Chapter 34: Lessons of Blood and Shadow
I dreamt of snow—endless, blinding white stretching into a horizon without end.
Silence pressed against my ears, soft and suffocating, as though the world itself held its breath.
There, upon a rise of frost-kissed stone, stood a tall man bathed in moonlight.
His raven hair stirred beneath the wind, drifting like ink across the pale glow.
His face—ethereal, unearthly—seemed to shift with the drifting snow, as though he were carved from the night itself.
Then I saw it.
A great white wolf emerged from the veil of snow, its massive form gliding toward him with soundless grace.
Moonlight clung to its fur like frost. Its eyes gleamed like jewels.
"Valtheris..."
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{IRIS}
The days leading up to the reopening of the Covens of Midnight passed in a blur—a relentless cycle of exhaustion and bruises.
Life in the Nightborne mansion was anything but relaxing. If anything, it felt like I was being chewed up and spit out by some ancient, merciless force—one that just happened to take the shape of a refined vampire lord and his insufferably competent butler.
Mornings belonged to Val, and Val, as I was quickly learning, had the patience of a well-fed predator. He would sit in his grand, candlelit study, dressed like he was about to attend a funeral, while I struggled through lessons that felt more like riddles designed to make me suffer.
Arcane theory, bloodline history, the intricacies of court politics—every subject was a minefield, and Val seemed to take immense pleasure in watching me trip over them.
"Try again," he’d say, sipping his bloodbrew with an expression of mild amusement as I failed, yet again, to grasp the ridiculous complexities of vampire hierarchy.
"Why does everything have five different meanings?" I groaned, rubbing my temples.
"Because," Val answered smoothly, "you are dealing with creatures who have lived long enough to get bored. Deception is an art form. Unfortunately for you, you have the subtlety of a dying rat."
Afternoons, however, were worse.
That was when I fought Sebastian.
Well, fought was a generous term.
Mostly, it involved me being thrown around like a particularly resilient ragdoll while the old vampire butler dodged my every attack with the kind of effortless disinterest that made me want to scream.
"You hesitate," Sebastian remarked as I lunged at him, my blade slicing through nothing but air.
"You’re too fast," I growled, twisting on my heel.
"No, you’re too slow." He sidestepped my next attack as if I moved in slow motion. "A corpse fights with more urgency."
I gritted my teeth, frustration burning through me. It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t even trying—wasn’t even breaking a sweat, or whatever the vampire equivalent of that was.
Meanwhile, I was drenched, muscles screaming, lungs burning.
I adjusted my stance, forcing myself to breathe. Focus. This time, I wouldn’t hold back.
I lunged, putting everything I had into the strike.
A mistake.
Sebastian shifted at the last second, barely a flicker of movement, and suddenly the world flipped. My feet left the ground. There was a brief, horrifying moment of weightlessness before I slammed onto the cold marble floor with a resounding thud.
For a second, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, contemplating all my life choices.
"Better," Sebastian said, looming over me like some ancient wraith. "Still terrible, but better."
I groaned. "I think I broke something."
Sebastian offered me a gloved hand, pulling me up with infuriating ease. "Unlikely. If you were broken, you’d be quieter."
I shot him a glare, brushing dust from my already-ruined clothes. "One of these days, I will land a hit on you."
Sebastian tilted his head, considering. "Perhaps. Though I suspect I will be retired, or dead, before that day arrives."
I narrowed my eyes. "Vampires don’t retire."
"Exactly."
I hated him. I really, really hated him.
But no matter how much I despised these brutal training sessions, I knew one thing—I had to get stronger. Because right now, I was weak.
Weak things didn’t survive in a world of monsters. And like Lord Val had said before, they didn’t have the right to dictate the strong.
I was nothing in this world.
"It’s hopeless . . . Will I ever get stronger?" I panted, my confidence crumbling like ash in the wind.
Lord Val loomed over me, his presence a monolith against the night, his silver eyes like frozen moons. Cold. Beautiful. A reminder of just how small I was beneath him.
"You’ve only been training for a little over a month," he said flatly, arms crossed over his chest. "And you expect to defeat Sebastian? An elder vampire? In a straight fight?" A slow exhale escaped him, something almost like amusement lurking beneath the frost in his voice. "It’ll be a miracle if you even land a hit on him."
Shame burned through me, but I shoved it down and forced myself to my feet. My body ached, bruises littering my skin, but I healed fast—at least I had that going for me. I straightened and bowed low.
"I’m sorry for my incompetence, my lord," I murmured, unable to meet his gaze. I had trained. I had fought. I had bled. And yet, I had nothing to show for it.
Lord Val’s sigh was sharp, irritated.
"First and foremost," he said, voice edged with something resembling patience, "you are a werewolf. Your wolf isn’t gone—it’s sealed. You are not wolfless."
I frowned slightly, glancing up to find him watching me with that same unreadable cold expression.
Why was he bringing this up now?
As if reading my thoughts, he shook his head and ran a hand through his midnight hair. "It’s instinctual for you to learn quickly in battle," he continued. "Your body remembers how to fight, even if your mind doesn’t. You just need to trust yourself."
I hesitated. "M-my lord?"
Lord Val’s jaw tightened, as though he had just about had enough of explaining things to someone as painfully slow as me. "If you weren’t so busy wallowing in self-pity, you’d have noticed that Sebastian has already increased the difficulty of your training."
His voice was cool, almost lazy, but there was something razor-sharp beneath it. "If he hadn’t, you might have actually landed a hit on him."
My breath hitched. "R-really?"
He didn’t even blink. "I don’t joke about these things."
A surge of warmth bloomed in my chest, my earlier despair fading like mist before the morning sun.
Then . . . did that mean I was improving? That I wasn’t completely hopeless?
