PROLOGUE
WHEN THE WORLD CRACKED OPEN
Long before history began, the world cracked open.
No one knew what caused it—some said a star fell from the sky, others whispered that the gods were fighting. All that mattered was this: on a moonless night, a dark, swirling mist spread across the world like spilled ink. It slipped into forests, rivers, mountains… and into people.
From that mist, two new races were born:
Vampires – pale, beautiful, terrifying creatures that fed on blood and thrived in the darkness. Stronger than iron, faster than arrows, able to rip a warrior apart with their bare hands.
Witches – humans touched by magic instead of bloodlust. They could bend elements, read stars, and hear the quiet voice of the earth.
For centuries, the vampires dominated.
They built black-stone cities on top of human kingdoms. Human kings became their servants. Children disappeared in the night. Songs turned into prayers, prayers into screams. The vampires called it The Age of Crimson Reign.
The witches watched from the shadows, hiding their powers, knowing that if the vampires discovered them, they would be enslaved—or worse.
Until one witch princess decided to stop hiding.
Until she broke the oldest rule of her people:
Witches and vampires are never friends.
Never allies.
Only enemies.
Her name was Serena of Lyris.
And she fell in love with a monster.
CHAPTER 1 – WHEN A WITCH MET A MONSTER
The field stank of blood and smoke.
Serena of Lyris stood at the top of a low hill, her cloak whipping in the wind, her bare feet pressed into the trembling earth. Human soldiers lay scattered below like broken toys—some groaning, some very, very still. Torches flickered weakly against the darkness that crawled at the edge of the battlefield.
But it wasn't night that frightened them.
It was what lived in it.
They came as shadows first—blurs of motion too fast for the eye to catch. Then faces appeared between the smoke: pale skin, eyes gleaming in the dark, mouths stained red.
Vampires.
Serena drew a slow breath and lifted her hand.
Heat answered her.
Fire curled around her fingers like a living thing, hungry and bright. The human captain beside her flinched, even though he'd begged for her help.
"You should have called us sooner," Serena said quietly, her eyes fixed on the black-armored shapes moving through the human lines.
"We thought we could hold them," the captain rasped, guilt heavy in his voice.
"No," Serena said. "You thought they were just stories."
A scream tore through the night—short, ugly, cut off too soon.
Serena stepped forward, fire blazing in her palms. The air around her crackled, responding to her will. She wasn't just any witch. She was heir to the Witch Court, princess of a people the humans no longer remembered, a secret they no longer deserved
And tonight, she was done hiding.
She walked down the hill into the chaos.
Vampires turned as she passed, drawn by the heat, the scent of magic. Some lunged.
She didn't slow.
With a flick of her wrist, she sent ribbons of fire cutting through the air. Flames wrapped around attacking vampires, clinging like hungry serpents. They shrieked as their bodies burned, the sound slicing through the clash of steel and the sobs of dying men.
Humans stared at her, stunned.
A woman wreathed in fire, barefoot in the mud, eyes glowing gold. Some crossed themselves. Some dropped to their knees.
Serena ignored them all.
Because she felt it now—like a cold thread in the back of her mind. A presence in the dark. Calm. Controlled. Not feeding, not laughing like the others.
Watching.
Her steps slowed.
There.
In the center of the battlefield, standing among the dead as if the war were a minor inconvenience, was a man in black armor. His hair was dark and cropped short. His skin, even at a distance, was too pale to be human. A sword hung at his side, its edge glinting faintly red, as if it remembered every throat it had cut.
And his eyes—
His eyes were silver.
Not grey. Not blue. Silver. Like moonlight frozen into stone.
Their gazes locked across the battlefield.
He tilted his head slightly, as if surprised to be noticed, then began to walk toward her, unhurried, stepping over bodies as if they were nothing more than fallen leaves.
The vampires near him parted without a word.
Serena's fire burned hotter.
When they were only a few paces apart, she lifted her hand and hurled a blazing stream of flame straight at his chest.
The vampire drew his sword.
The steel flashed.
To her shock, the flame broke around the blade, hissing, bursting apart like water hitting rock. The heat licked his face, yet he didn't blister, didn't scream.
He slid back a step from the force—but he did not burn.
Serena's eyes narrowed. "You're not human."
A corner of his mouth curved, not cruelly, not mockingly. Almost… amused.
"And you," he replied, voice smooth and low, "are not supposed to exist."
His accent was old, from a kingdom that no longer had a name. He spoke like someone who had seen empires rise and fall and found them all equally boring.
"Who are you?" Serena demanded.
"Darian," he said. "General of the Night Legion."
Of course. Only the vampires' most elite commander would walk so calmly through a field of death.
"And you?" he asked, silver eyes flicking over her visible power, her lack of insignia, her bare feet in the bloodstained mud. "Who is the little firestorm that makes my soldiers nervous?"
She lifted her chin. "Serena of Lyris."
He stilled.
For a moment, something unreadable passed through his gaze. Recognition? Curiosity? Annoyance?
"Ah," he said softly. "The witch princess."
The title tasted sour on his tongue, but there was something like respect in it too.
Around them, the battle continued—humans shouting, vampires snarling, metal clashing—but here, in this narrow circle, the world had shrunk to just the two of them.
"I thought witches were myths," Darian said. "Stories told to scare young vampires. 'Behave, or the witches will boil your blood in your veins.'"
Serena's eyes burned brighter. "We thought the same about intelligent vampires. 'Behave, or you might meet one who can speak in full sentences.'"
His smile sharpened. "Careful, princess."
"Or what?" she snapped, power thrumming under her skin. "You'll kill me like you killed these humans?"
He glanced around, as if only now remembering the broken bodies at their feet.
"They chose to stand in our way," he said simply.
"And I choose to stand in yours," she said.
This time she didn't throw fire.
She called the storm.
The air thickened, wind whipping around them as dark clouds boiled overhead. The earth trembled. Sparks danced around her fingers, white-blue and crackling.
Darian's expression shifted—from amused to alert.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Lightning slammed down between them.
He leaped back, cloak snapping, just barely avoiding the strike. The ground where he had stood shattered, dirt and bone exploding outward. The flash temporarily blinded human and vampire alike.
When the light faded, Serena was already moving, closing the distance, palm outstretched.
He met her halfway.
Steel rang as his sword intercepted the crackling energy surging from her hand. The impact flung them both back, boots sliding through the mud. Power hummed in the air, tasting of ozone and ash.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other—two weapons that had never met their equal before.
"You fight well," he said. "For someone who hides."
"You dodge well," she replied. "For someone who murders in the dark."
Their next clash was faster.
She sent a slicing wave of compressed air; he ducked, rolled, lunged. His blade grazed her arm, cold and sharp. Blood welled, bright and hot. She hissed and blasted him with a burst of force that threw him into the side of a broken carriage. Wood splintered.
He rose slowly, armor dented, expression thoughtful.
"You could have killed me with that," he said.
"I still can," she shot back.
He studied her, then glanced up at the sky, where clouds still swirled angrily at her command.
"No," he said quietly. "You won't."
Something in his tone made her freeze.
"Why not?" she asked, suspicious.
His silver gaze found hers again—steady, unflinching.
"Because," he said, "if you were the kind of person who could kill without hesitating, this battlefield would already be empty."
She opened her mouth to argue… and found she couldn't.
Because he was right.
She was burning vampires, yes. Stopping them. Protecting humans. But every blast, every strike, every flame—she had aimed them to hurt, to push back.
Not to annihilate.
Not yet.
"You don't know me," she said.
"Not yet," he agreed. "But I would like to."
The words were simple. The way he said them was not.
It wasn't flirtation, not exactly. It wasn't a threat either. It sounded like a statement of fact, an acceptance of something inevitable.
Behind him, a horn sounded—a sharp, rising note. A signal.
Darian's eyes flicked to the source. He frowned slightly.
"It seems we are done here," he said.
Vampires began to pull back, fading into the smoke, retreating with inhuman speed. The humans, too stunned and exhausted to chase them, simply stared.
Serena's heart pounded.
"You're running?" she said.
"Strategic withdrawal," he corrected. "Besides…"
His gaze swept the burning field, the dead, the wounded, the smoldering craters her magic had carved into the earth.
"You've made your point, witch princess."
He sheathed his sword in one smooth movement, then took a step backward, into the growing shadows.
"Until we meet again," he said.
"Don't count on it," she snapped.
But even as she said it, a part of her knew she was lying.
Because long after the Night Legion vanished and the last vampire scream faded into the wind, long after the humans began to cheer weakly and whisper prayers to whatever gods they still believed in—
Serena stood alone on the blood-soaked hill, staring at the place where the silver-eyed general had disappeared.
She should have been thinking about their next move, their defenses, how to keep her people safe from the next attack.
Instead, she found herself thinking:
He didn't look at me like prey.
He looked at me like… an equal.
And that, more than the battle, more than the blood, more than the smoke choking the sky—
That was the most dangerous thing that had happened that night.