Chapter 210-A hunter’s wedding (2)

Chapter 210: 210-A hunter’s wedding (2)

"Do you swear to defend this union against those who would break it?"

"I swear," Rayne said without hesitation.

His eyes drifted away from Daphne for a moment and landed on the empty seat next to Laralene. A spot always reserved for the youngest child of the family.

Despite the occasion, he felt extremely lonely to see Maisa’s seat empty. It took her going missing for him to realize that she was more than a surbodinate, she was his younger sister.

"I swear," Daphne echoed.

Her voice snapped Rayne out of his thoughts. He gulped. Hard. And focused on the ceremony.

Deep down he wished to know what became of Maisa Everheart. For a chance to see his sister again and hear her voice one more time.

"Do you swear to preserve the knowledge entrusted to your families, share what must be shared, and never let personal ambition destroy the purpose for which your ancestors bled?" the officiant went on.

"I swear."

"I swear."

Silver light passed through the cloth. The altar’s inscriptions glimmered, then faded. A cheer rose from the guests.

"Long live the Everheart clan!"

"May the union stay blessed!"

The marriage had been recognized but one vow remained. The officiant faced the families.

"Let every hunter bear witness. From this day forward, the Everheart and Siseli families stand united. Their records shall be joined, their resources shared, and their descendants bound to protect humanity from supernatural threats."

Rayne and Daphne faced the crowd and raised their exchanged blades.

"Let no monster divide us," Rayne declared. "We stand as one and will always fight side by side."

"Let no secret weaken us," Daphne continued. "Let this union bring about the extinction of vampires."

"And let nothing stand between us and the truth," they finished together.

Applause erupted from the crowd as hunters who respected the union and were anticipating the outcome of the marriage couldn’t hold back their happiness.

The bells rang for the final time.

Rayne leaned toward Daphne and whispered something that made her laugh. For a moment, the ceremony’s severity fell away, revealing two young people who might, under other circumstances, have celebrated with nothing more complicated than music and flowers.

Daphne touched the hidden pocket in her dress. The compass was vibrating again. It was sensing the true heart and was alerting her. But she couldn’t let it be known. Not yet.

---

The wedding feast began at sunset. Long tables filled the courtyard with roasted meats, bread, fruit, and cakes decorated with both family crests. Musicians played beneath the banners while younger hunters danced and elders traded stories of old victories.

Beneath the celebration ran a current of anticipation. The families had finally become one. Their guarded records would be opened, their relics examined together, and their scholars would compare the Everheart archives with the Siseli blood-moon manuscripts.

Somewhere within them lay the secret they had pursued for generations: the whereabouts of the flower of fate, the true heart and the means to end vampirism forever.

Daphne stood beside Rayne at the head table, accepting congratulations while watching the compass hidden against her body.

Its needle had stopped vibrating. Now it pointed steadily northwest, toward the vampire kingdom.

When the guests were distracted, she leaned toward her husband. "Rayne, I need to tell you something."

His smile faded. "What happened?"

"The compass reacted before the ceremony. It sensed something," She came clean.

"What did it point to?" was the first question that Rayne asked, he didn’t care that she waited until that moment to reveal such an important fact. All he wanted was a direction to aim his blades.

"The northwest."

They both went silent when she named the direction of the flower of fate from where they were. The northwest held the oldest vampire territories, royal bloodlines, and the legends surrounding the true heart.

Rayne set down his glass. "Are you certain?" he asked to confirm.

"I saw it myself."

"Did you tell your mother?"

"She knows. I asked her not to interrupt the wedding," She spoke calmly. "The ceremony is complete and we can hunt down the true heart and crash it. End vampirism forever!"

He reached beneath the table and took her hand. "Then we investigate this lead together. Tonight, we celebrate our wedding. Tomorrow, we begin the hunt."

Daphne nodded. Neither of them noticed the thin silver thread forming along the compass’s edge. It looked like a crack, but slowly lengthened, curling around the needle.

Far beyond the mountains and forests, something answered the call of the compass. A flower sealed inside a vampire’s chest stirred in its sleep.

For a single heartbeat, Maisa Loven felt pressure beneath her ribs. She paused in Varitreya’s castle, one hand against her chest. Just as she focused on the pain, it vanished. No one noticed the abnormality.

Aboveground, the Everheart-Siseli wedding continued beneath a sky filled with fireworks. Hunters raised their glasses, music echoed across the estate, and the newly married couple received blessings from their families.

But beneath the fifth castle, far below the banquet hall and the ancient foundations of the castle, a door that had remained locked for three hundred years opened by the width of a finger.

A thin line of darkness appeared between the two halves of the enormous stone door. Beyond it lay a chamber untouched by time.

The walls were covered in ancient inscriptions, their faded symbols carved in a language that predated the first vampire kingdoms. Silver chains stretched across the ceiling, connecting five enormous pillars surrounding a circular platform.

Once, those chains had glowed with enough power to make the entire chamber tremble. Now, they hung motionless, coated in a thin layer of dust.

At the center of the platform rested a coffin. It was neither gold nor silver, nor had it been fashioned from the wood of any ordinary tree. Its surface was black as the bottom of the ocean, smooth in some places and covered in strange, vein-like patterns in others. Ancient symbols ran along its edges, forming layers of seals so complicated that even the oldest vampires would have struggled to understand them.

Seven words had been carved across its lid: WHEN THE TRUE HEART BLOOMS, THE HUNT BEGINS!

A faint crack ran through the first word and then another appeared. The coffin had remained sealed for a thousand years. For the first time, it was beginning to open and unlike every other time someone had approached this chamber, the air was no longer suffocating.

Footsteps echoed beyond the door. It was slow, heavy and hesitant. Vonvaki entered the chamber.

The man who could smile while kingdoms crumbled, who could watch powerful vampires tremble before him without so much as raising his voice, stopped at the threshold like a frightened child standing before the grave of someone he loved.

His usual smile was nowhere to be found and for a long moment, he simply stood there, staring at the coffin. Then he took a step forward and the chains above him rattled softly.

He forced himself to take another step. Each step seemed to cost him something. His shoulders, usually so relaxed, had grown stiff, and his fingers curled at his sides as though he were fighting the urge to reach for the coffin before he was close enough.

At last, he arrived beside it. Vonvaki lowered his gaze to the ancient inscriptions, his eyes tracing the words he had memorized long before the other castles had been built over that land.

He reached out. His fingertips brushed the coffin’s edge. "Everything is in place," he murmured. His voice sounded strange in the silence, stripped of its usual amusement and confidence. "The waves and tides are in our favour, dear..."