CHAPTER NO 1
The Girl in the Wooden Box
Rain fell like broken glass against the world. A narrow alley cut through the heart of a small, ruined town, where lamps flickered weakly behind curtains that never opened. On that night, a child's cry split the air.
Inside an old wooden box, a newborn girl shivered beneath the storm. Her hair glimmered strangely—white at the roots, pale pink at the ends, like dawn trapped in silk. Her skin glowed faintly, too pure for the dirt that clung to her. Her eyes, when they fluttered open, reflected a blue so deep it seemed almost violet. She did not yet know her name, nor why her parents had left her there, whispering curses about wanting a son before vanishing into the rain.
Hours later, a man trudged down the road. He was poor, wrapped in patched cloth and carrying an empty basket for the market. His name was Elias—a widowed craftsman whose wife could no longer bear children. When he heard the faint cry, he stopped, bent down, and lifted the box. Two tiny hands reached toward him, desperate and shaking.
"She's freezing," he murmured, pressing her close to his chest. "You poor thing."
Elias took her home to a small cabin by the river. He warmed milk, wrapped her in his old coat, and whispered, "You'll be my daughter now. I'll call you Selene—for the moon that watches lost souls."
Years passed like quiet pages turning.Selene grew into a radiant child. She helped Elias carve toys to sell in the village. Every morning she ran through fields of silver grass, laughter echoing across the water. He never told her she was not his by blood; he loved her too much to let that truth steal her smile.
But fate seldom lets happiness stay unbroken.
On Selene's fourteenth birthday, Elias didn't return from the woods. The hunters found his cart overturned, his lantern shattered. No body, no farewell—only silence. When the news reached her, Selene felt the world collapse in her chest. Her stepmother, too weak to bear grief, turned her anger toward the girl."You," she spat, "you brought this curse upon him. You and that unnatural hair."
That night, the woman packed Selene's clothes into a trunk and left her at a distant boarding school, never once looking back.
The academy gates loomed like a prison. The other children whispered as she passed."Monster.""Cursed."Even teachers stared too long. Some crosses were drawn as she walked by. Selene learned to hide her eyes behind her hair, to move quietly, to breathe softly enough that no one would notice her existence.
At night she lay in her narrow bed, watching moonlight pool through the window. Sometimes she thought she saw shadows ripple there—long, reaching shapes that seemed to listen when she cried.
"Why am I here?" she whispered to the dark. "If I'm a curse… why did you let me live?"
The moon offered no answer, but the wind through the glass whispered her name, low and gentle: Selene…
She shivered. The sound wasn't in her mind—it came from somewhere beyond the wall, from a world she couldn't see.
Outside, the night trembled. Far beyond the human realm, in a land where rivers ran with silver blood, a vampire princess looked up from her throne, red eyes narrowing.A pulse—soft and unfamiliar—brushed against her heart.
"Who dares call my name?" she murmured.
And though neither knew it, in that single moment, two worlds began to turn toward each other.