Eternal Night in Lunareth

A few days before Ayato’s expedition.

Lunareth was like a city that had forgotten how to breathe. In the square, public kitchen tents stood in neat rows, but the lines were thin. Large pots simmered quietly, the smell of vegetable soup drifting—gentle to the nose, bitter to the heart.

Shops half-closed, their signs dulled. Well water grew murky faster than usual. People spoke in hushed tones, as though words themselves might summon misfortune.

Selphira walked down the stone road, back straight, face composed the way she arranged it every morning. Beside her, Kaelyn followed half a step behind—silently noting small details: a child sitting on a doorway, staring blankly; a bread seller pretending not to hear when the word “aid” was spoken. The eyes that followed them no longer curious, but accusatory.

“Traitor,” someone whispered. Who it was meant for was unclear. The baron who had died? Or the capital that never sent caravans?

Selphira stopped. Her lips tightened for a moment, then eased. “I want to go home,” she said curtly to Kaelyn, without turning her head.

They returned to the mansion. In the cold marble corridor, Kaelyn delivered her report quickly—rice tallies, medicine counts, who was ill, who needed moving. Selphira listened, only nodding occasionally. When Kaelyn finished, she bowed.

“I’ll patrol for a while.”

Selphira gave no reply, only staring until Kaelyn departed. But those eyes—there was a shadow within, a red that was not fatigue.

Kaelyn went down alone. At the gate, she paused, observing the city through the black iron bars. She knew Lunareth’s pulse: the hollow climb of bread prices, the dulling shimmer of water, the chain of failed harvests spreading from village to village.

She also knew the name circulating on people’s lips lately—a name once tied to why those orphans had a place to shelter.

In her unease, a face lingered in her mind.

“V… what are you doing now, I wonder?”

She headed for the slums; her feet knew the path without command. In the narrow alley stinking of cheap soap and damp burlap, there was a small post: a battered blackboard, paper maps, piles of leftover bread rationed evenly. Once the secret hideout of those children. Now, a gathering place for those refusing to surrender to the dragging days.

Alex greeted her at the alley’s mouth. His hair was a mess, his eyes wary.

“K-neesan,” he said with a quick bow. “Faaja’s already reached the capital. Heh, I hope she can meet that man.”

Kaelyn patted his shoulder. “Good. Starting tonight, speed up the evacuation of the children. The smallest and the sick first; every two kids escorted by one teen. If there’s trouble, report straight to me. Understood?”

Alex nodded. “Yes. …Everyone else already left for the capital with Faaja’s group. I’m the only one staying in Lunareth—closing the back routes and making sure the empty houses are locked.”

Kaelyn was about to say “be careful” when something brushed her skin: a chill that was not cold. Goosebumps rose. At the alley’s end, someone lingered too long, too still. When Kaelyn turned her head, the figure was already gone, leaving behind a faint metallic scent.

“Hide,” Kaelyn whispered. “Now.”

Alex vanished into a side door. Kaelyn waited ten counts, then turned toward the main road.

Silence had shifted its shape. Not mere absence of sound, but the presence of something else. By the roadside, two people sat against a wall; one slumped, head bent at an odd angle—the other leaned too close to his neck.

Kaelyn swallowed; the faint metallic tang brushed her tongue. At a corner, she saw a woman standing, gazing at the sky—red eyes reflecting light that wasn’t there.

“Selphira, ojou-sama…” Kaelyn muttered, almost soundless.

Her pace quickened; first fast, then near-running. Her soles struck stone, breath ragged. She cut through alleys, skimmed along the market’s edge, brushed off reaching hands. Cold sweat crept down her back. She didn’t look back—only counted corners to the mansion.

The gates appeared ahead. The iron doors opened by themselves as she nearly collided with them; Kaelyn slipped inside, shoulder grazing the frame. Corridors were empty. Servants? None. The wind stirred curtains, making a hiss that stiffened her nape.

She knocked on Selphira’s chamber door once. No reply.

“Ojou-sama?” Kaelyn pushed it open.

Selphira stood by the window. Her gown was wrinkled, hair undone. Her gaze fixed on the dark courtyard, unfocused; her eyes were red—not from tears. A brief glint at her lips—small fangs, not fully out.

“Ojou-sama, we must evacuate at once. Something is happening in the city. I—”

A chill swept Kaelyn’s neck.

She spun fast. A shadow. Silent. Eyes reflecting nothing. She raised her elbow—close the gap, secure the space—but an unseen hand shoved her first. Her step faltered half.

“Who—”

The word cut off with heat at her throat. Teeth pierced skin. From the corner of her eye she saw: the embrace holding her… belonged to her mistress.

“Sel—” She couldn’t finish.

Warm blood crept over her skin, dripping onto her collar. The world shook—the walls, the floor, the ceiling squeezed and stretched like a misdrawn breath. A scraping sound—neither servant’s step nor window’s push—but a small, patient hiss.

Kaelyn tried to twist her wrist, jab, break free. Her body obeyed half a second, then grew heavy—like bound from within. On the edge of fainting, her lips moved on their own.

“V…”

Light shrank to a keyhole.

Dark.

That night Lunareth held its breath deeper still. People shut windows earlier, lamps dimmed sooner. In the small church, candles died without a blow. In the western district, public kitchen tents stayed lit, pots still steaming—none dared approach.

Inside that chamber, Selphira released her embrace. She smiled faintly, but it wasn’t the smile Kaelyn knew. Behind her, the figure that had lingered in shadows flexed fingers, as if slipping off gloves after a job.

“Beautiful,” it said lightly—tone as though praising a carving.

Selphira looked at it; in her red eyes lingered traces of who she once was. “Your promise,” she said softly.

“Lunareth will be ‘quiet,’” the figure answered. “No more screams, no more hunger.”

A promise that sounded like affection if untouched. If touched—ice.

Kaelyn lay on the carpet. Her breath thin. In the rising-falling dark, fragments surfaced: Selphira’s hand patting her shoulder before meetings; Alex whining to join training; paper maps on the post’s wall. Another face too—a man who once came with wary eyes, then slowly became her trusted comrade.

V… I… couldn’t protect… a single one…

In the moment before her consciousness slipped away, she realized one thing. That this time it was her turn to break the promise they had once made.

...

The next morning, Lunareth fulfilled its promise—or rather, the Elder Vampire’s: “Lunareth will be quiet. No more screams, no more hunger.”

The streets were truly quiet. Not from relief, but because life had been taken and returned without sound. Most residents were now undead: walking straight with empty eyes, no hunger, no fatigue, no turning of heads.

Others became imperfect ghouls—their bodies intact, skin cold-pale, breath shallow but hollow; minds fractured. Their movements mechanical, reflexes chasing sound or shadow, without will behind them.

Only two were perfect: perfect ghouls—Selphira and Kaelyn—whose bodies remained whole, moving as clear as humans, yet with eyes glinting flat, devoid of light.

In the marketplace, stalls stood intact without haggling. Black cloth still hung from the gate; none interpreted, none removed. Doors closed neatly, as if homes locked in their owners themselves.

Lunareth became eternal: bodies kept moving, while the unheard screams stayed trapped inside their souls.

A few days later—too late—news seeped past the forest. It didn’t come as letters, but as tremors: the air thickening northward, a metallic tang carried on the wind.

In Fenlareth, at the swamp’s edge where shadows once writhed like mud, a young man lifted his face.

Ayato recalled the thirty minutes he stole from death. Remembered the hand he held in the dark. Remembered the trembling purple eyes when the word love finally had a voice.

“Vin-chan,” Lys called from behind, casual, but her eyes narrowed toward the wind. “You feel that?”

“Yes,” Ayato replied shortly.

Irea turned, her wolf ears twitching. “It’s coming from the nearest city…”

“Lunareth,” Ayato said. Not asking. Speaking like one naming a home once abandoned.

No one laughed at that certainty. The wind carried the same scent—metallic tang on the tongue, a cold that was not cold. The choice Ayato made in Fenlareth—to face, not flee—was about to meet the choices of those left in Lunareth: endure, bow, or bite back.

That night, the forest breathed heavy. And far to the north, Lunareth awaited dawn—not to rise, but to see who would still be holding whose hand when the dark closed again.