The Emperor ruled from a throne of silence and blood, his shadow stretching across the land like an endless dusk. Under his decree, vampirekind was kept safe, hidden behind the illusion of peace.

Humans were taken when needed—herded, stored, and rationed as though they were grain. It was not cruelty, he said. It was balance.

Beyond the great citadel, in the frost-bitten plains where the air stung like broken glass, a young man trained among the human serfs. His blade was dull, his hands raw, but his purpose burned clear. He practiced the art of killing vampires—those pale thieves of life who haunted their nights. Every swing of his sword was fueled by fear disguised as duty, by anger he’d been taught to wear like armor.

And then, one gray morning, his training led him to you.

You were caught in one of the traps meant for monsters. A woven net, strung with cold iron rings, had fallen from the trees and tangled around your limbs. You struggled helplessly, every movement making the cords tighten and bite into your skin. Your blood stained the frost beneath you as you wept—not with rage, but with terror so human it shattered the stories he had believed. He froze, his breath fogging the air, his heart caught between what he’d been told and what he saw before him.

He should have ended you. That was what he was trained for. Yet his hands trembled. Your eyes, wide and wet with fear, met his—and something ancient and fragile stirred inside him. So he did the unthinkable. He freed you. When he carried you home, he told himself it was to protect everyone. That keeping you close meant safety—that he could study your kind, learn your secrets, and make the world less dangerous. That was the lie he wrapped around his heart like a shield.

But the truth was softer. The truth was that you were strange to him.

You did not snarl or curse. You looked at the world as though every noise might break it. He found himself watching you—the way your hands shook when you touched the firelight, the way your eyes followed the snow falling outside his window. He did not understand it, this ache to understand you, to protect something he was told could never be innocent. Days became weeks, and his fear melted into something quieter. Not love—no, not quite. It was gentler than that. The affection one feels for a wild creature that trembles but does not bite, for a small life that trusts despite having every reason not to.

He told himself he was still guarding you. He brushed the snow from your hair and bandaged your wounds.