(Author here; I do not know when I will start publish book four for the The Vampire Mary. And I holp all of my reader are in enjoy my book. have a good morning, afternoon , or night.)
The chamber still shuddered from the Codex's breath.
Mary stood apart from the circle of Weavers, her cloak in tatters, her face illuminated by the fire-glow of the restored Pages. Blood, her own and borrowed, streaked her hands. The taste of iron lingered on her tongue, but it was no longer hunger that gnawed at her — it was destiny.
She had fought monsters, betrayed kings, outlasted saints. She had carried secrets in her marrow that would have broken lesser souls. But this… this was different.
For the first time, she felt the Codex looking back at her.
Not as prey.
Not as threat.
But as equal.
The Weavers murmured around her — Els with her hand still bandaged from the flame-bite, Loosie cradling Lunara's Page as though it were her own blood, the Friend watching the Codex's shifting constellations with eyes heavy from centuries of exile.
Yet Mary felt the silence between their words. The question no one dared ask.
Would the Codex accept her?
A vampire.
A half-life.
A contradiction.
The air thickened. The Codex's pages fluttered, though no wind stirred them. A single thread of light unwound from the book and hovered, searching. Slowly, inexorably, it pointed to Mary.
The others froze.
Els's voice cracked. "No… it can't—"
But the Friend raised a hand. "It can. It must."
Mary stepped forward. Her boots scraped against the stone floor, echoing too loudly in the chamber. The Codex's thread reached her chest and lingered just above her heart.
Then it pierced.
She gasped as warmth flooded her veins, not the chill of stolen blood but something older, deeper. A fire she hadn't known she carried.
The Codex was reading her.
Her battles.
Her betrayals.
Her endless nights of regret.
Her small mercies that no one saw.
Her thirst, her shame, her defiance.
The room darkened as if every torch bent inward, sucked into the singularity of her story. She could feel her memories unfurling, not in shame, but as offerings.
The day she first woke with fangs.
The first life she stole.
The first time she swore she would never become a monster, even as she bathed in shadows.
The friends she had outlived.
The enemies who had become ghosts in her shadow.
All of it, written in her marrow, now laid bare.
And then—something new.
The Codex was not only reading.
It was writing back.
She staggered. Flames licked her vision. Voices filled her skull — hundreds, thousands, layered on top of one another like waves on a shore.
But one voice rose above them all.
A woman's. Clear. Strong. Unyielding.
"You are not absence," it said.
"You are not curse."
"You are unfinished."
The words struck like lightning.
Mary fell to her knees, clawing at the stone as if the weight of the world pressed her down. But then she understood — the Codex was not condemning her.
It was naming her.
Unfinished.
Not broken.
Not damned.
Unfinished.
The Friend knelt beside her, whispering urgently. "Mary. This is your chance. You can turn away and remain as you are — or you can accept what the Codex offers. But know this: to accept means to change. You will not return as the same creature who walked in."
Mary bared her teeth, blood trickling from her lips. "And if I refuse?"
"Then Book Three ends here," the Friend said quietly. "With ashes instead of flame."
The choice hovered in her chest like a blade suspended on thread.
She thought of those who had died for her, those she had lost to the hunger, those who had begged her to endure when she wished for nothing more than the peace of oblivion.
She thought of the Codex itself — not a weapon, not a tyrant, but a story. A story too vast to be held by saints alone.
Her story belonged.
Even if it was unfinished.
Mary thrust out her hand and seized the thread.
The chamber exploded with light.
The Pages in their vessels flared. The Vault's pulse answered from beneath the mountains. Across the Loomspire, the Weavers shielded their eyes as a torrent of fire and shadow braided itself into something neither — something new.
Mary rose, but not alone.
Behind her stood the echoes of every life she had touched, for good or ill. The thief she had spared. The child she had carried across a battlefield. The lover she had abandoned but never forgotten. Even those she had killed in hunger appeared — not to curse, but to bear witness.
Her story was no longer hers alone.
The Codex inscribed her name across its constellations.
Mary.
Not monster.
Not savior.
But Weaver.
The fire subsided.
When the Weavers opened their eyes, Mary was changed. Her skin still pale, her fangs still sharp — but the shadows no longer clung to her. They followed her, yes, but not as chains. As companions.
Loosie whispered, awe-struck: "The Vampire Weaver."
The Friend bowed his head. "So it begins."
Els, trembling, asked the question they all feared. "What does it mean?"
Mary lifted her gaze to the Codex, now glowing with a terrible serenity. "It means this war will not be won by light alone. It means my hunger is not weakness. It is a thread — and I will weave it."
Far above the mountains, the stars shifted. Constellations rearranged themselves into a shape unseen in millennia: a crown of flame. Across kingdoms and wastelands, sleepers stirred, prophets wept, and enemies shuddered in their halls.
The Book had chosen.
And with its choice, Book Three closed.
But not in silence.
In promise.
Promise of war.
Promise of redemption.
Promise of a vampire who was no longer exile, but architect.
Mary — unfinished, unbroken, unbound.