Chapter 11: Heartbeat in the Forbidden Archive

Elora's POV

The ice Silas had left inside me was melting.

Three days had passed since the interrogation chamber. Every night, deep within my meridians, I could hear the faintest crackling sound—ice fracturing from within. As the frost thinned, the Covenant Flame that had been forcibly suppressed began to stir again. My body temperature climbed beyond my control, and each breath I exhaled carried a searing, arid heat.

If I couldn't find a way to control this dragon fire before the ice shattered completely, the day it broke apart would be the day I burned myself to ash from the inside out.

I had to save myself.

Midnight. The underground corridors of Greystone lay silent as a tomb. By the pale moonlight filtering through the narrow window, I glanced at Nyx in the bed beside mine. She slept soundly, golden hair spilled across the rough pillow, her breathing steady and even. The little dragon was curled at the foot of my bed.

I slipped out from under the threadbare blanket without a sound. I didn't put on those hard-soled boots that would announce every step—I padded across the freezing stone floor in nothing but my linen socks, torn open at two toes.

I crept out of the room.

The Arcanum's grand library occupied the western tower. For someone who'd grown up in the Lower City, evading the enforcement squad apprentices on their fixed patrol routes was far simpler than dodging thieves in the black market. These high-and-mighty mages relied too heavily on detection spells; they never thought to look into the shadowed corners beneath statues or along the base of walls.

I followed the spiral staircase all the way up into the grand library.

The place was absurdly vast. Bookcases towering dozens of meters high formed a primeval forest of parchment and paper. The air was thick with the scent of ink and ancient dust.

But none of this was my destination.

What I needed lay in the library's deepest recess—the Forbidden Archives.

A massive black iron door stood before me, its frame carved with dense warning runes that pulsed with faint red light. I knew that touching the handle would trigger those runes to electrocute any intruder into charcoal.

But I wasn't going to touch the handle.

I dropped to the ground, pressing my line of sight flush with the floor. In the black market, I'd seen plenty of magically sealed warehouses like this. Spellcasters were invariably arrogant—they believed magic was omnipotent, yet they always overlooked the mechanical hinges at the very bottom.

I drew the filed iron wire from my sleeve. At the base of the iron door, hidden in the gap, was a mechanical latch designed to prevent water accumulation. If I could disengage it, the door shaft would loosen.

I slipped the wire into the gap, fingers working by feel alone, carefully manipulating the rusted gears inside.

Click.

An impossibly soft mechanical release.

I pressed my shoulder against the iron door and pushed hard. The heavy door didn't trigger any alarm—it simply swung open along the loosened shaft, just wide enough for me to squeeze through sideways.

I slipped inside.

The Forbidden Archives had no windows. The darkness was absolute, thick enough to choke on. I didn't dare light anything, relying entirely on touch to navigate. The air here was colder than outside, and the books on the shelves seemed almost alive. I could hear whispers beneath some of the thick leather bindings, or the slow drip of something viscous and wrong.

I felt my way to a section labeled "Ancient Bloodlines and Covenants."

I pulled out a heavy tome bound in cracked leather and opened it.

Too dark. I couldn't see a thing.

I bit down hard on my lip, closed my eyes, and forcibly drew on that fragile thread of power still compressed beneath the ice inside me. A tiny flame—no larger than a soybean—flickered to life at the tip of my right index finger, glowing a dark, sullen red.

By that meager light, I scanned the pages rapidly. Treatise on Abyssal Creatures, Methods of Curse Severance, Anatomical Illustrations of Dragons...

Page after page. My eyes burned from the cramped, archaic script, but none of it mentioned how a human could survive bearing a dragon's covenant. Every single text offered the same advice regarding humans: immediate execution to prevent catastrophic power backlash.

I shoved the book back onto the shelf in frustration, reaching for the next one.

And then, without warning, the dark red flame at my fingertip went out.

Not blown out by wind. It felt as though some vast, frigid presence had simply snuffed it between invisible fingers.

My breathing stopped.

Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

In the darkness, I smelled something.

Not the musty scent of old paper, not the chemical tang of magical preservatives.

Pine needles.

Mingled with a scent so cold it burned, yet cloyingly sweet—the unmistakable smell of fresh blood.

"The Forbidden Archives at midnight is no place for a little rat from the Lower City."

A voice spoke directly behind me.

So close I could feel the icy current of his breath brush against the shell of my ear.

Every muscle in my body locked tight. I spun around like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, the sharpened wooden stake in my hand driving toward the source of that voice with all the force I could muster.

Snap.

My wrist was caught mid-strike, held effortlessly in place.

The hand that gripped me was long-fingered, elegantly jointed.

But what made my scalp prickle was its temperature. It was colder than the ice Silas had left inside me—cold as a hand reaching up from a freshly opened grave.

At that moment, one of the luminous pearls embedded in the ceiling of the Forbidden Archives flickered to life with an eerie blue glow.

By that light, I finally saw who had caught me.

He was tall. He wore a dark gold and black silk brocade coat beneath a cloak that seemed woven from midnight itself. His skin had the pallor of someone who had never seen sunlight, sickly white and flawless. His features were severe and beautiful, his mouth curved in a faint, mocking smile.

And his eyes.

They were a deep, bottomless crimson. In the blue-tinged light, his pupils contracted into dangerous slits.

Vampire.

I didn't need anyone to tell me. Every instinct I had screamed the warning. The man standing before me was a pureblood, ancient, and lethally dangerous vampire.

"Good reflexes," he said, glancing at the pitiful wooden stake in my hand. A glint of mockery flickered in those red eyes. "But when you're facing a real predator, baring your claws only makes you die faster."

"Let go," I rasped, staring him down without flinching.

He laughed softly, but he didn't release me. Instead, he leaned down, bringing his face so close to my throat that his nose nearly brushed my skin.

He inhaled deeply, as though savoring the scent of particularly exquisite prey.

"How strange," he murmured, his voice low and languid, laced with a sickening magnetism.

"Sulfur. Dragon. Human sweat. And—" His red eyes narrowed, the smile on his lips turning sharper, more malicious. "And the scent of that hypocritical old elf, Silas. Just how many interesting things are you carrying inside that scrawny little body of yours?"

My heart plummeted.

He'd dissected every secret I carried just by scent alone.

"Who are you?" I forced the words out, my voice taut as a wire.

"Darian." He spoke the name slowly, releasing my wrist and stepping back half a pace with fluid grace. "Guest lecturer in Magical History at the Arcanum. Though the sanctimonious priests here prefer to call me—Prince Darian."

A Blood Prince.

My fingers cramped around the wooden stake.

No wonder he'd appeared behind me without a sound. If it was him, even if I screamed for help now, the enforcement squad wouldn't dare set foot in here.

"What are you looking for, Elora?" Darian pulled a thick tome from the shelf—something that would have been a struggle for me to lift with both hands, yet it looked weightless in his grasp. "A cure for dragon fire backlash? Or perhaps a method to kill the Grand Inquisitor?"

"That's none of your business." I took a step back, my spine pressing against the cold bookcase.

He'd cut off every escape route.

"True. It's none of my business." Darian tossed the book back onto the shelf with a dull thud.

He looked at me, those crimson eyes dancing with undisguised amusement.

"I simply find it entertaining. Outside of those insufferably dull noble banquets, I've stumbled upon a little moth about to burn herself alive from the inside out—yet still snapping her teeth at anyone who comes near. It's quite refreshing."

He took a sudden step toward me.

That cold, blood-sweet scent engulfed me completely.

"But I'll give you one piece of free advice, girl."

Darian loomed over me, his voice soft as a curse.

"The Forbidden Archives won't have what you're looking for. A mortal bearing dragon fire has only one fate. The ice inside you won't last much longer. When it melts, there won't even be ash left of you."

He watched my pupils contract sharply, clearly pleased with the reaction.

At such a dangerous distance, faced with a vampire prince's oppressive presence, I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs.

In the darkness, I heard his breathing—steady until now—pause for the barest fraction of a second.

The lazy, mocking atmosphere evaporated in an instant.

Without warning, his tall frame tilted forward. I jerked back instinctively, the hard spines of books digging painfully into my spine, but I couldn't move even a finger's width farther.

He lowered his head slowly.

In the dim blue glow of the luminous pearl, his red eyes—once full of dark humor—had turned dangerously opaque. His nose traced the line of my jaw, then dipped lower, inhaling deeply at the pulse point in my throat.

"I was only planning to watch the show..." Darian's voice had turned rough, rasping. "But I've changed my mind."

His cold fingertips brushed along my throat, his tone chilling. "Since you're going to burn into useless ash sooner or later... before you're completely ruined, why don't I have a taste first? I'm curious what blood mixed with ancient dragon fire tastes like."

Every drop of blood in my veins froze.

I felt his icy lips graze my skin. Then two lethally sharp fangs pressed against the major artery in my neck.

Damn it. I was going to die. If he pushed forward even a millimeter more, my throat would be torn open completely.