I’m going to lose.
“Nothing to say?” Viktor scoffs. “No last words? No speech about honor, family, and the mortal weakness you’ve chosen to wear like armor?”
I meet his eyes, seeing the centuries of resentment burning there, seeing the hunger for power that drove him to betray everything we built together, and seeing the absolute certainty that he’s already won.
“Just one thing,” I say quietly.
Viktor tilts his head. “What’s that?”
“You werenevermy equal.” The words land flat, deliberate. “I didn’t walk beside you. Imadeyou. I pulled you out of death and gave you eternity. A sire doesn’toweloyalty to what he creates… but a scion knows the weight of the blood that binds him.”
Something flickers across Viktor’s face. Not guilt. Not regret.Recognition.
“You’re right,” he says slowly. “I was never your equal.” His smile sharpens, bitter and earned. “I was your scion, your shadow, your proof of power.” His gaze hardens. “And I spent three centuries living with your blood in my veins, your will humming under my skin, knowing I wouldneverbe free until I tore myself out of it.” He steps closer, voice dropping. “I didn’t betray you,” Viktor says. “Ioutgrewyou. And tonight, Ifinallystop being your creation and become your consequence.” He reaches behind his back, and when his hand reappears, he’sholding a blade that makes every survival instinct I possess scream warnings.
Original-forged.
I’ve seen weapons this deadly exactly twice in my millennia of existence. Both times, they were wielded by Coven members executing traitors. The steel is black as a void, drinking light instead of reflecting it. Runes crawl across its surface, pulsing with power so ancient it predates language.
And the edge? The edge is sharp enough to cut reality itself.
“Thanatos gave me this,” Viktor says, turning the blade so it catches the blood-red light of dawn. “Forged in the First Flame, when the world was young. Quenched in the blood of the first vampire ever slain, Khaos.” His smile sharpens. “The blade worked,” he continues calmly. “It killed him. Laid him low for a full day and night.” He tilts his head, eyes glittering. “But Khaos was the first of us… the Original evil. True immortality flows in his veins.” He waves his hands through the air. “And he rose again. Because we all know that Khaos cannot be contained.” The blade gleams as he finishes, his voice dropping. “It can cut through anything… even an Original’s immortality.” He smirks. “Just not Khaos… but anyotherOriginal, especially a bound one,well… they would be invery… serious… trouble.”
He moves, and despite my vampire speed, despite millennia of combat experience, I almost don’t react in time.
Almost.
I twist left on instinct alone, the motion born from centuries of survival rather than breath or heartbeat. Steel hisses past my throat, close enough to scrape the space where my head had been a fraction of a second earlier, close enough to make every predatory sense inside me flare in violent warning.
Viktor doesn’t pause.
He never wastes motion.
He turns with the miss, body flowing into a reverse strike with effortless, unnatural precision, as if the attack was always meant to end this way. I bring my arm up to intercept, bare forearm snapping into place to stop the blow.
The blade connects.
And the world splinters.
The impact doesn’t just hurt.It’s agony. The shock ripples through my arm and into my core, rattling something deep and ancient that should not be able to be touched at all. Control slips and strength stutters. For the first time since the Binding, my body hesitates instead of obeying.
That’s when the pain truly arrives.
Not the clean pain of a cut. This is something worse. Something fundamental. The weapon doesn’t just slice flesh, it severs the connection between body and immortality, between undead existence and the power that sustains it.
Blood, actual blood instead of the sluggish ichor that usually flows through vampire veins, pours from the wound. Bright red. Warm.
Human.
I let out a heavy moan, teamed with a hiss as my fangs descend.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Viktor presses his advantage, forcing me back with a series of strikes that I can barely follow, let alone counter. “The blade makes you mortal where it cuts. Every wound it inflicts is permanent… no supernatural healing, no regeneration, just flesh, blood, andpain.”
He’s right.
The wound on my forearm throbs with every phantom heartbeat, bleeding freely in a way vampire injuries never should. The blood is too red, too warm, and it runs down my skin and drips to the concrete, and through the pain, the truth of this weapon settles into me with sickening clarity.
Death.
