CHAPTER EIGHT The Choice They Took From Me
203 Words
POV: Astridr
They meant to kill her.
I smelled it in the iron, heard it in the rhythm of their feet. Humans fear what they cannot control—and she was never meant to be controlled.
The elders burst into the crypt carrying relics older than the castle itself. Bone knives.
Sun‑etched chains. They didn’t see a girl.
They saw a mistake.
“She cannot live,” the eldest hissed. “The seal was meant to sleep.”
She stepped forward before I could stop her.
“Then you should have let me stay asleep,” she said.
They struck her.
Not once. Not twice. Over and over. I tore through them, ripping spines free, painting the walls with their insides—but I was too slow.
She fell.
The mark at her throat flared white‑hot.
The crypt answered her.
Stone folded. Light screamed. Every vampire in the castle dropped to one knee, bound by a force older than blood.
She rose unsteadily, eyes blazing—not red. Not black.
Human.
And something else.
She looked at me, shaking.
“I didn’t choose this,” she said.
I bowed my head.
“Neither did the world,” I replied.
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