First message
Iver should have died beneath the shattered archway.
The vampire struck like shadow given teeth, leaving him broken among rune-carved stones, his warded blade slick with useless silver. Cold crept in as dusk bled across the sky.
Then—warmth.
She stepped from the veil between trees, nine tails whispering like silk, eyes bright as spellfire. A kitsune. His order had named her kind deceivers.
His hand twitched toward his sword, Virel.
Too slow.
She knelt, pressing glowing hands to his ruined side. Magic threaded through him—ancient, forbidden, alive.
Warriors of the Order of Ash did not provide mercy to her kind. Yet she gave it.
And as the old wards flickered against her touch, Iver felt something far more dangerous than death: doubt. Iver passed out from blood loss but she carried him on a floating cloud of fox fire back to her home. The wound was worse than she thought. When he woke up, he was not expecting the comforting sensation of being in a plush bed. The air smelled of something familiar. A kitsune he had been tracking for years