Solitary Shadow City, capital of the Duskmoon Empire.

A white-haired woman in a robe of scarlet gold sat alone in a rose-tinted corridor, dusk pooling like wine along the tiles. Her right hand cradled her temple as she read a long scroll, calm as frost on jade. Her face barely shifted; only her blood-red eyes flickered, like embers under ash. Around her, deep crimson shadows quivered like fish in a dark pond, and from within came the thin wails of wronged souls, a winter wind in a sealed well.

“Interesting… a Vampire imperial palace, sealed for millennia, suddenly opens?” Crimson Goose smiled at the report passed to her. Sitting by the flowerbeds, she bloomed like a peony at full fire, and every other blossom dimmed.

“They say the Vampires stashed ten thousand years of wealth and treasure in their palace. At the Duskmoon Empire’s peak, the imperial district of the City of Woe was the continent’s most secret place, a lantern to every moth. The palace was the brightest jewel. Then the Blood Clan fell, the palace was sealed, and a barrier the previous monarch and that woman couldn’t crack in over a thousand years… broke today?”

A spark of interest lit her face, a fox catching a scent.

Compared to this capital, the palace in the City of Woe had thrived tenfold, a hive of red lanterns and whispered rites. They said it hid the Vampires’ deepest secrets. It might even hold a cure for her lingering flaw.

After devouring Edgar, she’d broken through, yes—True God-tier, and yet no Authority; thunder without a name. Worse, her bloodline snagged. She couldn’t fully digest that Vampire’s Royal Blood Reservoir, a dragon bone stuck in the throat.

She had ways to bend it to her use, and under her nurture the Royal Blood Reservoir had climbed to god-tier, a lake fed by storms. But it was never hers. She wasn’t a true royal of the Vampires.

The thought had irked her for a long season, grit in the tooth. If not for that, that woman would never have slipped her net, nor dragged Moon Elf reinforcements from the Empire’s north.

The palace opening might be a turning of fate. It might hold a way to fuse the Royal Blood Reservoir into her marrow, and then birth one that belonged to her alone.

“But… I’m a little loath to part with this palace,” she murmured, amusement rippling. “I’ve fought for it a thousand years, after all.”

She glanced at the familiar colonnades and smiled oddly, a knife catching moonlight. A delightful idea had just perched on her shoulder.

“Attend me.”

Two armored Blood Clan soldiers dropped to their knees, steel ringing like a bell in the cold air.

“Your Majesty.”

“Pass my order. Ready all three armies today. We march at dawn. Target: the City of Woe. No other force gets there first. Understood?”

“Yes!”

Crimson Goose closed her eyes and leaned against a pillar, drifting down some private river of thought. After a long breath, she waved lazily. “Go. That’s all.”

“As you command…”

They rose to leave.

The air twitched.

Before either man could blink, a deep-scarlet shadow coiled beneath one soldier like a serpent from a well. It surged up and swallowed half his body before his mind caught up.

“Aaaah—!” His scream tore like wet silk. He stabbed down with his weapon, panic beating his hands, but the shadow ate the steel as if it were sugar. The courtyard offered no answer; only the ground’s red shade seemed to laugh in ripples, wine-dark and eager. It chewed him away in gulps. It lasted only seconds, yet he felt a whole hour drown him; terror rose from his soul like black tide, and he forgot how to run.

The other soldier watched, and the world dropped into an ice pit. He shook so hard his armor chattered, but he didn’t dare move, a rabbit before a tiger’s yawn.

Only after the first was wholly gone did Crimson Goose stir, voice light with annoyance. “Tsk. After I absorbed that Vampire’s blood, my appetite keeps growing. One meal a day barely warms the stomach anymore. Sigh. Fine, off you go. I still need you to carry messages.”

“Y—yes… Your servant withdraws.” He turned, hope fluttering like a moth toward a door.

Moonlight fell like a blade. Blood-red talons slid through plate, hooked his throat, and lifted him into the air. The demon under her shadow stood revealed, a body of living crimson. His scream died before it crossed the courtyard wall.

Afterward, Crimson Goose dabbed her lips with a handkerchief, a petal wiping dew. At her feet, the shadow knowably dragged both corpses into the dark. There, bones lay in heaps like pale shells at low tide.

“As expected, eating the old way fills the heart best,” she said, half a laugh, half a sigh. “Shadow-swallowing works, but it lacks… flavor.”

“But I still need more mouths to pass the word. Next time, I’ll leash my own.” She pressed her fingers to her brow, helpless and amused.

South of Solitary Shadow City, in Crescent Moon City.

The Queen of the Blood, Qianya, had her forces garrisoned there.

Now, Qianya sat in a field tent lit like a small moon, conferring with several dukes who’d chosen to follow her. A few high-ranking Moon Elves sat with them, black hair like night reeds, faces still as water.

Months ago, during the capital incident, foreboding had lodged in Qianya first—Crimson Goose would move against her. On the road back, she’d reached out to the Moon Elves who lived north of Evernight Forest. With their aid, she’d met crimson with silver, blade to blade.

Blood Elves were once Moon Elves twisted by fate. Qianya had grown up near their groves, fireflies for childhood stars. She knew them well. If not for what happened then… she wouldn’t be queen, and her mother wouldn’t be a shadow on incense smoke.

“That’s the situation. The seal on the Vampires’ imperial palace in the City of Woe has lifted. Your Majesty, your thoughts?” Duke Fende’s face was grave, a storm held in the jaw.

Qianya’s expression stayed level as a lake under frost. She looked around, held silence a beat, then spoke. “I’ve been to that palace a few times. Its seal is strange. I looked into it. The palace seal ties to the Vampires’ imperial mausoleum. If the seal broke now, the problem lies in that mausoleum.”

Faces tightened around the tent, lantern light sharpening cheekbones like knives. Old wars with new teeth. Vampires—they knew them too well, past and present.

“If that’s true, Crimson Goose will stop at nothing to seize the City of Woe,” a duke opposite Qianya said, voice low and hard. “Your Majesty, we must reach the palace first and hold it. Even if we have to level the city, we can’t let it fall into her hands.”

“Agreed, Your Majesty. The Vampire palace must hold their secrets. We can’t let a traitor take them,” another added, heat rising like iron in a forge.

The dukes’ voices braided tight. Qianya’s fingers curled, then eased. She hesitated, a swallow caught between branches.

The Moon Elves didn’t press. They watched her, patient as night wind, letting her choose her path.

A steady-eyed Moon Elf woman broke the hush. “Xiaoya… what do you think?”

“Sister Ningqin… I want to go to the underground palace alone.”