The Crimson King Novels & Stories

I looked like a dwarf beside him although I am taller than other girls, as I am five feet seven inches. “I am asking what your name is…” he said in his cold tone and I felt stupid in front of him. I thought he was staring at me but he was just waiting for my answer about my name. I breathed out heavily. My rating for delivery will go down from one to zero because he doesn't seem happy with my delivery service. Oh, shit*! “My name is… my name is... Crimson.” There! I gave him my name! I don’t like my name at all. How I wish that the orphanage named me Red or Scarlet and it was much better than Crimson.

A low hum came from her throat before she spoke again. “Innocence. You have taken it.” Her face turned into a satisfied smile before her body straightened. Her eyes grew wide and her lips began to move rapidly, like someone had changed the speed, making her mouth not match up with the words the voices were saying. “Crimson approaches and the redeemer is near. A union of great for all to hear. Crimson approaches , yet again. A guardian will meet their end. Only then can the ash rise. When blood spills, the omnipotent cry will be touched by all. Only then can the emerald truly see.”

“There are rumours.” Sera leaned back against the table. “Wonderful. I love rumours. Usually, they end with someone dismembered.” “People are saying Husen Vale crossed into the southern ruins.” Silence. Even the nearby soldiers stopped moving. One name. That was all it took. The Crimson King. Monster of the north. Executioner of Blackwater Settlement. She remembered the aftermath of that massacre vividly. Smoke. Blood. Bodies frozen in the snow. She’d been thirteen. And ever since then, she wanted to kill Husen Vale slowly. The vampire is responsible for hundreds of deaths beyond the walls. Possibly thousands.

Above them, the full moon slowly disappeared behind a spreading crimson shadow, bathing the kingdom in an eerie red glow that seemed to stain the heavens themselves. An unnatural silence settled over the crowd. Even the wind seemed to have abandoned the castle, as though nature itself understood the significance of this night. For more than a thousand years, every Vampire King had performed the Crimson Vow beneath the Blood Eclipse, allowing the ancient magic to summon the woman destined to become his queen. Never once had the ritual failed. It was older than the empire itself, older than the oldest vampire alive, and its judgment had never been questioned. Standing at the center of the ritu

He closes the door behind him gently and then he walks down the stairs and into the kitchen. Behind him, in the bedroom Blake unhurriedly opens his eyes, his red eyes glimmering in the darkness of the room. ***** Cassandra walks down the corridor heading for her quarters, the dark stone walls of the palace walls unsettling as they always have, as she turns the corner she comes face to face with Ophelia, a fellow witch and also the bane of her existence.

She flips one open, showing us the colored edges where half the pages have been ripped out. “These keep talking about the Crimson Moon Queen. They don’t call them curses. They are described as shifters the goddess sends down on purpose.” She points at a jagged tear. “Right here, you can see mentions of ‘Crimson-born’ People with crimson eyes. Zhodin’s name is all over the early and later parts. It’s like every time a story of a cursed being comes up, his name or the Fenaris bloodline appears right beside it.” “How come none of us ever saw these books?” Khaisha walks over, leaning in to inspect the yellowed parchment.

He seems younger, although far more tense. “I’m a King, Crimson. What can you expect?” He growls. “And I am a Queen, and yet I am expected to bear the entire responsibility of raising that girl.” Crimson is pacing back and forth, wearing a flowing nightgown. Father turns around, his sneer bitter. “What a shame for her.” Little me tucks back behind the door, but remains, listening into her parents' conflict. “You should be around. You should be in her life," Crimson insists. She sounds so strangled and desperate. I've never heard her so out of control, like her life is slipping away through her fingers, and she is fighting to get it back.

“There are two differences between you and I.” “I do what is necessary to protect members of this land. Friends and foes alike. But you’re all in it for the power. Secondly, I am a true Crimson, something you can never be. Only a crimson Alpha can sit on the throne without turning to ashes.” “THEN LOOK AT MY PUPILS.” Duncan’s veins bulged from his neck as his eyes shone crimson, similar to Rhaella’s but dimmer. “I almost have the eyes of a crimson. I am almost a crimson. I can sit on the blazing throne without being burnt.”

We talked amongst ourselves, some conversations revolved around tomorrow, some were meaningless, and others were about how they missed home. I watched as Crimson stood off to the side, watching the darkness that enveloped our army. The werecat king was lucky Chakor found him and was able to heal him and he had been thankful that though Cambiador was once again in ruins, Tawny had survived, and his cubs were safe. “What do you sense Crimson?” Morgan asks, standing from her place beside Hunji and walking over to him. With hands on his hips his attention still on the darkness, he replies “I’m not sure.”

I watch it all play out on her face in the span of a heartbeat. The King raises a hand, regal and commanding. His voice booms from the gilded balcony above, echoing through the ballroom like the chime of a thousand bells. “Welcome,” he announces, “to the Crimson Solstice.” His speech is ceremonial, thick with old words and older meanings. He speaks of change, of harvest, of transitions... of life and death and rebirth. Of cycles turning once more. But I hardly hear him. I feel Lucian tense beside me. When the speech ends, the crowd applauds with polite reverence, and the celebration resumes... but not for us.