White Domnitor's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Miguel Tepes wanted only one thing his father could never give him: a day in the sun. He was the White Domnitor, son of Dracula, born a vampire and a witch at once. His white magic could turn him into a snow-hare or a pale owl. It could not stop sunlight from burning him to ash. So he stood in the Library of Walachia at midnight, hunting the one rite that could. The rite existed. He knew that much. A white-magic working, powered by stored moonlight, could bind a vampire to safe daylight. But the steps were scattered and half-lost. A single wrong word in the spell, and the sun would sear his skin the moment it touched him. Miguel had already renounced human blood for the humans he loved. He would not die learning how to walk among them. He spread three old scrolls across the stone table. The runes contradicted each other. One promised protection. Another warned of flesh cooking from the inside. He could not tell which fragment was true and which was a trap. A dry voice broke the silence. "You're going to kill yourself with those." Miguel turned. Renfield stood in the doorway, hunched, thin, his black Mohawk stiff above his hollow face. Dracula's cupbearer. Once the noble son Tyler Tomar, now cursed to eat only rats and spiders. Miguel had never treated him like a servant. That was why Renfield came when Miguel called. "Then help me get it right," Miguel said. "I'm not a witch," Renfield said. "But I know who copied those scrolls wrong on purpose." He jerked his chin toward the far stacks. "He's still here. He never leaves." He led Miguel deep into the library. Among glowing glass cases sat Ali Gamal, the vampire inventor, in orange and gold robes. He had spent his life chasing sunlight immunity for vampires. He looked up without surprise. "The son of Dracula," Ali said. "Come for the daylight rite. Everyone does, eventually." "The scrolls fight each other," Miguel said. "I need the true sequence. One mistake burns me." Ali studied him a long moment. "The books are wrong. I salted them myself, so fools would fail." He rose and pulled a plain iron box from behind the glass. "The real rite is not written. It is encoded in an object charged with moonlight. Speak the words in the wrong order and nothing happens. Do it right, and the moonlight does the rest." He opened the box. Inside lay a small carved stone that pulsed faint silver. Ali spoke the sequence aloud, slow, three times, until Miguel repeated it without error. "You have the words now," Ali said. "But this stone holds barely one dawn's worth of power. Enough to test the rite. Not enough to live in the sun." Miguel closed his hand around the stone. He knew the words at last. Now he needed a moonlight reservoir deep enough to burn forever.