Chapter 93 – The Blood Keeps Singing
The realm was no longer silent.
Spring had bloomed in the ashes of winter. The once-dead fields were now brimming with golden grass and quiet winds. Children laughed again in villages once ravaged by war. Peace wasn't loud. It was a gentle kind of hum—like the murmur of a lullaby whispered to the bones of the earth.
But within Valerian, the quiet was different.
It was the kind that follows loss. The kind that remains even after miracles.
He sat beneath the obsidian tree, the one Selene had once touched and made bloom with a simple smile. Now it bore silver blossoms. They only grew where her feet had last touched the soil.
He came here every night.
Not because he hoped she would return.
But because the earth remembered her too.
Lucien approached him at dusk, his expression thoughtful, no longer the brooding brother of war. "The southern border has stabilized. The Ashen Court has agreed to the new treaty. Your reign is secure now."
Valerian didn't look away from the tree. "My reign was never the point."
Lucien sighed. "Then what is?"
Valerian's fingers brushed the soft petals falling from the tree. "She changed everything. Even time. Even me."
Lucien sat beside him. "And yet you're still here."
"I promised her I would be." A pause. "But I don't know how to live without waiting."
Lucien studied him quietly. "Then don't wait. Watch."
"Watch?"
"Something strange is stirring in the north," Lucien said. "The seers have been dreaming again. They say the Blood Star is returning."
Valerian turned sharply. "The Blood Star?"
Lucien nodded. "And with it… a child marked by fate."
The words struck something in Valerian—a tremor. A pull in his chest, like a string tied to his ribs tugging northward. The same direction Selene's soul had once pulled him. That same magnetic ache.
"She's not done," Valerian whispered. "Selene… she's coming back, isn't she?"
Lucien shrugged lightly. "You told me she would."
Valerian rose slowly, the wind catching the black of his coat, shadows curling along the ground like mist around his boots. He looked to the stars.
They had shifted.
One, burning red, glowed brighter than the rest.
> "The Blood Star," he said again. "It's begun."
---
Meanwhile… in a village far to the north
A baby was born during the storm.
The midwife gasped as she held the child. Not because of her cry—it was fierce and strong—but because of her scent.
Amber and starlight.
And beneath her heart, an ancient rhythm.
Not human. Not vampire. Not beast.
Something else.
Her mother, a soft-spoken omega girl who remembered nothing of how she came to be pregnant, wept softly as she held her daughter. "What's her name?" the midwife asked.
The girl smiled through tears.
> "Selis," she whispered. "She told me her name would be Selis."
---
And in the farthest north tower of the Night King's palace, Valerian stood with his eyes closed… as he felt the wind change.
He didn't smile.
But he knew.
She was coming home again.
This time, in another form.
But fate never forgets what it began.