Chapter 07 / Keep it a secret

November 11th, 15.002

La Paz, Ashveil Desert, Umbra [Vampire Continent]

The buzz of machinery greeted her inside the Research Tower. Tech was at one table, pink hair a mess, tools scattered everywhere. Sami leaned casually against the counter beside him, the only one in La Paz who could match his sharp tongue and fast cleverness without effort.

They were both fiddling with the skin behind their ears — the first nano-tattoos.

“I’m glad you suggested making these temporary,” Tech muttered without looking up. “Already noticing errors. Data flickers. The range is not stable...”

Sami cut in, noticing that they might not be giving a good first impression to the other person in the room. “Em–but good enough to try. You’ll be the second test run. Yours should be cleaner, don’t worry.”

“Oh, but I am worried. I’m still not sure about this duo”, Sukira pointed at the gifted brat she grew up with, and her best friend, the best cyberhacker in the whole three continents. 

They completely ignored her words as they continued working. 

Sukira tilted her head as Tech pressed the small, inked line beneath her ear. Cold metal, a pulse of sting — then it was over.

“Touch it once, you’re linked with us. Twice, it pings a wider net. The patterns and combinations will grow more complex as we refine. The Security channel should be ready in the next few days.”

Sukira smirked. “So I get to nag you both from anywhere.”

“Yes,” Sami said, confirming she was an annoyance. “For now, you’ll be able to contact only us”.

Sukira left with a dry laugh, but Sami caught her in the corridor on her way out.

“You’re not just going for Aaron’s beasts.”

She froze. Her eyes sparkled with joy. That was her partner in crime, right there. The sharp mercenary. “Keep it a secret, okay?”

“You and your fucking secrets,” Sami replied. “I don’t know what you think is waiting for you there, but I hope this time you finally find it.”

“Last time I only found problems.”

A year ago, in those same woods, Sukira had gone chasing her own agenda under the cover of a contract — retrieve Elon Fenroth and bring him home, gun pointed at his chest. What was supposed to be just another job spiraled into something else: the spark that dragged her into unfinished business with her past, the people who tried to kill her, into La Paz, into Risha, into this fragile, half-built family she now carried like a weight and a blessing both. Every secret since then had only grown heavier.

Sukira exhaled, lost in her thoughts. “And keep an eye on Risha.”

“I’ll take care of Elon, yes, yes. Don’t worry.” Sami corrected, flipping her hair and heading back to the building. 

Sukira didn’t jump to the bait, only walked on.

♥︎

Axis and Ailin were waiting by the Command’s chamber table, their voices already low and efficient.

“I left Ryn in charge of the training yards. The mission shouldn’t take more than three days,” Sukira reported.

Ailin’s pale gaze flicked to the small, white tattoo at Sukira’s neck. “So it works.”

“It seems.”

Axis handed her a sealed folder. “Here you have: coordinates, maps. The helicopter is prepped at the south exit, near the labs. Aaron is waiting for you at the entrance of the Elunthar Woods to fill you in on the beast”.

Sukira nodded, slipped the file under her arm, and turned.

♥︎

The helicopter’s rotors were still. A gust of desert wind swept the landing zone as she stepped forward.

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

Elon stood in her path, furious. No cloak of calm this time, only raw anger flashing in his blue eyes.

Sukira cursed inwardly. Brat, I told you not to say anything.

“I don’t have time for this, blondie.” 

“You’re leaving to fight a massive beast. Alone.” He didn’t move. “You think I don’t know what that means?”

“That I have work to do while you play the housewife?”

“I’m going with you.”

“You’re not.”

His voice cracked sharp. “Risha will be fine. He has everyone here. You’re not leaving me behind.”

Sukira’s temper sparked, gun already in hand. “I’ve shot you before. Don’t make me do it again.”

His jaw clenched, stepping closer. “I’ve healed from that before. Do as you want”.

The tension coiled, her finger right about to shoot—

“This can’t keep happening.” Jeda’s voice cut in, lazy, infuriatingly casual. He walked up, cigarette dangling, grin sharp. 

He slid a hand onto Elon’s shoulder, grip deceptively firm, placing himself between him and Sukira’s path of shooting.

“Sunshine, you don’t have clearance. That area’s prohibited. You’d put us in a direct fight with the Elaris government.”

That landed like a bad joke. Elaris. His own family rules that continent. Elon’s lips pressed thin. He’d rather burn the world than ask them for a favor or use his last name as an advantage.

Sukira caught Jeda’s eye, the faintest flicker of gratitude. He had given her the space she needed.

The helicopter’s blades began to turn. Sukira adjusted her sunglasses, voided away her gun and walked toward the waiting craft.

Jeda still had his hand on Elon’s shoulder when she climbed aboard.

♥︎

November 11th, 15.002

Elunthar Wood’s City, Eloria [Elf Continent]

The wards above Elunthar’s region were bright in the daylight, a translucent dome stretched over the forest’s edge. Sukira stepped off the transport, boots crunching against the stone courtyard of the main gate, Cloud following her like a shadow. The air was wetter here, heavier than Ashveil’s desert sharpness. Magic hung thick, vibrating through the canopy like a constant buzzing in her bones.

Every traveler who entered the forest passed through this city first. It was less a settlement and more an administrative hub: clean avenues, carefully controlled gardens used as enclosures for endangered specimens, and the sharp spires of the Great Archives building casting long shadows over the plaza. Scholars, hunters, and wardens moved quickly, logging expeditions or cataloguing findings.

Aaron, the smallest in age of the Fenroth’s but biggest in attitude, waited for her at the base of the Archive steps. He cut the same figure as ever — posture crisp, clothes sharp but simple, eyes alight with that maddening blend of wit and righteousness. When he smiled, it was a mixture of warmth and fake politeness. Pure elf from head to toes. 

“Here she comes!” he greeted, though not unkindly. “Finally some fun arrives in this part of the world.”

“I see you keep barking like the last time we saw each other."

That earned a laugh. Aaron liked her for that — no courtly airs, no layered diplomacy. Just blunt honesty. Pure vampire from head to toes. He gestured for her to walk with him, leading her through the wide courtyard toward the registration halls.

“Tell me about Elon.” The question came quickly, like it had been sitting on his tongue. “So it's true that you two—?”

“That’s not an Elon question.” Sukira’s tone was flat, but the small curve in her mouth betrayed affection.

Aaron smirked. “Mhh. I see. You just gave me more than I was expecting, vampire.” His eyes softened, but only briefly, before his voice sharpened back to business. “Now — to why you’re here.”

He slid a dossier into her hands as they walked. Sketches, maps, patrol logs.

“The beasts have been pressing harder for months now. We’ve kept the borders steady — culled what we had to, rerouted some villages, nothing outside our capacity. But this…” He tapped a sketch: a hulking, many-limbed silhouette scrawled against the treeline. “This is different. We call it a mother. She shouldn’t be anywhere near the border. They keep to the deep zones — the Rootlands, Wildshade, closer to the Glen. They never get this near to the main Elunthar city.”

Sukira flipped through the notes, eyes narrowing at the claw marks drawn beside scale notations. Deep, parallel grooves through rock, not just trees.

“Here it says it's just a beast. You’re sure it’s not cursed?” she asked.

“Just a beast. As if that wasn’t enough,” Aaron shook his head firmly. “It's not cursed. No trace of a pact, no warlock’s stink. Not even a natural magic leak that poisoned the beast. She’s just the bigger individual of that specimen”. He rolled his eyes.

In the Elunthar Woods, each zone pulsed with its own climate and creatures, maintained by cycles of ancient magic. Mother-beasts were keystones: immense, territorial, and rarely seen. Their place was deep in the hidden cores of the forest, far from settlements and patrol lines. For one to cross into the border zone wasn’t just unusual — it was an omen that something in the woods was shifting.

Aaron’s voice snapped her back. “It’s too close. If it keeps moving this way, the wards won’t hold. I need it pushed back, or killed if that’s the only way.”

“Oh, so this is not a kill or kill mission?” 

“We would actually prefer you not to kill it. It's part of the ecosystem of Wildshade, therefore it–” 

“Then let’s not waste any more time.” Sukira interrupted him and snapped the folder shut. 

♥︎

November 11th, 15.002

Wildshade, Elunthar Woods, Eloria [Elf Continent]

The patrol led her west until the wards grew visible — a shimmer of silver light drawn taut like a blade above the ground. Beyond it sprawled Wildshade.

The forest didn’t look alive so much as armed. Trees rose twisted and tall, their bark stone-hard, branches studded with hooked thorns. Vines crept low, spiked and glistening with sap that could burn skin raw. The air itself carried a bite: warm one moment, cut by icy gusts the next. Somewhere deep inside, thunder rolled without warning, though the sky overhead stayed crimson with sunset.

The elves at the ward stood stiff, their armor scuffed, weapons clutched tighter than discipline allowed. Cloud padded to the edge, hackles raised, his low growl almost lost beneath the forest’s constant buzzing.

The mother-beast emerged in a second. Its bulk scraped thorns and snapped boughs as if they were reeds. Moss clung to its plated hide, its flanks crawling with parasitic fungi that pulsed faintly with the forest’s magic. Its thick-clawed limbs sank deep into the earth, carving furrows that glimmered with flecks of bubbling green liquid—probably poisonous. Branch-like antlers crowned its head, snagging on ironwood trees but never breaking them.

It wasn’t cursed, it was just Wildshade ecosystem made flesh, bigger than it should be, wandering where it shouldn’t.

“Orders?” one soldier whispered, his voice nearly cracked.

Sukira didn’t reply right away. She exhaled sharp, eyes fixed on the beast. The heat of the desert was a memory here; the forest’s cold-and-hot breath prickled at her skin like needles.

“We won’t kill it,” she said. “We’ll push it back.”

“Push that?” another muttered, incredulous.

Sukira ignored him. The void crackled around her as she vanished and reappeared at the beast’s flank, pistols barking. The shots sparked bright against its armor-hide, leaving smoking welts but no true wounds. The mother swung its antlered head, bellowing, shaking thorns from the trees, and swiped.

She was gone before the claws struck, reappearing in a blur, drawing its rage step by step toward the thicker dark.

Storm-wind whipped through, sudden and sharp. Vines lashed from broken trees, alive in their parasitism, clinging to the beast as though the forest itself wanted it back.

“Come on, old girl,” Sukira murmured, reloading in one smooth motion. The soles of her boots were stained green as she sprang over the ground slick with the liquid seeping up from the torn earth, disappearing again into her void.

The soldiers held the line, bows ready but silent. This was her hunt.

“That was rather easy”, she said as entered the same room where Aaron gave her orders earlier. Sukira was tired, sweaty and dirty. She moved like she hadn’t in a lot of time, but it wasn’t a complicated mission at all. 

“For you, perhaps,” Aaron replied. “That teleportation power of yours made it easy”. 

“A simple ‘thank you’ will be enough, you know”. 

“I’ll let you rest and… I’ll ignore the other thing you’ll need to attend. That will be my ‘thank you’”. 

♥︎

November 12th, 15.002

Wildshade, Elunthar Woods, Eloria [Elf Continent]

The next morning, dawn burst bright over the treetops of Elunthar. Sukira woke before the sun, her body sore from the mission and her uniform wrinkled where she’d let it fall over a chair. The next stop didn’t involve La Paz; the uniform wasn’t necessary. Cloud padded over, his tail brushing against the side of her leg.

Aaron had left her a car — practical, nondescript, full tank. Of course he had. He was always one step ahead, a good ruler, even when pretending not to pry.

She slipped behind the wheel, the permit Jeda had secured folded in the pocket of her leather jacket.

Jeda. Her lips twitched. I forgot to thank him.

The road thinned as she left the village of Wildshade behind, the wards shrinking in the mirror. Cloud stuck his nose to the open window, catching the heavy musk of the forest. Soon, the asphalt gave way to stone and dirt, and the landscapes grew stranger: roots as wide as bridges, streams that shimmered, trees covered in fungus.

She headed south, to a specific location between Whispergroove, where she found Elon last year, and The Gleen Of The Ancients, the prohibited zone. The destination was a set of coordinates she’d stolen with Sami more than two years ago — a scrap of information they had almost laughed off at the time. 

A rumor. A whisper passed through smugglers and scholars alike: that somewhere at the border of Whispergrove and the Glen, there were ruins. And not just any ruins, but the battlefield where Elexi had fallen during the War of Hate.

The forest thickened, swallowing the road until she had to abandon the car and move on foot.

♥︎

Five centuries ago, Elexi had twisted the world into war for nothing but its own amusement. Rulers and governments bent under its influence. Soldiers marched for no reason but slaughter. The war had ended not with treaties or mercy but with one unnamed vampire warrior who destroyed, yet not killed, the Calamity and vanished from earth and history. Their name was erased — as though silence could bury truth.

But not all silence is empty. Sukira remembered a version of that truth, carried in a scrap of a poem her mother used to whisper when she was a kid. It told of the warrior’s bloodline — a child who would one day face Elexi again, and end what had only been delayed.

Sukira had built her life on that riddle. Her hunts, her betrayals, her alliances, her mark on Jeda — all roads bent toward this pursuit. She didn’t know why she remembered the poem when most of her childhood was nothing but holes. She didn’t know if chasing it would save her or kill her. Only that she had to.

♥︎

By the time she reached the coordinates, the sun was fading.

The ruins were barely ruins at all. A ring of stone eaten by moss. A single pillar, cracked down the center, leaning under its own weight. No carvings. No wards. No bones. Just emptiness, as though the forest itself had erased the past.

Sukira’s boots scraped over the stone. Her chest clenched tight, not with fear but with disappointment. She wanted something here — an echo, a trail, a sign.

“A fight, at least”.

There was nothing.

She leaned against the pillar, cigarette ember hissing faintly in the damp air. She used to smoke when she was bored.

But it was always meant to be this way. The poem had never promised the warrior would find Elexi. Only that the warrior’s bloodline would one day defeat it. The path to Elexi wasn’t Sukira’s to uncover. It was a child’s. A child named Risha.

“Well, I guess we’ll fucking leave then, right, Cloud?”

The ruins were too quiet.

Sukira dragged smoke into her lungs, scanning the stone circle with the patience of a predator. Cloud whined low, hackles stiff. The air shifted colder, though no wind stirred the canopy.

Something moved and she felt it. Something thinner than flesh but heavy as iron when it struck.

The thing coiled out of the moss like a spill of black ink, latching across her arm. Pain seared instantly — not sharp like a blade, but deep, burrowing straight into her flesh.

Her dagger was in her hand before the thought had even fully formed. She slashed where her arm had been touched, a cut meant to drain the infiltrated magic. The shadow recoiled, a stain against the cracked pillar, then melted back into the stone as if it had never been there.

Shadows were remnants— fragments of will and hunger left behind when the main body was destroyed: a person, a creature, a demon. They had no true shape nor mind in their wild form, though they could have some sort of will when being summoned by a master. 

The one that had just attacked her was pure instinct; she was there, and the shadow, a remnant of spirits knows what, went to latch, to feed, to remind the living that dark magic traces never really died. 

For one to linger here, centuries after Elexi’s fall… it meant the wound in this place had never healed.

Sukira staggered back, hand pressed to her bleeding forearm. The cut wasn’t deep, not even that big, but the ache spread further than it should have, tinting the flesh slightly black as it spread.

“Tch”, she growled like a beast. “Of course it had to be a dark magic wound.”  

She forced herself upright. No time for self-punishment. She had to move.

By the time she reached the car, her breathing was shallow, and the strip of cloth she’d used as a tourniquet clung to the liquid like glue. Cloud jumped into the passenger seat with a low whine; she didn’t scold him.

The drive blurred. The permit got her through checkpoints without question. The helicopter waited where Axis promised, its blades thrumming against the pre-dawn sky. She boarded without a word, her arm bound and her black leather coat covering any sign of injury.

The desert swallowed her again. Ashveil’s horizon glowed under a sliver moon, the Citadel of La Paz rising ahead like a fortress carved from nothing.

♥︎

November 13th, 15.002 La Paz, Ashveil Desert, Umbra [Vampire Continent]

It was nearly four in the morning when the helicopter touched down. Sukira didn’t wait for anyone. She wasn’t expecting to arrive this soon, either. She hit the ground running, boots hammering concrete, Cloud streaking after her.

From the landing platform on the South Wing, she cut through the Civil Quarter, passing by hammocks and darkened apartments, beyond the unfinished walls of the Command Tower. Blood pounded in her veins; the wound burned under her skin like fire.

She wanted to run right to the Medical facilities –right in the opposite direction– but didn’t stop until she reached Elon’s door.

When she realized where she was, she couldn’t even raise her fist to knock. Her legs betrayed her. Her own survival instinct betrayed her. How stupid can you get? She just stood there, chest heaving, forehead pressed to the cool steel, as though the door itself might anchor her.

The door opened. Elon stood there barefoot, shirtless and with loose pants, hair uncombed — and eyes already fixed on her like he had been waiting. 

They mirrored each other for a heartbeat: her forehead against the steel, his against the frame, tired, not because of the hour, but because of the state she was in. 

“You stink of dark magic,” he finally said, his voice low and controlled, but thrumming underneath. “And you’re bleeding.” A thin trail of thick, blackened liquid ran down her hand, the wound still hidden beneath her coat.

“I need you.” Her words cracked sharp, honest, like they burned her tongue.

He didn’t move aside. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding as his hand finally shot out and dragged her inside. The door slammed behind them.

“What the hell were you thinking?” His voice shattered his calm, rising in waves as he pulled off her coat and took her arm, the wound wet and dark with the shadow’s residue. He removed the tourniquet with meticulous care, peeling the strip of cloth from her skin; a liquid with the texture of crude oil kept oozing from the self-inflicted wound she’d made.

“Don’t start,” she snapped, biting down against the pain, eyes completely red she couldn’t hide. “Just heal me.”

“I will,” he shot back, blue light sparking to life in his palms. “But you’re going to hear me while I do it.”

She hissed as the energy touched her skin, the searing cold burning deeper than the wound itself. “I should have woken up Eloise.”

He didn’t reply, just continued looking at the wound. 

“Why are you like this?” Elon said, tone iron-flat. “I thought we already passed this stage.”

Her gaze snapped to his, red eyes narrowing, but she didn’t move. She let him work, let him burn the darkness out of her blood. The smell of charred skin filled the room.

“You don’t even tell me when you’re leaving anymore. You think I wouldn’t notice?” His voice cracked, softer at the edges now. “What are you going to do when he asks me why you didn’t come back?”

“I came back. And don’t use the kid now. Actually, don’t ever use the kid in one of these conversations again, you always do that and it's a dirty move, even for a traitor elf”. Her throat tightened, but she forced the words through her teeth. 

“Again? So you are planning to keep coming to my door and asking for healing in the middle of the night?”

She didn’t reply. The light pulsed, brighter, forcing her to bite down on her lip until she tasted iron.

“Elon—”

“No.” He cut her off, eyes blazing. “You don’t get to make this sound small. You walked into a prohibited ruin crawling with a shadow. Did you find whatever you were looking for? I’m not even asking what you were looking for, I know you’ll only talk about that with Jeda.”

“No,” she shot back, her voice breaking despite her steel, a thin line of blood running at the edge of her mouth. “But I had to try.”

He was silent then, the only sound the crackle of magic eating away at the infection. Finally, he exhaled, slow.

“You always think it has to be you.”

Her lips twitched, a bitter half-smile. “Who else?”

His voice dropped to a near whisper as the last threads of darkness dissolved from her skin. His hands lingered on her arm, steady despite the storm in his chest. 

“I just don’t know how many times I can keep pulling you back.”

“I won’t come here again if that’s how you feel”. 

For a long moment, the room held only their breathing, her pain, his restraint. Neither of them said another word; she left.  

♥︎