Elena fled. The door closed behind her.
Leaving Alaric and Lilith alone.
The pressure in the room remained. Pinning Alaric against the wall.
Lilith took a step forward.
Then she paused.
Her eyes narrowed. Studying him with sudden focus.
"You're not him."
The words ca out flat.
Before Alaric could process.
Her fingers snapped.
Reality lurched.
And Alaric vanished.
Lilith stood in the now-empty room, staring at where Alaric had been monts before.
Her expression shifted from predatory interest to irritation.
Then she sighed, long.
Her hand ca up, rubbing her temples. "All that hassle of weakening the seal. And he just—"
She pinched the bridge of her nose, her crimson eyes closing briefly.
"Ishtar," she muttered. "You had to ruin my plan, didn't you? Couldn't let have this one simple thing."
She stood there for several more heartbeats.
Then she straightened. Smoothed her dress.
"Fine," she said to the empty room. "If you wants to play difficult, we'll do this the hard way."
She turned and walked toward the door. Opened it.
Elena stood just outside, pressed against the corridor wall, one hand still on her throat, clearly having been listening despite her earlier escape.
Their eyes t.
Lilith's expression was unreadable. "Go and release that vampire girl."
Elena's hazel eyes went wide. "But I thought, you said her essence was important for—"
"Plans change." Lilith's voice carried edge that suggested further questions would be unwise.
"I got what I needed from her. She's no longer useful here."
She paused, then added almost as afterthought, "And make sure she doesn't rember the extraction process. Or anything that happened after the cathedral. Just... the attack. The capture. Then waking up sowhere unfamiliar."
"Yes, my lady." Elena bowed quickly.
Lilith moved past her, heading down the corridor toward her private chambers. "Do it now. I have other matters to attend to."
Elena watched her go. Then turned and hurried in the opposite direction, toward the holding rooms.
---
The room was small. Sparse. Just stone walls, a single chair bolted to the floor, and essence-suppression formations carved into every surface.
Nyra sat unconscious in the chair. Her wrists and ankles cuffed. Her head slumped forward, breathing shallow but steady.
She looked... diminished. Paler than usual. Thinner. Like sothing vital had been drained away, leaving only shell behind.
Elena entered quietly. Studied the unconscious vampire for long mont.
This is Alaric's attendant. His... whatever she is to him.
The girl who'd fought alongside him at the Academy. Who'd tried to protect him when Lilith attacked. Who'd been captured and used and—
And I'm letting her go.
Elena moved forward. Her hands worked the cuffs.
The restraints fell away with soft clicks.
Nyra didn't stir. Still deeply unconscious from whatever sedatives or techniques had kept her under for months.
Elena stepped back. Her hands moved in practiced gestures, essence flowing into formation patterns that burned purple in the dim light.
A portal ford. Swirling darkness that led sowhere. Elena had set the destination coordinates for neutral territory, far from the cathedral, but close enough to civilization that Nyra would be found.
She grabbed Nyra's unconscious form, lighter than expected, further evidence of how much had been taken and threw her through the portal.
Nyra's body disappeared into the swirling darkness.
The portal collapsed behind her.
Elena stood alone in the empty holding chamber, staring at where the portal had been.
"Why did my lady want her released?" she muttered to herself. "What changed?"
No answer ca.
She turned and left the chamber and headed back through corridors toward the exit.
Toward fresh air and space to think about everything that had just happened.
About Alaric waking up and imdiately attacking her.
About the way his crimson eyes had looked, cold, ruthless, dangerous.
About how part of her had been excited by that danger rather than purely terrified.
What's wrong with ?
She pushed through the cathedral's side entrance.
And tried very hard not to think about the unconscious boy who was in the guest chamber.
*****
Alaric blinked.
And saw only darkness. Complete, absolute darkness surrounded him on all sides.
Where the hell am I?
The thought ca sharp with confusion and growing unease.
He tried to orient himself, to understand what had just happened.
One mont he'd been in a chamber, Lilith standing before him, her eyes narrowing as she said—
"You're not him."
Then her fingers had snapped and—
He was here.
Could I be—?
The thought cut off abruptly as sensation flooded back. The feeling of his skin. His body. Not observing from outside, not watching mories play out before him, but actually inhabiting physical form.
No, he realized with certainty. I'm not in any mory or anything.
But where?
He looked around, or tried to. The darkness was so complete he couldn't see his own hand in front of his face.
Need light.
He then concentrated his essence.
A small fla sparked to life in his palm.
Providing enough illumination to see his imdiate surroundings.
And what he saw where rough sone walls.
Which curved around him on all sides, forming passage or corridor that extended in both directions into darkness his small fla couldn't penetrate.
Is this a cave?
He started walking. Kept one hand trailing along the stone wall, using it as guide while his other hand held the flickering fla.
Moving forward because standing still achieved nothing, because understanding required exploration.
His mind churned as he walked. Processing. Trying to make sense of everything he'd witnessed.
Those were the mories of the owner of this body.
His face cycled through emotions as the mories replayed in his mind.
"Unbelievable..." The word escaped as barely audible whisper.
"That's... I'm—" He struggled to articulate the growing understanding.
Brandon and the others. Serana, Elara, Thaddeus, even Lilith in her role as family friend. They weren't just powerful beings who'd existed in this world's history.
They were different.
The way they spoke. The casual references to things that didn't quite fit. The concepts that seed slightly off from this world's baseline.
"They're not from this world. Right?"
The question hung in the darkness.
And if that was true, if they were extraplanar entities or dinsional travelers or whatever the truth was—
Alaric ran his hand through his hair. The fla in his other hand flickered with the movent.
He sighed.
"This is so much more complicated than I thought."
Because he'd assud when he woke in this body, that the use and presence of essence was already a big thing...
But now?
Now he was realizing this might be sothing else entirely. Sothing that—
ROAR!
A sudden sound exploded through the darkness.
Reverberating off stone walls with force that made them vibrate.
Alaric froze.
His fla flickered wildly from the pressure wave the roar created. Nearly went out.
The sound echoed. Bounced between walls. Ca from ahead of him, deeper into whatever this cave system was, but impossible to tell exact distance in these acoustics.
What the hell was that?
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