Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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Ghost's head throbbed as he woke, and he curled onto his stomach to grip it with a low groan. The blow had been so real. Dreams had fled his mind the moment he'd reached into the void to save Stone's life, yet the night prior, he'd seen Stone. Alive and talking, feeling, and touching things so tactile that Ghost couldn't shake the sensation from his mind. There was little else to focus on in the darkness of his empty room, and his mind dipped into the illusion. Warm, soft skin under his entire body, the scent of embers and ash, all saturated with the indomitable will of flame magic.
"Helia Cinder." The name felt dirty on his tongue, knowing how hostile and closed off to vampire interactions the Cinders were. Why had his mind chosen that house to create this fake life for his brother? That's all it could be, some fabrication, because if Stone was alive, Ghost would feel him in his waking hours. Perhaps this was because Kopje Cinder resided in the Sol castles and occasionally stopped in with Wren to visit.
That must be it.
While he wanted to convince himself that was all it was, his head spun like a top and his ears rang like someone was shaking bells in his eardrums. Someone had struck Stone as he'd lost consciousness. The grand mage of the flames and leader of the Cinders, Pyre Cinder, didn't pull his punches, and a low growl of retribution rumbled his chest. Ghost smacked his forehead on the tile hard enough to dispel the foolish notion with a swell of agony the contact brought his migraine. It hadn't been real, and fighting with Pyre Cinder would do little more than start a war between the Alliance houses and the mages who had refused to join.
Violence wasn't the answer, but Stone was on his mind and he couldn't shake that. The last slivers of light from the day prior faded, and Ghost stood, eyeing the corners of his small square room. It was still reflex to check every crevice for threat before he did anything, but he was no longer Talamayas Sol's shadow. Without Stone, he could not use his power of invisibility to protect his master's back without revealing himself. Useless, he withered in this empty room in the Arc territory rather than remain by his master's side and reinforce how pointless his existence was. All he had to his name was a small blanket Isis Arc had forced on him.
Who could say no to a child earnestly caring for his wellbeing?
Though she was no child anymore.
Years had passed, Isis had grown into a woman, and Ghost still wasted away here. The dhampir children had aged a year in a month before they'd reached adulthood and now spent their time learning how to control their powers and grow in the precarious role they occupied. Isis spent her days with Neil and Silvia, closely learning how to rule and understand the delicate balance between humans and vampires while her brother Phoenix remained in the Sol territory. Wren had told Ghost how Phoenix was helping the lingering ghosts of the Songs find their peace one by one until the walls no longer rang with the cries of the lost.
The dhampirs made him think of Selena, his granddaughter, or rather Stone's. Ghost had no biological children nor had he sired any vampires, whereas the slavers had used Stone to breed more bodies for their sick experiment. There had been no way to trace Stone's human bloodline after half a century once they'd liberated their people from the slavers, but within the void, a cord had tied the blood relation between Selena and Stone.
