Chapter 3 – The Prophecy of the Sun-Child

The throne hall dissolved into chaos the instant Valerian finished his declaration.

Some vampires fell to their knees in reverence.

Others hissed, fangs bared, eyes glowing like coals in the dark.

A few ancient ones in the back dressed in robes older than nations actually snarled and took a step forward, as though they might attack their own prince.

Valerian’s arms tightened around me so hard I could barely breathe.

“Silence!” he roared.

The single word cracked through the air like a whip made of ice.

Every vampire froze.

He carried me up the thirteen steps of the dais and set me gently on a smaller throne that had appeared beside his black velvet, silver moons, clearly made for a queen.

Only then did he turn to face the court again.

“Who dares challenge my claim?” His voice was calm now, but it carried the promise of annihilation.

A woman stepped forward from the front row.

She was breathtaking tall, raven haired, skin like porcelain, lips blood-red.

Her gown was liquid obsidian threaded with rubies.

A circlet of black diamonds marked her as high nobility.

Lady Seraphina de Vaux.

Even I, a human who had been in Vampyria less than a day, knew that name.

She was Valerian’s betrothed for the last two centuries.

Her smile was poison wrapped in silk.

“My prince,” she said, voice sweet enough to rot teeth, “surely you do not mean to elevate a mortal breeder above the pure-blooded daughters of the thirteen houses?”

Valerian’s answering smile was all fangs.

“Seraphina,” he said pleasantly, “the last time you spoke out of turn, I removed your tongue for a decade. Shall we make it two?”

The court inhaled as one.

Seraphina’s smile never wavered, but her eyes bled to pure crimson.

Before she could reply, the massive obsidian doors at the far end of the hall slammed open with enough force to crack the marble floor.

A figure strode through the smoke and starlight.

She was ancient hair white as moonlight, skin translucent, eyes burning silver.

Her robes were woven from night itself, constellations shifting across the fabric.

High Priestess Elowen, Keeper of the Crimson Tomes.

The entire court dropped to their knees—even Seraphina.

Elowen did not bow.

She walked straight to the dais, unrolled a scroll older than the palace itself, and began to read in a voice that echoed with power older than language.

“When the Prince of Eternal Night tastes the blood of the Sun-Born,

A child shall be conceived beneath the veil of mortal sin.

She will carry the light in her veins and the dark in her heart.

She will walk beneath the sun unharmed,

And on the day of her awakening,

The sky shall crack and the ancient king shall rise.

One path leads to salvation of the bloodlines.

One path leads to ash and endless dawn.

Choose wisely, Crown of Nocturne.

For the Sun Child comes.”

The scroll burst into silver flame and turned to ash in her hands.

Silence thicker than death.

Then Seraphina laughed high, brittle, terrifying.

“So the prophecy is real,” she said. “A half-breed abomination will sit on our throne.”

Valerian moved faster than light.

One moment he was beside me.

The next, Seraphina was pinned to the marble floor by her throat, Valerian’s boot on her chest.

“Call my daughter an abomination again,” he said conversationally, “and I will wear your spine as a belt.”

Seraphina choked, but her eyes glittered with triumph.

Valerian released her and returned to my side.

He took my hand ice and fire and raised it high.

“Let it be known,” he declared, “that any who threaten my mate or my child will answer to me personally. And I have not lost a duel in five centuries.”

The court bowed as one.

But I saw the fear in their eyes.

And the hatred.

Later, in the royal wing, Valerian carried me through corridors lit by floating witch light.

He didn’t speak until we were inside his private chambers our chambers now.

The room was a cathedral of night: black marble, silver filigree, a bed big enough for a dozen vampires, windows that showed an ocean of stars.

He set me down gently on a chaise of midnight velvet.

Then he knelt again.

“I should have told you everything from the beginning,” he said quietly. “I thought if I kept you ignorant, I could keep you safe.”

“Tell me now,” I whispered.

He took a breath that wasn’t needed.

“Five hundred years ago, our sun vanished. No one knows why. Some say the ancient king Solaris angered the gods. Some say it was punishment for our sins. Whatever the truth, vampires became prisoners of night. We can walk in moonlight, starlight, candlelight. but sunlight burns us to ash in seconds.”

He placed his hand over my belly.

“You, Harper Quinn, are the first human in recorded history whose blood carries pure sunlight. I smelled it the moment you stepped on that stage. One taste” His eyes darkened with memory. “One taste and I knew you were the Sun-Born of prophecy.”

I stared at him. “You planned this?”

“I planned to find you. I planned to protect you. I never planned to fall so hopelessly, completely in love with you that I would burn the world to keep you smiling.”

He kissed my palm.

“The child you carry is the first in history who will walk in daylight. She will be the bridge between worlds… or the weapon that ends one of them.”

I swallowed. “And the ancient king?”

Valerian’s face went very still.

“Solaris was the first vampire. My maker. My brother in all but blood. Five centuries ago he walked into the sun to end his suffering. Or so we believed.”

He looked toward the window, where the stars suddenly dimmed.

“Elowen’s reading tonight. the sky cracking on the day of her awakening. it can only mean one thing.”

He turned back to me, eyes bleeding to gold for a heartbeat.

“Solaris is waking. And when he does, he will come for the Sun Child.

Because the prophecy has two endings.

In one, our daughter saves us all.

In the other… she belongs to him.”

I laughed high, panicked, terrified.

“You’re telling me I’m caught between two immortal kings who both think they own me and my baby?”

Valerian’s jaw clenched.

“No one owns you, Harper. Not me. Not him. But I will kill him again if I must.”

He pulled me into his arms, burying his face in my hair.

“I waited five centuries for you,” he whispered. “I will not lose you now.”

That night, he held me until I fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat slow, steady, eternal.

But in my dreams, golden eyes watched me from a throne of pure sunlight.

And a voice older than time whispered:

“You were mine first, little sun.

And I always reclaim what is mine.”

Far below the palace, in the forbidden crypts where no living or undead foot had stepped in five hundred years, a stone sarcophagus carved with solar runes began to crack.

Golden light seeped through the fissures.

And something inside took its first breath in half a millennium.