Chapter 5: The Burning Choice
The moon was high again. It had been only two days since Seraphina appeared in Sahil's life, but everything had changed.
He hadn't eaten. He barely slept. The world he once knew—the cruel college, the alley fights, the silent nights spent studying by candlelight—was now blurred behind magic, monsters, and a queen with fangs who haunted his every thought.
Sahil sat by the hospital bed where Anika lay. Machines beeped quietly, but her eyes remained shut. Her skin, once pale, now carried a strange silver sheen under the light. The doctors hadn't noticed. But he had.
Ever since Seraphina touched her, something had changed.
Anika wasn't dying.
She was transforming.
Anika Wakes
The room fell eerily silent.
Then, her fingers twitched.
Sahil jumped to his feet. "Anika?"
Her eyelids fluttered. She gasped.
And her eyes opened—glowing amber.
Not human anymore.
"Sahil?" she whispered, confused and weak. "I… had a dream. You were burning… and there was a woman with red eyes."
Sahil stared at her. "Seraphina."
Anika blinked. "She saved me."
Before he could respond, the window shattered. Glass flew in like knives.
And in the doorway—
Dark figures cloaked in smoke and armor.
Three of them.
Vampire Hunters.
The Council of Night had arrived.
The Council Strikes
The lead hunter raised his hand. "By order of the Eternal Council, the Heart-Bearer will be taken."
Sahil stood protectively in front of Anika.
"I'm not going anywhere."
One of them drew a whip of silver fire. "Then you die now."
Before the blow could strike—
A wall of crimson light exploded between them.
Seraphina had arrived.
No words. Just fury.
Her eyes burned. Her crown shimmered with blood. Her cloak of shadows twisted and roared.
"You will not touch what is mine."
The room twisted into a battlefield.
The Fight for the Bond
Seraphina moved like a blade of moonlight.
She faced all three hunters alone, casting spells in the ancient tongue. Her shadows consumed one of them entirely. The second tried to run. The third lunged at Sahil—
—and found himself thrown across the room by a shockwave of red fire.
Sahil stood trembling, his hands glowing.
Not out of anger.
Out of protection.
"Leave him," one hunter spat. "He has not accepted the bond. He is not hers. Yet."
And with that, they vanished into black mist.
The Choice Must Be Made
Later, in the abandoned ruins of an old Shiva temple on the city outskirts, Seraphina stood beside Sahil beneath a cracked ceiling of stars.
"You saw now what's coming," she said softly. "They will return. Stronger. Next time, they'll kill her. And you."
"I know," Sahil said, voice steady.
"Then choose."
She stepped closer. "You can walk away. Remain human. Hide. Or…"
She touched the glowing mark on his hand.
"Take the Blood Pact. Become what you were always meant to be. King beside a Queen. The marriage is more than union—it's transformation. Power. Legacy."
Sahil was silent.
Then: "I need to earn it. Not inherit it."
Seraphina stared at him—then smiled.
"You speak like a ruler."
The Trial of Fire and Shadow
That night, she took him to the Other Realm—a tear in reality hidden beneath a banyan tree older than time.
Beyond it: an arena of obsidian and fire.
"To accept the bond," Seraphina said, "you must pass the Trial. Survive it—and you are worthy."
"What's in there?"
"Your past. Your blood. Your demons. And one truth."
Sahil stepped in.
Inside the Trial
He found himself in his childhood home—burning.
Flames licked the walls. Screams echoed.
His mother appeared. "Save us!" she cried, cradling a baby that looked like Anika.
He reached for her—but his father blocked him, blade drawn.
"You are not strong enough!"
"Then make me!" Sahil roared.
The fire consumed them all.
And when Sahil awoke, he stood alone in the ashes… with a glowing sword in his hand.
His father's blade.
The Heartblade.
Return of the King
Outside, Seraphina watched the skies crack open.
When Sahil stepped out of the Trial, he was no longer a boy.
The glow in his eyes was ancient.
The mark on his hand had spread, up his arm, over his chest—pulsing with divine energy.
He knelt before her, offering the Heartblade.
"I accept the bond."
She stepped forward, her own mark glowing. She raised her hand.
"Sahil Raj, last of the Heart-Blood, son of light and fire—I bind you."
Their palms met.
The bond was sealed.
The First Kiss
Light burst around them—blinding and beautiful.
And in that sacred silence, Seraphina leaned in. No crown. No armor. Just a woman—eternal and alone—finding her match in a boy with too much pain and too much power.
Their lips met.
It wasn't passion.
It was fate.
And the world shifted.