The morning light spilled across the walls, pale and steady, brushing the stones with the hush of routine. Eva's boots echoed faintly on the corridors as she made her way to the stables, where Lucy awaited, restless and snorting in anticipation. The mare's energy tugged at her chest, a familiar tether in the quiet.
Lucarion was not in the wing. No summons, no word. The emptiness of his absence felt deliberate, a shadowed counterpoint to the warmth of the sun.
She ran a hand along Lucy's neck, listening to the mare's steady breathing, and allowed a faint smile to ease the tension pressing in her chest.
"You're here," a voice said from the doorway.
Eva turned toward the light.
Lucarion stood framed against it, sunlight breaking around him as if it refused to touch, coat thrown over one shoulder. "Good," he said calmly. "Join me for a ride."
Eva blinked. "A ride?"
"Yes," he said simply, a faint curve of amusement at the corner of his mouth. "Lucy enjoys the open paths."
She nodded, hiding her surprise, and swung onto Lucy's back. Lucarion mounted his horse beside her with effortless grace, settling into a steady pace. For a while, they moved along familiar paths near the castle. Eva let her mind drift, running a small charm under her palm—a final test, one last symbol against him.
Lucarion glanced at her, amusement glinting in his amethyst eyes. "Most myths about vampires are outdated," he said.
Eva pressed her lips into a thin line. "I had to try."
He let out a quiet laugh. "Your little attempts to kill me—poisons, charms, hidden stakes—they do not trouble me."
She snorted, tugging lightly at Lucy's reins. "Why?"
"Because I know you won't succeed," he said simply, his gaze steady.
Eva's eyes narrowed. "Do you think this is the first time someone tried to marry me for my bloodline? I've been kidnapped before—every time, I killed the groom." Her voice sharpened with memory and defiance. "What makes you think you're any different?"
He studied her, sunlight catching her bronze hair and casting molten ripples that refused to still. Almost casually, he said, "I simply know."
Eva met his gaze, searching for the slightest hint of arrogance, cruelty, or deceit. There was none. Only certainty.
Without warning, Lucarion shifted his reins and guided them off the familiar paths, toward the castle gates. Eva's pulse quickened. "Wait—where are we going?"
He said nothing, letting the morning wind whip past. "You'll see," he said at last, his voice low and certain, a faint smile touching his lips.
The gates groaned open, and Eva's breath caught. She had expected dark ruins, empty streets, perhaps thralls in chains.
Instead, sunlight spilled onto a city stretching broad and alive: stone-paved avenues lined with merchants calling their wares, smoke curling from forges, banners snapping bright against the morning air. Vampires moved through it all with casual purpose—traders haggling over bolts of silk, scholars carrying armfuls of scrolls, artisans bent over tools at open stalls.
Children darted between carts, their laughter ringing like any market square's. A baker's boy hurried past with a tray of steaming loaves. Bells tolled from a temple further down the street, its high spire gleaming, a cross etched plain above its doors. The sound carried warmly, ordinary and strange all at once.
It was not monstrous. It was not ruin. It was… oddly familiar.
Lucarion rode slightly ahead, glancing back at the flicker of astonishment on her face. "Is it not as you imagined?" His tone was calm, not mocking—just observation.
Her gaze swept the crowd. They were no different from Lucarion: pale, slightly pointed ears, alive with breath, laughter, irritation. And all moved openly under the sun, bareheaded and unburned.
"They move freely in the daylight."
Lucarion drew his horse even with hers, his expression steady.
"I have watched vampires in daylight at the castle—the servants, guards. I thought it was the walls, some magic keeping the sun at bay. But this…" She gestured toward the city. "This is an entire city, and it thrives in sunlight."
Lucarion's gaze swept the streets, then returned to hers. "It is not by sorcery that we walk in daylight, but by the land itself. Every stone, every field is defended at great cost. Without it, we remain prisoners of night."
His words carried no boast. Only simple, immovable truth.
They rode on. The noises of the city faded behind them until branches interlaced overhead, muting the light to shifting green. Birds called high in the canopy, songs threading through the steady rhythm of hooves on earth. The air smelled of moss and damp leaves, cool and untouched.
Eva let the silence press around her, but her mind churned. The city still lingered in her thoughts—the sunlight on stone, the laughter in the streets, the cross gleaming where no human hand had raised it. The dissonance left her unsettled, unmoored.
At last, she broke the quiet. "Why show me this?"
Lucarion's gaze stayed on the path ahead, posture at ease in the saddle. "Because the stories you were raised on paint us as shadows and carrion. I thought it time you saw daylight instead."
Lucy shifted beneath her. "And I suppose I was meant to be reassured? That your kind haggle and laugh like we do?"
A faint smile touched his mouth. "Not reassured. Informed. A soldier must know her enemy as he is, not as she wishes him to be."
Her jaw set. The words struck too close to truth.
The trail sloped downward, narrowing until only two horses could pass abreast. Lucarion slowed, letting silence swell. The forest seemed to listen with them, each hoofbeat landing heavier than the last.
When Eva opened her mouth to ask where he was leading her, the trees broke apart—and the world beyond was not forest at all.
A village lay ahead, small and tidy, cottages roofed in slate, gardens bursting with herbs and flowers. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys. Children's laughter rang across the square, where a fountain spilled clear water into a basin worn smooth by time.
Lucarion reined beside her. "This," he said quietly, "is what I meant to show you."
Eva frowned, scanning the humble homes, the bustle of daily life. "It's just… a village."
"Look closer."
She did—and froze. Faces were human. All of them. Men with dirt under their nails, women carrying baskets of bread, children tumbling in play. They lifted their eyes to the riders with curiosity, but no fear, no hunted tension she knew too well.
"They are human… Why should such a village exist here?"
Lucarion's gaze remained on the people. "Because this is how we keep them. Fed. Healthy. Free of want. The less they fear, the less they suffer, the richer their blood. We have learned, through centuries, that despair sours the vein. Hope sweetens it."
Eva's stomach twisted, though she couldn't look away. The ordinary gestures—the woman shaking out a rug, the boy tugging at his father's sleeve, the baker dusting flour from his hands—seemed almost alien.
She swallowed, pulse quickening. "I want to take a closer look."
Lucarion didn't argue. He guided his horse with ease, and together they rode toward the village entrance.
Two tall wooden posts flanked the gate, carved with looping, angular symbols. The grooves were darkened with ash, polished smooth where generations of fingers had traced them.
Eva slowed, studying the marks. "What are those?"
"Wards," Lucarion said evenly. "They do nothing. But the villagers believe they do. It gives them peace."
Her gaze darted to him. "And you allow that?"
"I encourage it," he replied simply. "Whatever brings them peace costs us nothing."
Eva stared at him, torn between horror and reluctant recognition. Then her eyes returned to the village—her kin, walking unbound.
Lucarion shifted his reins, posture loose, tone almost casual. "This is as far as I go." He nodded toward the gate. "The rest is yours."
The words landed heavier than she expected.
He held her gaze for a breath, then added, "I will return by sunset."
Without waiting for her answer, he turned his horse, silver hair catching in the light as he rode back—leaving her at the threshold, alone before the wooden wards. Beyond the gates came the murmur of ordinary life—too familiar, too easy, too wrong.