Chapter 82: The One That Slipped Through

Location: The Council's Inner Chamber – High Sanctum of Eldoria

Lightning flickered behind the tall stained-glass windows, painting streaks of crimson and violet across the obsidian floor of the High Council's chamber. Inside, the most ancient and feared leaders of the supernatural realm convened under a haze of incense and authority.

Chancellor Elowen, her once-proud poise now shadowed by decades of silent failure, stood at the center of the circle. Her silver hair, once tied in regal braids, hung loose around her face as if age had finally caught up to her conscience.

"The girl is gone," murmured a voice from the shadows—Lord Cedros, a warlock of the eastern realm, his tone like rust on cold steel. "Eighteen years. And still you give us no results."

Elowen turned toward him, her voice hoarse but steady. "The error was… unprecedented. We suppressed her aura to protect the realms. No one could have predicted that a simple illness would unravel the plan."

The memory returned to her sharply—she had placed Elira, the hybrid child of Maika and Carl, into the arms of a devout human couple in a quiet, quarantined village. They were chosen for their loyalty and isolation. But fate intervened.

"The outbreak," she said aloud, her fingers clenching. "The plague came swift, from across the seas. The caretakers fell within days. Their neighbors tried to save the child, bringing her to the nearest hospital…"

"…where the suppression spell did its work too well," Lord Cedros interrupted. "She was indistinguishable from any human infant."

"They said three other girls her age were brought in the same night," Elowen whispered, haunted. "No names, no tags. Their auras, completely nullified by the bloodseal I placed myself. I couldn't detect her… I couldn't find her."

She paused. The guilt surged.

"I made her untraceable."

Lady Naeva, the council's oracle, who had once prophesied Elira's terrifying future, slammed her cane against the marble.

"You told us she would never remember! That the hybrid girl's magic would stay dormant until her twenty-first year!" she hissed. "But now she walks among mortals. Unknown. Untouched. And when she awakens—if she awakens—"

"She will become more powerful than Maika and Caveen combined," Cedros finished coldly. "A living weapon of both Carellos blood and ancient vampire royalty."

The chamber shivered with that truth.

Elowen's voice cracked. "We have agents combing every trace—every girl brought that night, in that region. We cross-examine bloodlines, test aura reflections, review any faint magical residue. But the suppression spell—it worked too well."

"Then reverse it," Naeva snapped. "Unlock her aura remotely."

"I… cannot," Elowen said slowly. "The seal required a link to her blood. A link I severed when I erased her from Maika's soul. There is no bond between mother and daughter anymore. Not even psychic recognition."

The chamber went silent.

A grim realization hovered.

They had created a miracle—and lost it.

Or worse…

They had lost control of something they couldn't even detect anymore.

Naeva, trembling, raised her staff to the ceiling and called forth a vision mist. Glimmering smoke formed into an image: hundreds of young women in a hospital ward, all crying, sleeping, growing—indistinguishable. At the center, a faint flicker—a momentary glow in the eyes of one.

Then it vanished.

"Once she reaches twenty-one," the oracle said gravely, "her soulflame will ignite. And if her Carellos blood calls to her before we find her…"

"…she will not be ours to command," Cedros finished. "She may not even be ours to stop."

Elowen looked up then, something fragile in her proud eyes. "But she is still a child," she whispered. "Somewhere, Elira lives. Unaware. Perhaps happy. Perhaps safe."

"And that," Naeva said, "makes her the most dangerous of all."

The Council fell into murmured argument—names, spells, bloodlines, wild theories—but Elowen stared only at the vision's after-image, slowly dissolving into air.

A nameless girl.

A sealed soul.

A time bomb ticking in the hands of fate.

The city hummed faintly beneath the night sky, a mosaic of lights blinking like fireflies caught in glass. Somewhere on the fifteenth floor of a sleek apartment tower, Dr. Caveen V. Landon stirred awake, his breath caught in his throat, heart racing against the silence.

Again… her face.

The same dream. The same girl. Her voice like wind through old trees. Her eyes—bright, unfamiliar, but etched with something deeply known.

He sat up slowly, wiping sweat from his brow. Moonlight spilled through the tall windowpanes, casting sharp angles across the sleek lines of his modern home. It was quiet, too quiet for a man whose blood once carried the howl of Lycans and the pulse of vampires.

He swung his legs over the bed and padded to the kitchen barefoot. The cold marble floor grounded him. He poured himself a glass of water, letting the silence settle around him like a familiar coat.

The image from his dream wouldn't fade.

She had whispered again—just one word.

"Brother."

Caveen closed his eyes tightly.

It wasn't the first time. These dreams began eighteen years ago, subtle at first. A shadow in a hallway. A child's laugh in an empty room. Then her face, more vivid each night, as if inching closer to him. As if calling to him.

He had chalked it up to stress. The duality of his life was difficult to balance. On paper, he was a respected doctor in the human world—kind, brilliant, and impossibly composed. But beneath that skin was a being born of vampire royalty and Lycan blood. A secret life. A hidden lineage. And a void that grew with time.

He glanced at the framed photo on the wall—Carl and Maika, his parents, smiling on the porch of their rural estate. They looked happy then, rebuilding after all the bloodshed, after the escape from the Council. Valus had retreated to his private sanctuary. The witches kept their distance. All that mattered, back then, was peace.

And yet peace never gave Caveen all the answers.

He drank deeply, water like ice down his throat.

"Who are you?" he murmured, his voice hoarse. "Are you even real?"

He turned and leaned against the counter, running a hand through his dark hair. He looked like his father in the jaw, but his eyes belonged to Maika—deep, gold-rimmed with a glint of quiet sadness.

Somewhere deep in his chest, his instincts stirred.

She's alive.

No matter how many times he tried to shake the thought, something in his soul never let go of it. When he was young, he remembered hearing whispers—one more heartbeat in the womb. But no one ever confirmed it. His mother rarely spoke of that day. His father changed the subject each time it came up.

But his dreams… they were never wrong.

She had long black hair and soft features. Her voice trembled when she spoke his name—as if she didn't know it fully, but recognized the shape of him.

Sometimes she cried in the dream.

Tonight, she smiled instead.

She stood on a cliff by the sea, wind in her hair, arms reaching out—not in fear, but in hope.

Caveen paced back toward his bedroom, unable to stop the chill spreading through his limbs.

"Are you… looking for me?" he whispered into the darkness.

His heart ached. A part of him—the part born of ancient magic and impossible blood—knew that if she were alive, she wouldn't know what she was. They had hidden her from everyone. Her aura was likely sealed. If she lived, she lived as a human. Powerless. Blind to her truth.

And if the Council ever found her again...

He gripped the edge of his dresser tightly.

"I have to find you first," he said quietly.

The silence didn't respond.

But somewhere in the fabric of the world, something shifted.

Far beyond the city, beneath the stars, a girl stirred in her sleep—across the sea, across time, across fate.

And she dreamed of her brother. Her name Elira