Lilith perched on the sofa, cramped and careful, the leather under her felt like a tamed beast with a rich hide she could never afford.

The thought that her backside rested on something worth more than all the coin she’d seen in her life made the Little White Dragon twitchy, and even the warm red tea in her arms couldn’t anchor her like a small hearth.

She snuck glances at the silver‑haired woman across from her, moonlight turned to steel, and waited for the other to speak first.

“How should I address you, young little dragon?” The Vampire asked, voice cool and a touch husky, like smoke over ice, and the pressure in it made Lilith answer before she could think.

“Lilith, ma’am—White Dragon Lilith.” The words leapt out, and regret followed like a shadow; she should’ve lied and called herself a Silver Dragon.

“Lilith? Whoever named you had no taste.” The Vampire’s smile was a winter blade. She sat straighter and offered a hand to the Little White Dragon.

“I’m the Vampire Princess, the true ruler of Morris—Eliza Transylvania.” She set her left hand to her chest, shoulders lifting with quiet pride, a crest unfurling. “I led Morris through thirty years of isolation. You’re the first living thing to break in. Who sent you? Kalimdo? Lirashel? Or Fiene?”

“You’ll know once you read the letter.” Lilith kept her tone level, cool water over hot stones. “It’s on your left, waiting with Lord Kalimdo’s personal seal.”

“No need. I’d rather hear it from your mouth. Why did you come to Morris?” Eliza pinched up the envelope and tore it to snow, the white scraps drifting down and dropping, each one true, into a bin tucked at the table’s corner.

Her polite smile stayed like a painted fan, and those eyes held Lilith in place like pins on silk, waiting.

“I was supposed to restore contact between Morris and Kalimdo, but from Your Highness Eliza’s tone…” Lilith watched the paper snow vanish, and the meaning in the Vampire Princess blurred like ink in rain.

Was that consent to her acting as envoy, or a stone‑cold stance to seal Morris shut?

She didn’t get it. Her thoughts ran in circles like minnows in a bowl.

And she didn’t dare ask outright; one wrong word and this princess might toss her out like a kitten at the door.

Food could wait, sure, but she still had a mountain of work in Spuiset; she couldn’t die halfway up the path.

“Speak.” Eliza’s tone cut down, cold and straight, a blade of shade.

“Lord Kalimdo asked me to repair the voice‑crystal links.”

“And?”

“I want to find a Vampire Astrologer and learn the star‑arts.”

“Hm?”

“And I’m looking for the story tied to this sword!”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

Eliza looked deep at her, a gaze like twin garnets with weight, and fell silent, the red of her pupils pressing like dusk before a storm.

Under that stare, the Little White Dragon’s skin prickled; guilt flashed, and she slid her eyes away, counting the unlit candles on the chandelier overhead like beads on a string.

Maybe Eliza had some word‑binding magic; how else could speech with her feel like thin air at high peaks?

The last time Lilith felt this pressure was Nidhogg’s shadow, cold as the abyss. Or maybe she just couldn’t handle the cool elder‑sister type.

Sadness bubbled up; she glanced at her own small feet dangling like leaves in a breeze.

In this body, every adult was a big sister towering like a pine. Was she doomed to only handle the sunshine kind like Typhon and Annie?

She peeked up, a thief of glances, and met Eliza’s scarlet eyes; terror cracked like ice, and she jerked back, even her tail springing upright like a startled cat.

She missed Tartarus; even Nidhogg would do—someone please rein in this princess and stop her from scaring the children.

A thin whimper caught in her throat, a cloud with no rain.

What frightened her most was this: she hadn’t told Eliza her true purpose.

Restoring Kalimdo’s links, seeking star‑lore from an Astrologer, even chasing legends of the Shattered Ark—none of these was why she came to Spuiset.

Her sole purpose was to find the true body of the Grim Reaper, the Nameless One.

She still remembered what the Nameless One told her: Their true body was taken by one of the three houses the Necromancer Cultists split into, but which one was a fog.

Morris was a city built beneath the ruins of the Udis capital; in Lilith’s eyes, it was a likely vault for the Nameless One’s body, a root hidden in stone.

Only by finding it could the Nameless One reveal Their full might and send Lilith back to her world, a bridge of shadow across the void.

Yet Vampires were heirs to the Necromancer Cultists; even after the Cataclysm, though the Black Sun Devouring gnawed them like winter hunger, many would still keep a base faith in the Nameless One.

Without enough faith to feed the divine engines, how could the living on the surface weave magic at all?

If they learned she’d come to steal the Nameless One’s body, she’d be mobbed like a fox in a henyard.

So she didn’t dare tell Eliza; she stacked lesser truths like screens, each true but not the heart. She could only hope the Princess wouldn’t see through the weave.

“Do you think Morris needs contact with the outside?”

Eliza spoke suddenly; the words broke her clouds, and Lilith snapped back to the room and that red gaze.

“Why not? After all, Morris is Spuiset’s capital. Vampires need a leader to keep the whole nation’s gears turning.”

Confusion swirled like dust in sunlight; what kind of ruler cuts the capital off from the cities—waiting for the house to split at the seams?

A feral smile flickered.

“Fair. You don’t understand the Vampires’ state.” Eliza set her cup down, porcelain on wood like a soft bell, and studied Lilith.

“Do you want to see it? Vampires under the shroud of the Black Sun Devouring?”

“Huh?”