[Blood dripped down my arm. Something about watching it makes me feel calm.]
Footsteps approached from the darkness and into my dormitory.
A girl crouched in front of me; her bold eyes studied the blood on my arm with hunger.
"Don't waste your pretty little blood," she said.
Her face started to flicker, and a creepy smile spread across her face.
She grabbed my wrist.
Her fingers were cold.
The room started shrinking.
"Please kill me." She murmured.
Her voice echoed again and again… and again.
Her eyes turned black.
I gasped and shot awake, my heart hammering against my ribs.
[Why do I keep having this dream? I thought. Why does she want me to kill her?]
[Why is she so desperate?]
"Please kill me." A chill ran down my spine as I recalled those words.
A sharp knock at the door interrupted my thoughts.
I rubbed a hand over my face. My throat felt dry.
"Come in," I said, my voice rough from sleep.
The door creaked open, and my personal maid entered, bowing her head.
"Good morning, sir."
"Morning."
She glanced at me, her eyes lingering on my face as if she had noticed the fatigue there.
"Would you like to have a bath?" she asked.
I tugged at my hair in frustration. "No. Not yet. I must go and visit Kiara first."
"As you wish, sir."
She closed the door with a soft click behind her, leaving me alone with the lingering unease of the dream. I sat there for a moment before rising, slipping on a robe, and making my way towards the scarlet chamber.
The hallway was dim, and my footsteps echoed on the marble floors.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Finally, after walking for what felt like an hour, I arrived at the scarlet chamber.
[I'm sure you are wondering what it is. This room stores the bodies of royal vampires who are hibernating. Yes, we do, in fact, hibernate like bats. Although it lasts 50 years for us, there have been cases where we have slept more than that.]
I opened the door with care and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. Then I looked around and made my way to her crystal coffin. I gazed at her pale figure; she looked so fragile in that state. My eyes lingered on her, filled with a quiet, aching devotion, the kind that had endured years of waiting without ever fading.
I lifted my hand and placed it on her coffin.
"Kiara… why do you want me to kill you…?" I questioned, as if I would get the answer right away. "How long must I wait for you? Will you ever wake up…? Will I ever get my question answered? I love you, Kiara. Please come back… I'm waiting here as you told me to."
I stood there, hoping for a miracle that she would wake up, hoping she would give me the answer to everything I would like to know.
The door cracked open, and footsteps echoed behind me. I knew who it was; I didn't know how, but somehow, I had memorised them. Maybe they sounded the way she once did.
I felt a hand squeezing my shoulder.
"There you are, son! I should have known that you would be here." Said Desmond, standing right next to Xavier.
I forced myself into a deep bow before the emperor, holding it longer than necessary.
"There is no need for such formality. You may rise."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
I straightened and bowed my head in a respectful manner.
"Your Majesty… is there something you wish of me?" I asked with hesitation.
"Ah—yes! Tonight's the black grid tournament. Even though you're not royalty on paper, participation is mandatory. After all, you are to marry my daughter."
"I cannot be certain, your majesty; I have not got a confession of love from her yet."
"Xavier, she is my child, and I for certain know that her answer is yes." A faint yet knowing look crossed his face, warm yet unwavering.
I gave a soft smile. "Then, I must make sure to give my best performance."
"I'm looking forward to your participation."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
Desmond's gaze landed on Kiara's coffin.
Silence.
"Son, she'll wake up soon… My daughter is strong." A look of hurt crossed his face.
"Yes, I know, your majesty, it's that a hundred years doesn't seem normal." My gaze landed on the floor.
"The doctors are trying their best to figure out what's wrong. They will find something soon," Desmond reassured me.
My voice softened almost like a whisper, and I plastered a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes, "Yes…" My eyes—full of unspoken words. A faint crease between my brows.
"Anyway, good luck. Make sure to win the tournament," Desmond said with a hollow laugh.
"Yes, Your Majesty—"
A loud sound of something blowing up came from beneath the floor. The castle shook, making the emperor and me lose our balance. A deep tremor rolled upwards through the stone. The walls shook, and dust fell from the ceiling. The sound echoed through the corridors like thunder trapped underground.
"W-what was that?!" yelled Desmond.
"I'm not sure, your majesty; it seems like it came from underground..."
The intruder alarm echoed throughout the castle.
"The Emris!!!!" shouted Desmond.
We both ran towards the underground vault. High-ranking imperial knights were right behind us.
[You might be thinking what the deal is with the Emris; the truth is, we do not know, but there is a tale that somewhat relates to it. Let me narrate it for you.]
Once upon a time, a vampire was born. How it was born was a mystery; they say it had no mother or father. Then how could it exist? Even if it had evolved from something, wouldn't it have a mother and father?
Every vampire learns this story the moment they taste their first drop of blood—the tale of how our kind began. You would think that out of the billions of vampires that walk this earth, someone would have uncovered the mystery, right?
Vampires have always been smarter than humans. They created inventions long before humans understood their moral implications. And yet, even in the 18th century, when they could craft things beyond human ability, they could not uncover this one truth.
Back in the 13th century, there were rumours of a man who figured out the reason why the first vampire came to be. But that man no longer exists, and shortly after, the oldest vampire, believed to be immortal, vanished completely.
A stone was all that they left behind; they called it the Emris. Far stranger than the oldest vampire, it drove whoever came near it to madness. The imperial family of our empire, Inra, took precautions by locking it away within a vault in Cadell Palace.
Humans do not know of its existence… they never will.
[I don't care about the tale. All I want is peace and Kiara. To achieve that, I must take care of this empire and the stone it holds.]
Dust and smoke filled the hallway. The loud clang of armoured boots on the floor drowned out a faint cough from inside.
The vault—once a breathtaking construction designed to withstand the Emris—now stands in ruins. What was once an architectural masterpiece for protection is now shattered stone, twisted metal, and dark smoke.
It was destroyed.
The Emris had disappeared.
"Your Majesty, what should we do?!" yelled one of the imperial knights.
Desmond's knees gave out. "I don't know…"
"How could a powerful stone that protected disappear?" I questioned. "What happened to our cameras?! Someone, go and bring the footage!"
[Yes, we do have cameras; it depends on whoever finds this book; they might not know what it is. People use it for security, and it offers greater reliability than any individual.
"Yes, sir!"
An Imperial Knight rushed to the security room in the castle to get the security footage.
"This is a huge problem..." murmured Desmond.
"Do not worry, your majesty… the Emris is unusable; whoever the culprit is, they are bound to go insane. It might come back to us."
The emperor thought for a moment, then spoke up. "...I suppose you're right."
I helped the emperor to his feet. Right after that, a knight arrived carrying the security footage that revealed where the Emris were stored in the vault. Seeing the footage puzzled me.
"How is this possible?" I questioned, furrowing my brows.
"What happened?! Show it to me at once!" commanded Desmond.
I showed Desmond the footage, a quiet tension coiling in the room as it played.
"How can one move so fast? Someone cut the footage—there is no trace of who stole it. This is a serious problem. If we do not know who we are dealing with, we are already at a disadvantage… but—" Desmond hesitated. "As you said, we have no choice but to wait until the stone returns by itself."
"I pray nothing happens, and we retrieve the stone safely."
Desmond nodded. "In the meantime." He commanded, turning towards the knights. "We have to rebuild the vault, so pick up the materials that the explosion blew away and try to utilise them in any way possible. Work in close collaboration with the science team. Prince Kael will oversee this whole process. If he becomes difficult, the Prince Consort of Crown Princess Kiara is here; bring any problem to him."
"Yes, Your Majesty!" exclaimed the knights.
"Your Majesty—me being a prince consort is not final yet!" I whispered, yelled.
"Prince consort Xavier, everyone knows how much you two love each other; it is bound to happen one day or another." Said Desmond, ignoring all my protests.
"Still—what if Kiara wakes up and decides she doesn't love me…" My gaze fell to the floor.
"I trust my daughter too well to know that it won't happen," Desmond said, leaving no room for argument. "Besides, do not worry about that right now. What you should be worrying about is putting some clothes on… You are almost naked."
My ears burned with embarrassment.
I gave the emperor a deep bow with great respect. "My apologies, your Majesty; I shall go and dress up at once!"
The emperor let out a laugh. "Yes, go ahead; I am dismissing you."
The moment I was dismissed, I moved without hesitation. I hurried back to my chambers and called for a maid to prepare a bath. Then I sat on the edge of my bed, my thoughts circling through everything that had just happened.
[Today was going to be long—and I still had the tournament to face… hopefully, nothing else would go wrong.]
But something had happened.