Iliana Van Helsing's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

The oath still burned in Iliana's palm. She had paid the witch debt with a number, a count of the dead drawn from old bones. But numbers did not raise a village. She stared at her hand and understood the truce was not finished. The Mother had named a price. Now Iliana had to hand something real across the divide. "You look like a woman with an empty purse," the blood princess said. Maria Tepes stepped close, red gown dragging over stone. Iliana had watched her pull threads from corpses. Nearby, heartbeats seemed to lean toward the woman like reeds in wind. "You swore to a village of ash. Ash cannot be repaid with gold." "Then tell me what can," Iliana said. The pale man in white answered. Miguel Tepes, the one who fed on animals, not men. "My mother lost her whole clan to the sun. Hecate stripped it from them." He spoke plainly, no softness in it. "Give the witches back what your family took. Not coin. Daylight." Iliana's mind moved to her tools. "I build things," she said. "Weapons, mostly. But I can build a machine that stores light. I have done it for smaller work." She looked at the tall rune-carved tower above them, its domes glowing. "Moonlight into a stone. Enough to hold a shield when yours fails." The Mother came down the steps, veil trailing far behind. "My shield already fails," she said. "I recharge it with my daughter's stored moon. It costs her the dead she could raise." She stopped before Iliana. "You would build me a reservoir the witches control themselves." "I would," Iliana said. "Van Helsing wealth, Van Helsing craft. Not one hunt. A machine that keeps your people hidden without draining your own." She pressed her burned palm flat. "That is the payment. Work, not blood." Maria studied her. "She means it," the princess said. "Her heart holds steady. No lie in it." The Mother was silent a long moment. Then she took Iliana's wounded hand and turned it over. The rune scar flared once and settled. "Bound to the count, and now bound to the labor," she said. "You will build it in my tower. Under my daughter's eye. If it fails, the debt reopens." "It will not fail," Iliana said. Miguel nodded once. "Then the truce holds while you work." The great winged shadow crossed the towers again, red eyes bright. The witch debt was answered, not with a life or a coin, but with a promise to build. Iliana had traded her father's name for a truce, and now her own hands for its price. She looked up at the glowing tower where she would work. Somewhere far to the west, her father still knew none of it. When he learned his heir had sworn to serve inside Dracula's walls, the harder war would begin.