Back in the Primordial Dimension, the Sanctuary where the vampire primordials were slumbering had been quiet for epochs.
The thorned archways at its borders had not been crossed since Lumi and Mearie had last walked the silver path through its halls. The dark crystal staircases held no footprints.
Inside the deepest hall of the manor, two black stone caskets sat as their owners had sat them down, side by side beneath a vaulted ceiling carved with the spirals of their shared line, lids sealed, sigils dimmed to embers, the air around them heavy with the weight of two primordials in their long sleep.
A single low note ran through the hall, ringing inside the rock of the dimension itself before it ever reached the surface.
The sigils along the lid of the larger casket woke a fraction. The embers behind the carved spirals flickered up, then dimmed, then flickered once more.
A heartbeat was answering a heartbeat.
