Prologue

Prologue Pt. 3

The child was three nights old when the world came for her.

The Vampire Queen felt it first—magic tightening like a noose around the city, wards collapsing one by one. The air tasted wrong. Old blood. Oaths breaking.

She did not panic.

She wrapped her daughter in a shroud woven with silence—spells stitched into every thread, bloodbound and burning. The baby was awake, watching, mismatched eyes far too calm.

“Listen to me,” the Queen whispered, pressing her brow to the child’s. “You must not cry. Not for anything.”

The baby blinked once.

Obedient.

Perfect.

They hid her beneath the city, far below the catacombs—

where even the dead were forgotten.

A stone cradle waited there, ancient and nameless, carved before either kingdom had a crown. 

The Werewolf Warlord stood guard as the Queen laid their daughter inside.

He had cut his palm and smeared his blood across the stone, murmuring words no wolf was ever meant to speak. The earth answered him anyway. Roots curled. Stone sealed.

The child’s scent faded—blood, moon, night—all swallowed by the deep.

For the first time since her birth, the baby whimpered.

The Queen’s hand trembled as she pulled away.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

She did not kiss her goodbye.

That would have been selfish.

They were halfway back to the surface when the first scream echoed through the city.

Not human.

Not a vampire.

Not a Wolf.

The Queen straightened, crown snapping into place like armor. “They found us faster than expected.”

The Warlord smiled without humor, already shifting—bones cracking, power surging.

“They always do.”

The Vampire Court struck first.

They came with silver chains etched in holy script, with blades soaked in consecrated blood. 

They called her abomination-maker. Traitor Queen. Mother of ruin.

She burned half the chamber before they reached her.

Blood magic roared from her veins, carving sigils into the air, tearing bodies apart with elegant cruelty. She fought like a god remembering why mortals feared her. But they had prepared.

A spear of dawn-light pierced her chest.

She fell to one knee.

Still, she laughed.

“You will never find her,” she hissed, blood staining her lips. “She will end you all.”

They beheaded her for that prophecy.

The crown shattered when it hit the floor.

Aboveground, the Werewolf Council surrounded the Warlord beneath the open moon.

They called him an oathbreaker.

They called him corrupted.

They called his child a curse.

He stood bare-chested, bloodied, unbowed.

“You fear her,” he said, golden eyes blazing. “Good. You should.”

They attacked as a pack.

He took five with him before the silver finally sank deep enough. Even as he fell, even as his body failed, his wolf howled—not in pain, but in warning.

The sound carried. Far deep into the earth.

Below the city, sealed in stone and silence, the child stirred.

The ground shuddered.

Roots tightened around her cradle, hiding her deeper, farther, safer.

Her tiny fists clenched.

For the first time, she cried.

And somewhere in the dark, something ancient listened.

By dawn, both thrones were empty.

The Vampire Queen’s line was declared extinct.

The Werewolf Warlord’s name was struck from the songs.

Their kingdoms told the story carefully:

There was no child.

There was no hybrid.

There was no bloodline left to fear.

They were wrong.

Beneath their feet slept a girl with a vampire’s stillness and a wolf’s hunger. The last of her blood.

And one day, the world would remember what it had tried to bury.

Prologue Pt. 4 

No one found her by accident.

The stone cradle had been sealed with blood, bone, and earth older than crowns. The spells were not meant to be broken—only answered.

And they waited.

Her finder was called Maereth of the Deep Roots, though no kingdom claimed her.

She was not a vampire, not a wolf, not human in any way that mattered anymore. Time had thinned her into something narrow and sharp. Her hair was the color of ash and lichen, braided with bits of bone and dried leaves. One eye was milk-white and blind. The other was dark and knowing.

She lived where the underground rivers crossed—where the world still remembered how to listen.

Maereth had been walking the deep tunnels for three days when the earth shifted beneath her feet.

Not a quake.

A heartbeat.

She pressed her palm to the stone.

Blood.

Moon.

Night.

Her breath left her in a slow, careful exhale.

“Oh,” she murmured. “You survived.”

The spells resisted her at first.

Roots tightened. Stone clenched. The cradle did not want to open—not yet.

Maereth knelt anyway.

She cut her thumb with a flint blade and let the blood drip onto the rock. It soaked in greedily—but did not glow.

“Not my blood,” she said calmly. “I know.”

She closed her good eye and whispered names long erased—

the Vampire Queen’s true name, spoken only once at coronation.

the Werewolf Warlord’s birth-name, howled the night he first shifted.

The earth paused.

Then slowly, reluctantly, it parted.

Inside the cradle lay a child who should not have lived.

She was small for her age—no longer a newborn, but not yet a toddler. Time had folded strangely around her. Her skin was smooth and pale, untouched by dirt or decay. Dark hair curled against her scalp, thicker now, wilder.

Her eyes opened as Maereth leaned closer.

One crimson.

One gold.

They focused instantly. No fear, no confusion, only awareness.

Maereth sucked in a breath through her teeth.

“Gods below,” she whispered. “They made you perfect.”

The child did not cry.

She reached out instead—tiny fingers curling around Maereth’s knuckle with surprising strength.

The tunnel filled with sound.

Not a howl.

Not a scream.

A pulse.

The earth answered it. Somewhere far above, wolves startled awake. Somewhere else, vampire wards flickered—just for a heartbeat.

Maereth yanked her hand back.

“No,” she said sharply. “We are not doing that yet.”

The child tilted her head, studying her.

Curious.

Hungry.

Maereth wrapped her in layers of silence and shadow, murmuring old protections as she lifted her from the cradle. The moment the child left the stone, the earth sighed—relieved and resentful all at once.

“You cannot stay here,” Maereth said, adjusting the weight. “They buried you to save the world. I will hide you, so you can choose what to do when you’re ready.”

As they walked deeper into the tunnels, the girl’s scent shifted—less blood, less moon, wrapped now in moss and old magic. Her eyes slowly dimmed, the glow softening to something almost human.

Almost.

Maereth glanced down at her once more.

“You will need a name,” she said thoughtfully. “But not yet. Names attract attention.”

The child yawned—and for just a second, tiny fangs gleamed in the dark.

Maereth smiled.

Not kindly.

“Yes,” she murmured. “You’ll do just fine.”

That was how the last heir of fang and claw was found.

Not by love.

Not by fate.

But by someone who knew how to keep dangerous things alive

until the world was ready to bleed for them.