow, he fell still. His sword extinguished, the last of his light dimming into dusk.
But Kallan’s soul refused to pass into the Veil.
It fought against the pull of death. It wasn’t ready. Not yet. His light flickered with a desperate pulse, as if it couldn’t bear to leave her, even now.
Phynnera, goddess of light, watched his soul struggle. She saw the fierce determination, the way it fought, refusing to part from the one it loved. There was something extraordinary in the way his love for Serenya defied even death.
Kallan’s soul was not like the others. Phynnera had seen many souls pass through the Veil, but none had ever fought with such devotion. It was bound by love, by duty, and by something else. She had no intention of letting his light fade so easily.
“I do not return you as you were,” she whispered.
“But as you must become. This world will need you, Kallan. Serenya still needs you. The thread you share will bind you once again, but even stronger this time. However, you will no longer walk this world as fae, but as a vessel of light no one has ever borne. Through mortal flesh, I weave you anew. I brand you with my spark, so that when the time comes, you can fight for her. And when the world darkens, you will stand by her side and rise to meet it together.”
Thus, Kallan’s soul was sown into mortal blood—reborn not as a fae, but as a human bearing the light of the divine.