*
Hymn of the Forsworn
*

Xenelov stood motionless, his body cast in the half-shadows of the old Sidgwick Site building. The portal behind the black-haired figure still shimmered with faint, oily tendrils of magic, but all attention had turned to the uncanny presence before him. The two beings stared at each other in stark silence—two forms, identical in bone and skin, but wholly different in air and essence.

Rostin, who stood a few steps behind Xenelov, felt his blood still. His breath hitched in his throat as his fingers dug into the canvas strap of his satchel clutched against his chest. He no longer remembered the lecture hall, or the other students, or the fact that he was standing on the cobbled path of his university campus—none of that mattered. Xenelov was here. And yet, so was... Xenelov?

The doppelgänger emerged fully from the portal now, the sunlight catching on his dark, slicked-back hair. It glistened like obsidian. His smirk was sharp, teeth glinting like carved pearl as he moved closer with a feline grace. His crimson-lined cloak billowed faintly, though no wind stirred.

"You adjusted quite quickly in this world," the figure said, his voice decadent and slow, soaked in ancient tones, each syllable stretching with an aristocratic weight. His eyes flicked briefly toward Rostin, a curl of amusement playing on his lips. "It seems you even carry their tongue now, brother. A mortal's cadence drips from your fangs."

Xenelov raised an arm, his silver hair shimmering faintly with the latent magic crawling down his veins. His long fingers twitched, a signal of both fury and readiness. "What do you want now?" he spoke, the Royal Vampire tongue lacing each word like an incantation, thick with command, as if every phrase carried a thousand years of history in its breath.

Rostin's eyes darted between the two figures. His knees trembled, and his voice failed him. Was this a shapeshifter? A mirror-image sent to torment them? Or something far older? Far worse?

The dark-haired figure laughed softly. "What I want, dear brother, is irrelevant. What matters is that you—" he stepped closer, his boots silent against the stone, "have forgotten who you are."

Xenelov snarled, the sound inhuman, guttural. He stepped protectively in front of Rostin, one arm still flung behind him to keep the human shielded.

"My world," he hissed in a tongue made of frost and fire, "is not yours to thread."

The dark one chuckled. "Oh, but it is. I created your world. I laid the first brick of your illusion."

Something shattered in Xenelov then. His patience snapped like a brittle bone. With a sudden motion, he raised his free hand and released a blinding arc of violet-white light. It cut through the air like a blade of the sun. Rostin instinctively ducked behind him, eyes squeezed shut.

The blast missed. The dark figure blurred to the side, unnaturally fast, and the beam hit the tree behind—a sturdy old ash—and evaporated it into nothing. Not a char, not an ember. Simply gone.

Rostin felt his stomach drop. Xenelov's power could erase.

A laughter erupted. Hollow. Guttural. Like a choir of ghosts trapped inside a cathedral bell. It vibrated through the bones. Rostin's knees gave way and he crumpled, trembling, to the ground. His head spun. He could barely breathe.

Xenelov turned his head slightly, red eyes scanning Rostin with something unreadable. Worry? Annoyance? Then, without breaking eye contact with the figure before him, he barked in the ancient tongue:

"Enough of this! Begone!"

But fate had other plans. A scream—choked, startled—pierced the air.

Emma.

The blonde girl from Rostin's class stood at the edge of the building, frozen like prey caught in a snare. Her eyes were wide, lips trembling. She had seen it all—the portal, the spell, the vampire fangs. Her fear was palpable, crackling in the air like electricity.

She stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet, and landed with a hard thud on her backside. Her bag toppled beside her, its contents—pens, notebooks, a half-eaten granola bar—scattering over the old stone path.

"Bloody hell," she whispered, voice shaking. "W-what the f-..."

Rostin’s heart sank further. Emma had seen it. She’d seen him. Seen them. Seen everything.

His hand trembled as he reached toward her although far. "Emma... please... don't move."

But Xenelov wasn't looking at Emma. His eyes—deep red now, blood swirling like galaxies—were locked on his dark-haired twin. His voice, low and wrathful, reverberated through the air, carried by ancient law and boundless fury.

"If you lay a finger on them, I will bury you between the realms."

And the figure only smiled wider. His fangs barely glinting in the weak October sunlight as he tilted mid-air, his body distorting in a glitch-like flicker. Then—snap—he was gone.

Emma gasped as the world around her blurred. In the blink of an eye, the figure appeared behind her, crouched low on one knee like a knight at court, though nothing chivalrous danced in his sinister smile. A chill passes through Emma. Not because of the chilly October but because of his hands—cold, unnaturally steady—landed on her shoulders. She froze.

"Rostin is your contractee," the figure whispered, his breath unnervingly still against her neck. "But this woman shouldn't know about our existence, don't you think?"

Rostin's voice broke through the tense air, a soft, desperate murmur. "N-No..."

Xenelov turned his head sharply at the tremor in Rostin’s voice. His eyes, still stained crimson, flared brighter. Without hesitation, he raised his arm—his palm burning with brilliant violet light—and let the shot fly.

The beam whooshed through the air like a holy judgment, narrowly missing Emma. It hissed past her ear, the heat grazing her skin, before striking the space where the figure once hovered. The black-haired double had vanished just in time, now reappearing a few feet away, landing with a feline grace just beside Emma. He gave an amused bow, his coat swirling around him like a wraith’s shroud.

"Oh, what a frightful lord you are," he teased, eyes flashing as he tilted his head toward Xenelov.

Then he turned to Emma, whose breath came shallow, her eyes wide with terror. She tried to crawl backward, her palms dragging on the gravelled pavement, but her limbs failed her.

"What do you know of vampires?" he purred, crescent-eyed and eerily calm.

Emma couldn't form a reply. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish pulled from water.

The figure continued anyway, his tone like a lecture cloaked in menace, a predator delighting in the history of his own hunger.

"You humans say," he began, his voice low and melodic, "that some of the earliest vampiric myths come from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. Tales of Lamashtu and Lilitu—demon women who drank the blood of infants and seduced men in their sleep. Lilitu… often linked to Lilith, the 'first wife of Adam' in Jewish lore. She refused submission. And for that, she was made a monster. Oh, and did she bite."

His laugh echoed through the air like a curse cast in amusement, hollow and long, vibrating against the glass panels of the building nearby. Emma winced.

He rose from his knee, still speaking. Now he hovered above them once more, hands casually tucked into the pockets of his coat.

"Or do you believe the tales from Greece? Empusa, Lamia, and the Striges—supernatural seductresses who devoured flesh and drank blood. Lamia, cursed to eat children and live forever in agony. Eyes that could never close. A mother, grieving for eternity."

Xenelov growled low under his breath. His eyes locked on the figure as he slowly, carefully shifted his stance—one foot slightly back, protecting Rostin still.

The figure grinned wider.

"Or perhaps the Slavic roots appeal to you more?" he mused. "The birthplace of the modern vampire. 'Upir'. 'Nosferatu'. Undead rising from graves to feast on their kin. Entire villages in terror, digging up corpses to check for blood on their lips."

He began to float higher, spinning slowly like a phantom storyteller.

"They staked the corpses through the heart, chopped their heads, burned them. Placed bricks in their mouths—so they could never feed again. All to stop the thirst that outlived death."

Emma whimpered.

"Or Western Europe, then?" he asked with feigned curiosity, landing gently again. "Christianity’s influence, ah yes. Vampires as Satan’s chosen. Plagues turned fear into madness. Revenants were feared more than death itself. Germany. France. Britain. Each country had its stories."

Then he turned fully to Emma, his eyes softening, mockingly gentle.

"Shall I tell you about home, dearest? The British Isles?"

Xenelov’s voice came out then, low and laced with venom.

"End this foolish monologue."

But the figure pressed on.

"The earliest tale of your kind's homeland," he said, glancing sideways at Emma, "was from 12th century Yorkshire. A man who died, then returned. The villagers burned his corpse to stop the horror. Or perhaps you’ve heard of Scotland’s Baobhan Sith—fae women in green dresses who lured hunters to bleed beneath the moonlight."

Emma was shaking. Tears gathered in her eyes.

"And Ireland gave you Abhartach," the figure finished, kneeling once again, his face close to hers. "The true source of Dracula. A blood-drinking wretch who wouldn’t die."

He sighed, as if bored.

"Then came Bram Stoker. Your mortal tale-spinner. He gathered all our history, all your fear, all your repressed lust and foreign dread... and made Dracula. The beast you think you know."

He looked over his shoulder at Xenelov, who had not moved an inch, but whose jaw was tight enough to crack bone.

Emma couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe.

Rostin, behind Xenelov, clutched his bag like a lifeline. He whispered, more to himself than anyone, "She saw too much…"

Too much indeed.

And the worst part?

This wasn’t over.

Not yet.

The air felt like it had thickened into smoke — a dense, choking silence descending around them, pressing against skin and soul alike. Not a breath stirred as the figure—Xenelov’s mirrored nightmare, his blood-red eyes bore into the trembling girl sprawled on the grass. Emma's chest rose and fell in quick, uneven gasps, her hands still bracing against the damp earth, her belongings scattered like forgotten relics of innocence.

He tilted his head, his black hair falling slightly over his eyes, and his smile curled into something ancient and cruel.

“No matter the era,” he began, voice a velvet drawl that slithered through the air, “no matter the stories you cling to in your warm beds and bright houses of cold and distorted—one truth remains eternal.” His boots touched the earth as he leaned toward her slowly, unhurriedly, as though savoring the moment. “We vampires will always massacre your kind. Hate your kind.”

Then without warning—like a crack of thunder—his hand shot forward and clamped around her throat.

Emma let out a strangled gasp, her eyes widening in horror. Her fingers clawed instinctively at his wrist, legs kicking as her body was hoisted high into the air like a broken doll. She flailed, desperate, her heels catching nothing but empty wind.

“Emma!” Rostin shouted, his voice breaking as panic bloomed violently inside him.

“Let her down!” Xenelov’s voice rang out, sharp and commanding—regal and wrathful, not in English, but in the chillingly elegant cadence of the Old Vampire Tongue, “Alaestra mal vethon rhae! Doemah!”

He raised one hand and hurled a blinding stream of light toward the figure.

But the figure merely smirked and lifted his free hand. With a flick of his wrist, he caught the light midair like a ribbon and curled his fingers, crushing it into nothingness. The discarded magic hissed as it vanished, absorbed by the shadows around them.

Xenelov's lips pressed into a grim line, his red irises glowing brighter beneath his silver fringe. He took a step forward—but was too late.

Rostin had already dropped his bag, and with a desperate cry, sprinted across the field. No hesitation, no calculation—only raw, reckless fear.

“No!” Xenelov called out, too late.

Rostin reached the dark figure and—without a thought—sank his teeth into the doppelganger’s leg. His teeth pierced through layers of fabric and flesh, blood soaking instantly into his mouth. The taste was wrong—too cold, too thick, too ancient—but he didn’t stop.

The figure flinched, his brows knitting in surprise. “What in the —?” he hissed, turning his glowing eyes downward. He gave a violent jerk, shaking his leg to rid himself of the human leech attached to him. “Biting me won't get you anywhere, little rat,” he spat, voice now laced with contempt. “You're a mere human. A grain of sand beneath my—”

But Rostin didn’t let go. He bit harder.

The figure growled, and in that moment of distraction, his grip on Emma’s throat loosened.

Xenelov blurred.

One heartbeat, she was choking midair—and the next, strong arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her away in a streak of silver and shadows. The wind howled as Xenelov landed several feet away, knees bent in a crouch, Emma cradled gently against him. He set her on her feet, carefully brushing her hair away from her tear-streaked face.

“Breathe,” he said softly in English, his tone calm despite the fury boiling behind his eyes. “You're safe now.”

Then he turned his gaze to Rostin.

“Let him go, you fool,” Xenelov commanded, standing tall, his cloak flaring around him like the wings of some cursed angel. “I will handle this.”

The figure snarled, and with a swift, disgusted motion, raised his leg and kicked forward. Rostin’s grip broke, and he was hurled through the air like a ragdoll. Time slowed.

Xenelov’s hand snapped upward.

A violet light—glowing like a dying star—formed beneath Rostin just as he began to plummet. The light solidified into a cloud of magical energy, catching him with supernatural grace before he could crash against the grass.

The figure stepped forward slowly, brushing nonexistent dust from his shoulder, still smirking.

Xenelov didn’t flinch.

He raised his head, silver hair glinting under the sun, and his voice dropped into something ancient—something heavy.

“Yurellion.” The name cracked through the air like thunder. “'Sthael ve’rhain. Thaen oriel draek'tharn.”
—That is enough.

The name echoed in the clearing, tasting of old magic and shared blood.

For the first time, Yurellion’s grin faltered.

And silence fell again.

A silence full of answers no one was yet ready to hear.