The moment we stepped through the ruined doorway, the familiar, chaotic symphony of Cinderfall City—the distant wail of sirens, the hiss of tires on wet pavement, the hum of neon signs—died away. Rhyian didn't lead us to the street. He guided us into the narrow, refuse-strewn alley that ran alongside my shop. The air grew colder, the shadows deeper, seeming to stretch and writhe as if alive.
"Stay close," Rhyian commanded, his hand never leaving the small of my back. It wasn't a comforting gesture; it was a leash.
He stopped before a solid brick wall, slick with grime and moss. It was the back of the old butchery, a dead end I knew intimately. I had mapped every inch of this block. There was no way through.
"A dead end," I said, my voice tight. "A poor choice for an escape."
He glanced down at me, a flicker of amusement in his silver eyes.
"You see a wall, Carys. I see a door. Your world is built on surfaces. Mine is built on the spaces in between."
He reached out his free hand and pressed it against the damp brick. He didn't push. He simply rested his palm there, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, a low hum vibrated through the ground, a sound felt more in the bones than heard with the ears. A faint, intricate pattern of silver lines, like a spider's web, blazed to life across the bricks, tracing the mortar. The solid wall shimmered, the bricks dissolving like sugar in water, revealing not the inside of the butchery, but a passage of pure, impenetrable darkness.
Rowan gasped, his eyes wide with wonder.
"Magic," he whispered, his fear momentarily forgotten.
"Of a sort," Rhyian murmured, his gaze fixed on my son's awestruck face. It was the first time I had seen genuine warmth in his expression, a flicker of pride and connection that twisted my stomach into a knot. He was already winning Rowan over with parlour tricks.
He guided us into the darkness. The moment we crossed the threshold, the world behind us vanished. The sounds of the city were gone. The smell of rain and decay was replaced by the scent of cold stone and ancient dust. The air itself felt different—humming with a low, constant vibration. It was the feeling of standing too close to a massive power generator, a clean, powerful static that buzzed just beneath the surface of hearing.
We were in a narrow, stone-hewn tunnel. The walls were smooth, almost glassy, and pulsed with a faint, internal silver light that matched the pattern on the door. This was a 'Route of the Court,' one of the secret veins that ran through Cinderfall, allowing vampires to move unseen. I had heard whispers of them from the rogue creatures I'd hunted, but I'd always dismissed them as myth. Seeing one was like stepping into the pages of a forgotten history book.
"Where are we?" I asked, my voice hushed in the oppressive silence.
"We are nowhere," Rhyian replied, his voice echoing slightly in the tunnel. "A wrinkle in the fabric of your city. These tunnels were here long before the first human laid a foundation stone in Cinderfall. We simply… maintain them."
We walked in silence for what felt like an eternity. The only sound was the soft scuff of our shoes on the stone floor. Rowan, exhausted by the night's terror and wonder, had fallen asleep on my shoulder, his small body a warm, heavy weight against me. It was a blessing. I didn't want him to see where we were going.
The tunnel began to slope upward. The faint silver light in the walls grew brighter, and I could feel a subtle shift in the air pressure. We were ascending, and fast. Far faster than any normal elevator. We were rising through the heart of the city itself.
The tunnel ended abruptly at a circular stone platform. Before us stood two immense doors of polished obsidian, easily twelve feet high, with no visible handles or hinges. As we approached, they slid apart with a whisper-quiet hiss, revealing what lay beyond.
I stopped dead, my breath catching in my throat.
We were not in a basement or a subway station. We were in a vast, open space that was clearly the private lobby of The Obsidian Gate. The floor was black marble so highly polished it looked like a bottomless lake, reflecting the breathtaking view from a floor-to-ceiling window that must have been fifty feet high. The whole of Cinderfall City was laid out below us like a carpet of glittering jewels, shrouded in mist. We were hundreds of feet in the air.
Standing silently, arranged in a formal line, was a reception party.
There were five of them, all vampires, all ancient and powerful. I could feel the aura of predation rolling off them in waves. They were dressed in immaculate, modern clothing that did nothing to hide the medieval stillness in their postures. At their head was a woman with fiery red hair coiled in an intricate braid and eyes the color of emeralds. Her expression was one of bored disdain as she looked us over, her gaze lingering on my torn clothes and Rowan's sleeping form with undisguised contempt.
"Sovereign," she said, her voice like chilled wine. She bowed her head slightly, a gesture of respect that felt more like an insult. "You have returned. With… guests."
"Serafina," Rhyian acknowledged, his tone becoming formal and cold once more. The master was back in his castle. "This is Carys Corbin. And this," he said, his voice dropping slightly, becoming laden with significance, "is Rowan. My son."
A collective, silent shock rippled through the assembled vampires. Their immortal composure fractured for a split second. Eyes widened. Jaws tightened. Serafina, the redhead, was the first to recover, but her green eyes had turned to chips of ice. She stared at Rowan, then at me, and a look of pure, venomous hatred crossed her face.
"Your… son," she repeated, her voice dangerously soft. "The product of the human pet you kept."
Rage, hot and immediate, flared in my chest.
"I was never a pet," I snarled before I could stop myself.
Serafina's lips curled into a cruel smile.
"Weren't you? It seems you've returned to your cage, little bird. This time with a chick."
"Enough," Rhyian's voice cracked like a whip. The temperature in the room plummeted again. Serafina instantly fell silent, her expression schooling back into one of neutrality, but the hatred still burned in her eyes.
"Serafina is the Seneschal of my court," Rhyian explained to me, his voice low. "She will see to your needs. You will be given the adjoining suite to my own. Your things will be brought from the shop."
"I don't want my things," I said numbly. "I want to leave."
"That is not an option," he said, turning his back on me to address his court. "The boy, Rowan, is to be afforded every protection. He is my heir. His life is to be valued above your own. His mother, Carys, is under my personal protection. Any disrespect shown to her will be considered disrespect shown to me. Is that understood?"
A chorus of soft "Yes, Sovereign," answered him. Serafina's "yes" was the last and the quietest, filled with unspoken poison.
She glided forward, her movements unnervingly fluid.
"If you will follow me, madam," she said, the honorific dripping with sarcasm. "I will show you to your gilded cage."
Rhyian placed a hand on my arm, stopping me.
"I will take them," he told Serafina, dismissing her with a nod.
Serafina's mask of composure finally cracked. A flash of raw fury and jealousy crossed her face before she could suppress it. With another stiff, venomous bow, she stepped back into line with the others.
Rhyian led me across the vast marble floor toward a private elevator. As we walked, I felt the burning weight of five pairs of ancient, predatory eyes on my back. I had not been brought to a sanctuary. I had been thrown into a nest of vipers, and their queen clearly wanted me—and my son—dead.
The elevator doors closed, encasing us in a silent, opulent box of brushed steel and dark wood. It was just the three of us again. Rhyian, me, and the sleeping child who had just been declared the heir to this terrifying, blood-soaked kingdom.
"She hates me," I stated, the words flat and toneless.
"Serafina has served me for four hundred years," Rhyian replied, not looking at me. "She is possessive of her position. She will learn her new place."
"And what is my place?" I demanded, my voice rising. "Heir-bearer? Honored prisoner? The human pet you finally decided to put on a diamond leash?"
The elevator doors slid open into a penthouse suite that made my entire apartment look like a closet. But I didn't see the luxury. I only saw him as he finally turned to face me, his silver eyes blazing with an emotion I couldn't name.
"Your place," he said, his voice dropping to a raw, intense whisper, "is by my side. Where you should have been all along."