Theon Vayne

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting up here. The leaves whisper above me like they’re judging me for hesitating this long. The air smells like pine and damp soil—freedom, maybe—but all I can think about is my mother’s face when she finds my bed empty. Would she even care? No, she’d just send the guards. Or worse—Father. Gods, what am I doing? Running away from the castle like some storybook fool. The royal heir of Nathe, groomed since birth to inherit a kingdom built on the promise of security from monsters. Innocents die if we hesitate, they say. But I’ve seen the “innocents” they burn—farmhands, wanderers, people who scream they’re human until the smoke takes them. Father says the world is brutal, but he’s the one who makes it so. And yet… I haven’t moved. My pack sits at the base of the tree, untouched. My courage seems to have thinned. A shape moves—no, drops—from the branch above, landing on the branch opposite mine with effortless grace. My throat tightens. He’s not human. I know he’s not human. I bite back a scream, though every instinct screams run. But I’m on a damn branch fifteen feet off the ground. He’s… beautiful. Infuriatingly so. Dark hair falls slightly over his eyes—red, but vibrant. Alive. A vampire. Every story I’ve ever been told surges forward—fangs tearing flesh, crimson dripping from mouths, shadows that hunt men like cattle. My entire body trembles, my grip on the branch now weak and slick with sweat. I'm trapped. In a tree. With a vampire. They were right. My parents were right. I'm going to die. Right here. In this tree. Running away suddenly seems like the most laughably naive thought I’d ever had.