The Crimson Mare Tavern, Draymoor – Late Evening
The fire snapped in the hearth like it was trying to speak.
Darian sat alone at a corner table, hood down, cloak damp from the rain still weeping outside. The tavern was dim and low-ceilinged, its air thick with pipe smoke, sweat, and the heavy scent of stew gone cold.
He nursed a tankard of something that called itself mead. It burned like alchemy and tasted like regret.
The locals gave him a wide berth. Even the drunkest of them, who'd earlier tried to wager pig's teeth over dice, had lost their nerve when they'd caught a glimpse of those golden eyes.
He preferred it that way.
From his shadowed corner, Darian watched everything. The barkeep with the scar down his throat. The red-haired girl behind the bar who never turned her back to strangers. The three men near the hearth whispering too quietly and laughing too late.
He caught the scent of silver hidden under one's cloak.
"Witcher."
The voice was quiet, but firm. Not a question.
Darian didn't look up immediately. He took another drink, then raised his eyes. A man stood before him—lean, cloaked, eyes sharp as flint. Not local. Definitely not friendly.
"You don't look like a man who kills monsters for coin," the stranger said, tilting his head. "You look like one."
Darian said nothing.
The man stepped closer. "The basilisk wasn't the only thing crawling through these hills, you know. Something worse is stirring near the ruins outside town. Something ancient."
Darian leaned back, one eyebrow raised. "I just killed a flying reptile the size of a horse. You'll forgive me if I'm not shaking."
The man didn't smile.
"This isn't a contract, Witcher," he said. "This is a warning. Stay out of the ruins. Leave Draymoor by dawn."
Darian's gold eyes narrowed. Then he smiled—slow and cold.
"You're new to the North, aren't you?"
The man blinked. "What?"
"If you weren't," Darian said, voice low and calm, "you'd know telling a Witcher what not to do is the fastest way to get him curious."
He raised the tankard in a mock toast.
"Now leave. Before I start charging for conversation."
The man hesitated. Then, without another word, turned and slipped into the crowd—vanishing as easily as he'd come.
Darian watched the door long after he'd gone.
The fire crackled again, louder this time. The tankard was nearly empty. The silence returned.
But something in the air had changed.
He felt it in his bones.
Old magic.
Buried. Bitter.
And calling his name.
The Ruins Outside Draymoor – Midnight
The wind had died.
Even the trees held their breath as Darian stepped through the crumbling stone archway, sword strapped to his back, cloak trailing like a shadow behind him. Moonlight filtered weakly through the clouds, casting long, broken patterns across the moss-covered floor.
The ruins were older than the town itself—far older.
Vines clung to cracked marble columns like withered fingers. Obsidian statues stood watch in shattered silence, their faces long eroded by time and weather. But the symbols etched into the stones… those remained.
Elvish. Ancient dialect. Not the flowery script of Aen Seidhe, but something darker. Aen Elle. The wild elves. Those who'd come from another world—and left curses behind when they fled.
Darian traced one of the carvings with a gloved hand. His fingers tingled.
The symbols pulsed faintly under his touch. Not light… but something deeper. Like a heartbeat under stone.
"Blood answers blood," he muttered, reading aloud from the markings.
He knew the words. He hated that he knew them.
Something had been awakened here. The basilisk might've been drawn to the place—drawn by the same thing that whispered now at the edge of his hearing. A song in a language no human could speak.
Not human.
But he wasn't fully that, was he?
He stepped deeper into the ruins. The ground sloped down into a sunken chamber, half-swallowed by earth and root. A circle of stone surrounded what looked like an altar—slick with recent moisture. Not water.
Blood.
Darian knelt beside it. Still fresh. Animal? No. Wrong viscosity. He pressed two fingers to it and hissed.
Vampire. Higher blood.
Something stirred behind him—soft as breath, sharp as a blade being drawn.
He rose, slowly. Hand on his sword.
"You're late," came a voice from the shadows. Feminine. Ageless. And far too familiar.
A figure stepped forward from the darkness beyond the altar—tall, elegant, eyes glowing with faint crimson light. Her presence seemed to drink in the air around her.
A higher vampire.
Darian's jaw tightened. "You."
She smiled. Fangs like porcelain.
"Hello, little brother."
Darian's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword, the metal humming faintly with his touch. The runes etched along the blade shimmered red, as if tasting her presence.
The vampire stepped closer, graceful as drifting smoke. Her eyes—blood and moonlight—never left his. Her voice was velvet wrapped around steel.
"You still cling to that blade like it defines you. So human. So... Witcher."
She tilted her head, mock pity in her gaze. "But you're neither, really. Not anymore. You're what they fear, even if they don't have a name for it."
Darian drew his sword in one smooth motion. The air cracked with tension as the blade hissed free.
"We are nothing alike," he said, voice cold as winter steel. "You feed on the living. I protect them. That line's the only thing keeping me from becoming what you are."
Her smile widened—but there was no warmth in it. Only hunger.
"That line is an illusion. One you tell yourself so you can sleep between contracts, pretend you're not already halfway to monster. You think your code will save you, Darian? From what you really are?"
He leveled the blade at her throat. The runes burned brighter.
"I don't need saving. I need you to back away from this town. Whatever you're doing here, it ends tonight."
A beat of silence passed.
Then the wind returned, sudden and sharp, sweeping through the ruins like the breath of something buried waking from centuries of slumber. The Elvish sigils on the stone pulsed again—faster. Louder. The blood on the altar began to boil.
Her smile faded.
"You don't understand, do you?" she whispered. "I'm not here to destroy the town. I'm here because something far worse is coming… and I'm the only one who can stop it."
She stepped back into the shadows, vanishing between flickers of ancient magic.
"Stay out of the way, little brother," her voice echoed. "Or you'll bleed for nothing."
And then, silence.
Only Darian remained—blade drawn, pulse steady, jaw clenched. The sigils around him glowed brighter now. Not just warning signs.
A ward. A lock.
And something deep below the altar had just begun to stir.