Chapter 8: The Hollow Fang

The neon haze of Eclipsion's Veil district pulsed like a dying heartbeat, casting jagged shadows over the cobblestones. Lira adjusted the hood of her stolen cloak, its moth-eaten fabric reeking of bergamot and bloodwine—a feeble disguise. Beside her, Ryen muttered a curse as his boot sank into a gutter clogged with blackened snow.

"You're sure this map leads to the relic?" he asked, his breath curling in the cold.

She didn't answer. The ink on the parchment moved, Orion's alchemical script writhing like veins whenever her silver-streaked hair brushed the page.

Follow the blood.

Ahead, the entrance to the Black Bazaar loomed—an iron arch crowned with vampire skulls, their hollow sockets glowing under flickering UV lanterns. Voices clashed in the streets, a cacophony of haggling merchants and feral snarls.

"Stay close," Ryen murmured, hand grazing the wolfsbane-lined collar of his coat. "And don't make eye contact."

Lira smirked. "Worried I'll bite someone?"

His jaw tightened. Neither of them had spoken about the kiss in Orion's crypt—the way her fangs had nicked his lip. The wound still glinted silver under the moonlight.

The Blood Market

The Black Bazaar was a grotesque carnival. Vampire nobles in moth-wing cloaks sipped crimson cocktails from glass vertebrae while muzzled hybrids snarled from rusted cages. Lira's stomach churned.

This is what Orion wants. A world of monsters on leashes.

Ryen tensed as a vendor beckoned them, his stall lined with jars of preserved eyes. "Wolf or vamp?" the man crooned, tapping a label:

Selene's Sentinels—50% Off!

"Just passing through," Ryen growled, steering Lira toward a quieter aisle.

She froze. A stall draped in moth-eaten velvet called to her, its wares laid out like offerings: a lock of Selene's hair sealed in glass, a wolf's heart pickled in mercury—

There.

Obsidian and etched with constellations, it thrummed as she reached for it, the sound of a blade scraping bone.

"Ah." The vendor's voice was wet, phlegmatic. "You've got the scent, don't you, girl?"

Ryen stepped between them. "Name your price."

The vendor laughed, a sound like rats in the walls. "No coin for this. The Fang answers only to bloodline."

Lira's pulse quickened. Before Ryen could stop her, she pricked her thumb on a fang and pressed it to the chalice's rim.

The market stilled.

Then—

The chalice screamed.

Vesper watched from a balcony above, claws digging into the railing. The burn scars on her face throbbed where Lira's blood had melted her skin.

Pathetic.

She signaled to the hunters lurking in the rafters. "Take the relic. Leave the girl alive—barely."

Selene's orders. Always Selene's orders.

Vesper clenched her fists. Not for much longer.

Chaos erupted. UV lanterns shattered, plunging the market into darkness. Snarls and screams tangled in the air as merchants scrambled to protect their wares.

"Run!" Ryen yanked Lira into an alley, the chalice clutched to her chest.

"They're her hunters," she panted, senses burning with the stench of frostbite and jasmine. "Selene's."

Ryen shoved her behind a dumpster, his body shielding hers. "Give me the Fang. I'll lead them away."

"Like hell." Her eyes flared, crimson and gold. "This is my fight."

He gripped her chin, forcing her gaze to his. "You're not a weapon, Lira. Not to me."

A dagger buried itself in the wall beside them, severing a lock of silver-streaked hair.

"Go!" She shoved him toward the back exit. "I'll find you at the tavern!"

He hesitated—too long.

The hunters descended.

The Hollow Fang Tavern

A relic in its own right, the Hollow Fang's sign creaked in the wind as Jax scrubbed bloodstains from the bar. Nina, the vampire refugee, sketched Orion's sigil in frantic strokes.

"They're late," Jax muttered, polishing a glass too hard.

Mira emerged from the cellar, braid frayed from sorting herbs. "They'll come. Lira's stubborn as a**shit."

The door slammed open.

Ryen staggered inside, bloodied and alone.

"Where is she?" Mira demanded.

He collapsed into a chair, voice hollow. "They took the chalice. And her."

Nina's pencil snapped. "Selene?"

Ryen exhaled shakily. "Worse."

His amber eyes burned.

"Vesper."

The dungeon reeked of mildew and despair. Silver cuffs burned into Lira's wrists, Orion's blood thrumming beneath her skin.

Vesper loomed, the Hollow Fang chalice glinting in her grip. "Your mother wants you alive. But she didn't say intact."

Lira spat blood at her boots. "Still Selene's lapdog, even after he turned you into this?"

A flicker of something then rage. Vesper backhanded her, splitting her lip.

"Orion saw my potential," she sneered. "Selene only saw a tool."

"And what do you see?" Lira murmured. "A queen? Or just another monster?"

Vesper hesitated. For a heartbeat, Lira glimpsed the girl she'd once been before the experiments, before the rage.

Then the moment passed.

"You'll die screaming," Vesper hissed, storming out. "Just like your father."

Lira smirked.

Her blood still smeared the chalice's rim.

Let it whisper to him.

The Crypt

Miles away, Orion's hologram flickered to life in the abandoned lab. The chalice's scream had been a beacon, its message now burning on the walls in Lira's blood:

I'm not your masterpiece.

He laughed, black eyes gleaming. "Oh, daughter. You're exactly what I made you."