Blair Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Blair Nightshade had searched Terror Woods for three nights, and the throne beneath it still refused to show her its door. The vampire court ruled the dark under these trees. Her blood said it belonged to her. But a crown meant nothing if she could not find the stairs down. She pressed her palm against the cold dirt and felt nothing. No seam. No hidden latch. Only roots and worms. She followed a smell of rot to a broken grey ruin. Cracked stone leaned at every angle. Pale lilies grew through the gaps, and dark green ooze dripped down the walls. This was the old keep where the court's last living servant had worked. If anyone had written down the way in, they had done it here. Blair climbed through a split in the wall. Inside, she found a stone shelf and a rotted iron box. She tore the lid free. A single page lay inside, stained but readable. It named a marker: a bush of black lilies and dying roses, and beneath its bleeding roots, the door. "You found it before me." Blair spun. A small zombie stood in the doorway, pink hair bright against green skin. Patches of bone showed through her torn white dress. Her shoes were split at the toes. Blair knew her. Ella had been hunting the same door for weeks, always one step ahead, always smiling that small smile. A rival, not a friend. "The throne is mine," Blair said. "Not yours." Ella tilted her head. "I don't want the throne. I want to go home." She pointed a grey finger at the page. "Read the last line." Blair looked. The ink was faint. *The door is guarded by what burrows from below.* They left the ruin together, because neither trusted the other alone. Outside, under grey grass, grew the bush from the page. Black lilies and red roses dripped like wet wounds. Blair knelt and clawed at the roots. Stone showed beneath. A flat slab. A handle of rusted iron. She pulled. The slab swung up. Cold air rushed out, old and sour. Stairs fell away into black. The door to the court, at last. Something hissed in the dark below. A shape slid up the top step. Black and grey scales. Gold spikes down its spine. Its fangs dripped blood, and its eyes caught the moonlight. The snake that fed on corpses in the court's own tunnels now blocked the only way down. Ella stepped back fast. "That's what the line meant." Blair did not move. She had found the door. The door was open. But the thing guarding it was between her and every stair that led to her crown. She bared her fangs at the snake. The snake bared its own.