The words from the vampire's lips were jagged, his speech struggling through rusted gears of disuse. Enna felt his scrutiny clawing at her like a cornered animal's desperation. Malren paced around her, movements fluid despite the ruin's mummifying silence. She stood in defiance, arms lifted, glowing power building behind her thin veneer of courage. His endless grey eyes demanded answers, accusations against the current world order punctuated by haunted pauses. Malren froze mid-sentence, paralyzed as memories ripped through him—betrayal, faces of those who sealed him away. Panic spread beneath her skin, but Enna held her ground, the air between them dense with hostility and power. When Malren stepped too close, Enna thrust her energy outward in self-defense. A blinding flash of power—golden light meeting crimson force—exploded from the collision, sending both tumbling back.
The impact reverberated through the chamber, as if the very stones absorbed the power before shuddering under its weight. Enna gasped, her vision swimming. Colors blended into shadowy shapes—Malren's, hers—separate yet frighteningly intertwined. A childlike whisper danced around her: **"It will only happen once."** When her senses cleared, Malren had landed at the base of the steps, a dark specter framed by his opened tomb.
"Impressive," he mused, still reeling, "for a human."
"Stay away," Enna warned, though the tremor in her voice betrayed her terror. Malren cocked his head, an unsettling smile curling his lips.
"The little healer thinks she can command me?"
Enna's defiance flared. "You're sealed. It was your fate."
"Not any longer." The Vampire King rose, regal despite the ragged remnants of his clothing. Even after centuries of imprisonment, his presence was suffocating. As he approached, memories flickered again, faces she didn't know flashing like distant stars. One lingered: a woman, eyes of blood and sorrow.
Enna stumbled to her feet, heart thundering. "Don't come any closer."
The king laughed, a dark, brittle sound. "I wonder what you are more afraid of, girl: my fangs or the truth?"
"Why don't you find out?" The words spilled from her, half defiance, half dread. Her hands blazed with light.
Another step. A searing pulse of fear ignited her, and she thrust all her power outward. The chamber erupted in brilliance. Where healing magic met crimson force, a shockwave tore through the air, flinging them apart. Enna felt herself lift, and then—
Visions. Fragments. Her consciousness unraveled into a kaleidoscope of images: The woman again, embracing Malren with anguished tenderness. A brother's treachery. Betrayal etched in eyes both familiar and strange. And deeper still—his final moments before the dark oblivion: "It will only happen once."
Malren. She could see it all.
Darkness.
Then, just as swiftly, she glimpsed the world through Malren's eyes: her own small form cradled in another's arms, hidden beneath a mountain sky. Healers surrounding her, their voices urgent. The fear in her as she fled through dense forests, her white hair a beacon in the moonlit night. It was her past, revealed through a vision not her own.
When she came to, Enna lay sprawled among fractured stones. Malren crouched nearby, shock dimming the threat in his expression.
"What...?" she managed, her voice barely a whisper. She could feel it—an energy binding them, thin and unbreakable as spider silk. A bond.
The vampire's gaze locked onto hers with a new intensity. "This changes everything."
Every instinct screamed to escape, yet there was no denying the magic's pull. They were linked, the aftermath of their shared revelation leaving them both bewildered and breathless.
An unearthly cry pierced the ruins, sending tremors of terror through Enna's spine. The world blurred as shadows coalesced at the entrance, their forms crystallizing into vampire soldiers. Enna's heart surged in panic, but Malren's expression hardened from shock to lethal determination. He placed himself between her and the new threat, a vicious smile slashing across his features. "This human belongs to me now." Enna bristled, fury boiling beneath her skin. Claimed, as if she were nothing more than prey. But before her protest could escape, the soldiers charged. The air erupted in chaos—shouts, dust, and the visceral hum of violence. Malren moved with terrifying grace, the brutal ballet of his attack leaving crimson streaks in its wake. Enna used her knowledge of the ruins to keep them one step ahead, directing Malren to vulnerable sections, triggering collapses. Her instincts took over when one soldier flanked them, turning her healing energy to a lethal force. The vampire crumpled, and Enna's newfound ability hung between them, dangerous and unexpected.
"We cannot linger." Malren's voice cut through the settling debris, imperious and without a trace of doubt. His eyes gleamed with a dangerous mix of curiosity and intent.
"They'll keep coming," Enna breathed, half warning, half plea. Her heart pounded against her ribs, adrenaline mingling with something darker. The connection to Malren pulsed insistently, even more tangible than the ruin's chilling air.
"Let them." He reached for her, an infuriating confidence in his grip. "The bond is forged. You are mine."
Anger flared hot and immediate. Enna wrenched away, the bond's invisible thread snapping taut between them. "I am no one's. Not yours, not theirs." She could feel the panic rising, but it did nothing to dull the edge of her defiance. "Don't think I'll let you—"
Her words were swallowed by the clamor of fresh voices. Tarin's unmistakable form loomed through the dust, rallying his troops.
"Save your protests, little healer." Malren pulled her close, his tone dripping with command. "Survive first."
She opened her mouth to retort, but the sharp look in his eyes silenced her. Together they surged forward, an unlikely alliance against the tide of undead.
Malren tore through the first wave, a force of nature driven by rage and newfound resolve. Where his path left trails of broken soldiers, Enna followed, barely able to keep pace. Her surroundings blurred, her focus a raw instinct to survive. She led Malren toward the unstable sections, collapsing walls and sending showers of stone onto their pursuers.
A shout behind her—a soldier breaking through the dust, closing fast. Before she could react, the vampire was on her, fangs bared. Fear erupted into something primal, her hands glowing with violent energy. The soldier shrieked, blood vessels rupturing in a gruesome blossom. He crumpled at her feet, twitching before going still.
The world spun in brutal clarity. Enna met Malren's gaze, the shock of her new ability stark on both their faces.
"Unexpected," he murmured, more to himself than to her. He watched her with an unsettling blend of calculation and respect. "A little healer, after all."
Enna's chest heaved, breath and thoughts racing. This power—this curse—it could turn her into something monstrous. Or it could be the edge she needed to survive. She struggled against her own disbelief, fighting to claim this revelation as her own.
Malren moved close, a swift glance at the remaining soldiers. "This way," he urged, the arrogance replaced by rare urgency. "Before more come."
Their escape through the ruin was chaos incarnate, an orchestra of crumbling rock and battle cries. The further they ran, the tighter the bond pulled, a constant reminder of her predicament. Hers, the reminder of her own terrible potency.
At last, they stumbled into a collapsed chamber, jagged stones offering temporary shelter. The remnants of the battle echoed through their ragged breaths and the sharp redolence of spilled blood. Malren was spectral in the half-light, an avenging wraith cloaked in gore. Enna stood opposite him, the tremble of her hands a testament to fear and exhaustion.
"They won't stay away for long," she said, her voice defiant but edged with fatigue.
The vampire stepped toward her, careful yet insistent. "Then we move quickly."
"You can't be serious," she countered, frustration and incredulity mixing with a thread of reluctant hope. "You'd lead them straight to you."
"To us," Malren corrected, the reminder as binding as the bond itself. "Let Tarin and his soldiers try. My palace is well-guarded."
"If they don't catch us first."
"They won't." He studied her, a hint of something almost like admiration breaking through the severity. "You've managed well against them so far. Better than expected."
The backhanded compliment hit with uncomfortable truth. For all her resolve, the bond tethered her to a vampire she could neither fully trust nor escape. For now, they were locked together in necessity.
"We leave now," Malren ordered, his word as unyielding as iron. He swept toward the entrance, offering neither assurance nor hesitation.
Enna hesitated, instincts warring within. "And when we get there?" she finally asked, a last effort at reclaiming some control.
"Then we see what fate has planned for us," he replied, stepping into the night. The chill of destiny hung heavy in his wake. Enna followed, the weight of their shared existence settling as they fled the ruin.
The crumbled chamber offered cold sanctuary, its shattered stones echoing their breath and fatigue. Blood stained Malren's skin, tracing stark lines across his pale features. He stood like a specter in the gloom, eyes fixed on Enna with a mix of calculation and possession. Her hands trembled, less from exhaustion than the unspoken weight between them. This bond—it tethered them closer than the threat of any army. She cast a wary glance at the entrance, the fear of pursuit dwarfed by the terrible, intimate fear of what they might become. Enna swallowed hard. The raw new power within her—the same that brought down a vampire with a touch—hung heavy and uncertain in the air. She wanted to test it, to see if she could use it against him. "Don't get any ideas, little healer." Malren's voice cut through her doubts, arrogant and all-knowing. He moved toward her with the inevitability of a shadow, but she retreated, the bond pulling taut between them.
"You can't run from it," he observed, half amusement, half command. "Or from me."
"Watch me try," Enna shot back, defiance masking her doubt. The distance between them seemed both vast and suffocatingly close. Her resolve wavered, a mirror to the energy thrumming within her.
Malren advanced, the bond snapping tighter with each step. "And what will you do?" His tone was needling, confident. "Kill me?"
She flinched at the suggestion, the weight of it sharp and unexpected. "If I have to," Enna countered, the conviction in her voice betrayed by uncertainty. She braced, her power gathering in her hands.
A flicker of shadow, the speed of a thought, and he was there—close, too close. Enna thrust her energy toward him, willing it to strike. It faltered, shimmering uselessly in the charged air between them.
Malren's smile was all arrogance. "Perhaps you should save your strength."
Frustration tangled with her breath, leaving her shaky and infuriated. The new magic she'd discovered, her apparent ability to harm—here, it failed her. And he knew it.
"I will figure this out," she vowed, whether to him or herself, she couldn't be sure. But the hollow echo of doubt was unmissable.
"Of course you will." The mockery in his voice was a sharp blade, but behind it was something else. Respect? Enna wasn't sure she wanted it, especially not from him.
The tremor of approaching forces cut through their charged stalemate, snapping them back to grim reality.
"They return," Malren noted, unconcerned but watchful. "We cannot linger."
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Enna retorted, even as the bond and her instincts insisted otherwise.
"You are." It was not a suggestion. The sureness in his claim was maddening. "And you know why."
Because she was tied to him. Because the magic made it so. The crushing truth was as infuriating as it was undeniable. Enna clenched her fists, the frustration of it all boiling beneath her skin.
"We go to my palace," Malren continued, as if there were no other possibility.
"They'll follow," she protested, desperation leaking through. "We'd be cornered."
"They'll follow whether we stay or not," he countered. "And Tarin's forces are less capable than you think."
Enna hesitated, anger and reason waging a fierce battle. As much as she hated to admit it, Malren was right. Their odds were slim, and the bond gave her little choice.
The vampire regarded her with an unreadable expression, a rare moment of truce softening his gaze. "Come, healer. See what this power—this bond—has made us."
It was her turn to advance, bitter resignation mingling with a twisted sense of fate. "When we get there," Enna insisted, a final assertion of her will. "This doesn't mean—"
His rare, unsettling smile silenced the rest. "We shall see."
They moved toward the exit, the world a precarious and delicate uncertainty. Just as they were about to leave, a glint in the stonework caught Enna's eye. She paused, horror blooming as she recognized the carved symbol—a mark identical to the one Lorin wore on his pendant.
A chill deeper than fear ran through her. This place, this tomb—it was more entwined with her past than she'd ever imagined.
"We go, or they find us here." Malren's voice dragged her back from the edge of panic, urgent but not unkind.
Enna tore her gaze from the symbol, the shadow of old betrayals and new dangers chasing her. With a reluctant nod, she joined him, stepping into the night.
Moonlight splashed against the ancient stones as they emerged, reluctant allies in a game far greater than either had bargained for. The cold air clung like a prophecy, and Enna felt the terrible weight of their bond—a thread of blood and destiny—binding them closer with each step into the unknown.