The man had been a sheriff.
Vampire. Southern. Loyal.
Now he was tied to a tree, his fangs broken, his eyes ripped from their sockets but somehow still seeing. Caelis crouched before him, voice calm, hands bloodied.
"I want you to remember this."
The vampire gasped, jaw barely working.
"Wh-why not kill me?"
Caelis tilted his head. "Because pain is language. And you still have words to carry."
The sigil burned on the vampire's chest. Not carved this time.
Grown.
Like it had emerged from inside him. Lucan's symbol, but wrong. Inverted and twisted.
"You served the Authority for 300 years," Caelis said. "You've enforced laws you didn't believe in. Killed on command. Fed on command. Died, almost, on command."
The vampire tried to nod. Tried to agree.
Caelis leaned in closer. "I need you to walk away from this. I need you to be found."
He pressed a finger to the vampire's chest right over the sigil.
It pulsed once and the vampire screamed. Then Caelis stood and vanished into the trees. Hours later, a passing human hiker would stumble on the scene. The vampire would be twitching, drooling, unable to speak, but very much alive.
And when the authorities arrived?
He'd whisper a single name:
"Lucan."
-----
Amanda woke gasping. Not from a nightmare. From a voice. Not heard, but felt. It vibrated in her ribs. Pressed against the backs of her eyes. A whisper made of weight.
She stumbled from bed, grabbed the edge of the sink with blood-slick hands, she didn't remember the bleeding, but it was there. Her reflection looked distant. Off-center. Like someone else was staring back.
Then the whisper came again.
"Are you listening yet?"
She dropped the glass she was holding. It didn't shatter, instead it melted flesh-warm and soft like wax.
She backed away.
"Lucan!"
He was already behind her. He appeared in the doorway and took one look at her and knew.
"You heard it."
Amanda nodded, breath shallow. "It asked me something."
"What did it ask?"
She looked up at him. Eyes bloodshot. Skin pale. Her voice small.
"If I was ready to speak back."
Lucan moved fast, he crossed the room and put his hand flat against her chest. Not violently. Not to harm.
To anchor.
The tether flared, but his presence muffled it, but it wasn't enough. She still felt the pressure. The entity behind the voice. Not Caelis. Not memory. Something deeper.
"You can't respond," Lucan said. "Not yet."
"Why not?"
"Because it will pull you in. And it won't let go."
Amanda's lip trembled.
"It already has."
Lucan stared at her. Measured her.
"You're not strong enough."
Amanda stepped back and said the one thing he didn't expect.
"Then help me become strong enough."
The silence between them burned. Lucan's grey eyes held something foreign now, hesitation.
Not fear. Not weakness. A flicker of something like doubt. Not in her, in what she might become.
He didn't say yes.
But he didn't say no.
-----
The envelope was old.
Real parchment, sealed with wax, not the kind used by bored monarchs playing pretend. This was Authority-grade. Pressed with a sigil that he recognized.
A fleur-de-lis.
Sophie-Anne Leclerq. Queen of Louisiana.
Lucan didn't open it immediately. He held it in one hand, standing in the doorway of the house, the sky behind him swollen with red cloud.
Amanda watched from a few steps away. "That for you?"
Lucan nodded once.
"From who?"
He didn't answer, but Amanda saw the shift in his face, it was sharp, alert, but not annoyed. Instead he was Interested.
Later that night, he opened it with the tip of a silver dagger. Inside was a single line of script, handwritten.
No demands.
No commands.
Just:
I was told you don't attend court. I'd like to know if that's still true.
—S.A.L.
Lucan stood alone in the forest behind Amanda's house, reading the message again beneath a canopy of windless trees.
Sophie-Anne wasn't a fool. She didn't send guards. Didn't demand tribute. Didn't flex rank. She sent a gesture.
A test.
And for the first time in centuries, Lucan considered replying. He took a slow breath, then whispered the words aloud, not as an answer, but as a promise:
"You'll get your audience."