Kael remained motionless for a mont, the cold still pulsing around him like a living organism. The alley was unrecognizable: walls glazed with ice, the floor covered in thick, cracked layers, the air so cold that each breath escaped in dense clouds. In the center of it all, the vampire remained trapped up to his neck, eyes wide, jaw tense, his whole body trembling—not only from the cold, but from the belated understanding of where he had gotten himself into.
Kael turned slowly to him.
"What do you think you’re doing," he asked, his voice low, almost casual, "in the Human Empire?"
The vampire swallowed hard. His eyes moved quickly, from Kael to the girl behind him, and then back. There was anger there. And fear. A lot of fear.
"I’m just... doing my duty," he replied, trying to maintain a shred of dignity. "Hunting a traitor."
Kael raised an eyebrow.
"Traitor," he repeated, as if testing the word in his mouth.
He finally cast a closer look at the girl leaning against the wall. She was propped up on one arm, the other pressing against her injured side. Her face was still pale, her lips stained with dried blood. Her aura... Kael frowned slightly.
It was weak.
Not just weak by vampire standards. Too weak.
So weak that, at first glance, he had actually mistaken her for an ordinary civilian. There wasn’t that pressure in the air, that predatory presence typical of the species. Her energy was erratic, unstable, almost... human. The kind of fragility that wouldn’t survive five minutes in a clan war.
Kael tilted his head, assessing her more carefully.
"This... weak woman?" he murmured. "She’s just a little girl." Kael said.
The girl imdiately lifted her face, her crimson eyes gleaming.
"I’m not weak," she growled, her voice trembling with pain, but laden with indignation. "And I’m not a little girl."
Kael blinked, surprised—not by the response, but by the intensity.
"Little girl," he repeated, still looking at the vampire, not at her. "That’s exactly what it looks like."
She clenched her teeth, her body tense, clearly offended. Her pride bled more than her wounds.
The vampire laughed. A short, bitter sound.
"See?" he said, spitting out frozen words. "This has nothing to do with you. Step aside. She belongs to our world. To our judgnt."
Kael sighed.
It was a long sigh. Tired. The kind of sigh of soone who has heard that exact phrase too many tis over the centuries.
"Wrong answer."
The vampire barely had ti to react.
Kael took a single step forward.
The ice cracked violently.
Kael’s hand pierced the ice that held the vampire’s right arm as if it were thin glass—and closed around the limb with absurd force. There was a dry, wet, profoundly wrong sound.
CRACK.
The arm was ripped off.
There was no clean cut. There was no rcy. Muscles tore into bloody fibers, tendons stretched until they broke with grotesque snaps, white bones erged before shattering. Hot blood gushed against the cold ice, creating a nauseating contrast of reddish vapor in the air.
The scream ca too late.
It was loud. Animalistic. A sound that no longer had language, only pure pain.
Kael threw the severed arm aside as if it were trash. It hit the frozen wall with a wet thud and fell to the floor, still twitching reflexively.
"Tell the truth," Kael said, his voice completely neutral.
The vampire howled, his body convulsing within the ice, blood gushing and freezing almost instantly around the stump where an arm had once been. His eyes were wide open, his mouth gaping in a continuous scream that began to falter as shock took hold.
"I— I can’t—" he tried to say, spitting blood.
Kael watched him for a second.
Then he reached out again.
"Do you really think," he asked, "that you’re still in a position to decide what you can or cannot say?"
The vampire tried to gather his strength. His aura exploded in a final desperate effort, cracking the ice around him, making the alley tremble slightly. It was an ancient instinct: to fight, even without a chance. To attack, even mutilated.
The ice cracked.
Kael grinned.
"Ah. So you chose to make it worse."
He didn’t rip off the other arm imdiately.
First, Kael grasped the vampire’s left shoulder.
His fingers closed slowly.
The vampire felt it. Every inch. Kael squeezed with cruel precision, crushing muscles, compressing bones. The sound was a deep, wet creak, followed by a strangled scream as the shoulder began to give way.
"Stop—! Stop, damn it—!"
Kael pulled.
The second arm ca off with even more resistance. Tendons stretched like ropes about to snap, the vampire’s entire body arched forward, teeth grinding in unbearable pain. When it finally broke, the sound was almost obscene—a dry snap followed by a wet tear.
The vampire fell forward into the ice, now missing both arms, blood streaming in thick rivers that froze in uneven layers around his torso.
Kael let his arm fall to the ground beside the other.
"Now," he said, wiping his hand on his coat with a distracted gesture, "let’s try again."
He crouched down until he was level with the vampire’s face.
"What are you doing in the Human Empire?" he repeated.
The vampire wept. There was no more arrogance. No duty. Only raw terror.
"I...I..." he sobbed. "We... received orders..."
"From whom?"
"The...the Crimson Council," he replied, his voice breaking. "She...she escaped. She is...unstable blood. A mistake."
Kael frowned.
"Unstable blood," he repeated.
He looked at the girl again.
Now it made sense.
A faint aura. Almost human. An imperfect hybrid. A vampire who didn’t fit the rigid power standards of that rotten society.
Kael stood slowly.
"So you sent an executioner ard to the teeth," he said coldly, "to hunt down a girl who can barely stand."
The vampire began to shake his head frantically.
"She needed to be eliminated—"
Kael didn’t let him finish.
Ice rose.
It covered the vampire’s mouth with a dry snap.
The scream died there.
Kael turned to the girl.
She watched him silently now, pride still burning in her eyes, but mixed with sothing new. Not gratitude. Not fear.
Recognition.
"You are not weak," Kael said, as if answering her earlier indignation. "But you are a target."
He made a vague gesture with his hand, indicating the block of ice behind them. "And that," he continued, "ans you can’t stay here."
She took a deep breath, swallowing hard.
"And him?" she asked, her voice low.
Kael looked at the frozen, mutilated vampire, still conscious behind the translucent layer of ice.
"Him?" he replied. A cold half-smile appeared. "He’ll be thinking about the choices he made. For quite so ti."
The ice began to close completely around the vampire’s head.
The night beca silent again.
Except for the girl’s heavy breathing.
Kael observed the block of ice for another second, making sure there would be no surprises there. The vampire was alive—technically—too conscious for his own good, his wide eyes trapped behind the translucent layer that was beginning to close like a crystalline coffin. There would be no rescue. Not quick, not rciful.
Then Kael turned fully to the girl.
She was still leaning against the wall, trying to maintain her posture, but it was obvious that it was more pride than actual ability. Her legs trembled slightly, her breathing was too short and irregular. Her body was at its limit. Forcing a few more steps would probably an falling face-first to the ground.
Kael took two steps toward her.
She stiffened imdiately.
"Hey—," she began, trying to move away from the wall. The movent failed. Her knee buckled slightly, and she had to brace her hand on the frozen concrete to avoid falling.
Kael frowned.
"Stay still," he said, in a tone that wasn’t harsh, but didn’t accept argunt.
Before she could truly protest, he bent down and put one arm behind her knees and the other around her back, lifting her with absurd ease. Her body was too light. Frighteningly light.
"What—!" she exclaid, her face imdiately turning red. "Let go! I can walk!" "You can’t," Kael replied simply, already straightening up with her in his arms.
She tried to struggle, but the attempt was pathetic. She lacked strength. She lacked balance. She lacked everything. She ended up just clutching his coat reflexively when she felt the world shift.
"Stop it," she muttered, looking away, clearly embarrassed. "This is... humiliating."
Kael looked down at her, then looked ahead, starting to walk out of the alley.
"Humiliating is dying bleeding in an alley because you tried to act tough when you couldn’t," he replied calmly. "This is pragmatism."
She pressed her lips together, irritated.
"I didn’t ask for help."
"I know," he said. "That’s why I’m helping anyway."
She remained silent for a few seconds, only hearing his footsteps echo on the cracked ice as they walked away. The night seed less suffocating now, but the feeling of danger was still there, clinging to her skin like a shadow.
"You have nowhere to go," Kael continued, as if he were rely stating obvious facts. "And even if you did, it wouldn’t make a difference."
She swallowed hard.
"The Human Empire already has enough problems involving vampires," he said. "Anyone else who finds you will assu you’re part of it and kill you before asking anything."
She closed her eyes for a mont.
"And they will find you," Kael added. "The Crimson Council doesn’t send an enforcer like that without keeping a close eye on him. They’re already watching. They always are."
She took a deep breath, her body finally relaxing slightly against his, as if reality had overco pride.
"So...," she murmured, her voice lower now. "Are you going to turn in?"
Kael let out a short laugh.
"If I were to do that, you’d already be dead," he replied. "Or worse."
She opened her eyes slowly and looked at him. For the first ti since the beginning of the night, there was no defiance there. No anger.
Only exhaustion.
And sothing close to relief.
"Thank you," she said, almost in a whisper. The word seed difficult to co out. Kael glanced at her, one corner of his mouth lifting in a slight, tired smile.
"You’re welco," she replied, nodding slightly.
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