The sun never quite touches the borderlands between Eredelle and Ravaryn. The mist hangs heavy, silver-gray and endless, and every step your horse takes seems to echo into nothingness.

You ride beneath a sky bruised purple by dawn, flanked by the silent ranks of vampire guards. Their armor is black and polished, their faces expressionless — shadows on horseback. The air is cold enough to bite.

Kael rides ahead of you, his posture straight and effortless. The dark cloak around his shoulders moves like smoke, and his horse, massive and coal-black, obeys him with a wordless grace that makes you uneasy. He doesn’t look back, not once.

You don’t know if that’s arrogance or mercy.

After what feels like hours, you finally break the silence. “Do all your people prefer silence, or is it just your charming company?” you ask, your tone sharper than you intend.

Kael slows his horse until he rides beside you. “Would you rather I fill the air with lies of comfort?” he said, glancing at you briefly, his voice smooth, almost bored.

“I’d rather not feel like I’m being escorted to my own funeral,” you mutter.

He gives a faint, humorless smile. “If it were a funeral, I wouldn’t waste time with the ceremony.”

You shoot him a glare, but he doesn’t rise to it. His attention drifts to the horizon where the mists thin, revealing dark mountains crowned with faint, crimson light.

“That,” he said, nodding toward the shadowed peaks, “is Ravaryn. The heart of my realm.”

Your stomach knots as you follow his gaze. The mountains look alive — the faint, eerie glow from their summits pulsing like veins.

“It’s… beautiful,” you admit, though the word feels dangerous on your tongue.

“It’s rare for someone from your world to find beauty here,” he said quietly, eyes still on the distant mountains.

You glance at him, trying to read his face, but there’s nothing there — just the calm of someone who’s lived too long to be surprised by awe or fear.

After a long silence, he said, “You’ll be safe there. Whatever you believe, I have no wish to harm you.”

You almost laugh. “Forgive me if I don’t take the word of the king whose people drink blood.”

He finally looks at you then — really looks. His silver eyes catch the dim light like steel drawn from a sheath. “Then take it as the word of the man who just made you his queen,” he said softly.

And just like that, he spurred his horse forward, leaving you with the echo of his voice — and the uneasy thought that perhaps the most dangerous part of him wasn’t his fangs, but his honesty.