Five men, two women and a young teenage boy stood around us in a circle. All of them wore gray clothes meshed with white. Their hair was short or as long as their backs reached, nothing in between. Even though all of that was strange and unsettling, it was their eyes that made me stare at them. They were a silver gray, so washed out that they almost looked transparent. I wondered if they were blind, and if that was the reason why they seemed to have such strange irises.

Kate nudged my arm when she stepped forward. Her eyes seemed even more colorful now that I had looked into the death speaker's eyes. Her full attention was on the man in front of her - the one that had accused her of a still unknown crime. His face was so emaciated, making him almost look like a skeleton. Did they ever eat?

"I was polite before, then you threw me into a dungeon. Luckily for you, I'm not the person you think I am. Not anymore." The last two words got stuck between her lips, but I heard them. Yet, I wasn't sure if I understood them completely. "Your knowledge precedes you, this town. That is why I came here, to find answers to questions that are only building up. You might've noticed changes too, here so close to the Claw Mountains. I constantly keep asking myself if these changes have anything to do with the mysterious creatures that have been plaguing the Green Lands. That is why I'm here. Because I am stuck with this riddle and I need help, help that only you can offer me."

Kate bowed.

It took me so much by surprise that I stared at her back before looking at the man in front of her. He remained still, his face a mask that revealed very little. He only spoke after his eyes had shifted from person to person.

"You are brave to try and plead your case, again. Why do you think this time will be any different?" His voice was quiet, yet it had a roughness to it that reminded me of spliced wood.

Kate took a step closer to him, her hand reached inside her coat and appeared again with a little bottle filled with ash.

"These are the remains of one of those creatures. My instinct tells me they are dangerous, more dangerous than any animal living in the Forest. Even the snow lions in the north have never given me nerves like this. The only problem is that I have no proof for it. If I am right, this problem will not only be kept to the Forest, but will soon enter the wastelands and meadows that lay before Tech Duinn. It is in your best interest to help me figure out what is going on, before the danger stands in front of your own door. A door you are not equipped to protect on your own."

A low grunt left the teenagers lips. Everyone else only reacted with a tilted chin or raised eyebrows.

"What makes you say we are not able to protect ourselves, Vampire Princess? We easily took you two down, and if I'm not mistaken, you both have quite the reputation."

"You were lucky, and I am nothing compared to this monster." She held up the bottle, and tapped her finger against the glass.

A shadow moved in the corner of the room, where the entrance met the closets against the wall. I stepped towards it, but was halted by one of the women. Her head was shaved and scar lines in the form of runes covering her bare skull. She too wore loose rugs held together by bones. My eyes flicked past her, where I saw yet again movement.

"Why is there someone spying from the dark?" I asked no one in particular.

The council of Tech Duinn, or at least I assumed they were the council, turned around to see a woman stick her head out into the light. She couldn't be much older than myself. Her eyes were just as light as the others, but her platinum hair was held together by a little cord, a mouse's skull braided into it.

"Brianna," the only middle-aged man present sighed. "You should be on the field."

She didn't seem to care about the words spoken, instead she looked at Kate with an intense gaze. Kate shifted in her place.

"You really are her, aren't you?"

"Brianna!" Even though all of their voices creaked in one way or another, making them sound ancient, it didn't lessen the power in them.

Brianna walked out of the shadows of the roof-high closet, straight through the line of elders and only stopped when she stood close enough to Kate that Kate's auburn hair fluttered from her breath.

"During my first crossing I met this woman, she was a witch with an affinity for the future. I don't really know how it works exactly, but she said that she had dreamt her whole life of me. She knew every detail of my life, and yet I only met her when she was dead."

"Brianna, this is not the time for your stories."

Kate held up her hand, silencing the man in his own house. Her eyes were so fixated on the taller woman that it made me frown.

"You know me. How?" Kate whispered carefully.

"She told me about her dream, of me and the Vampire Princess. About how I would help her restore the balance."

"Restore balance? How?"

What balance? And who was this woman? 

"You seek knowledge from the Otherworld, and I am a traveler of realms."

"No," said the middle-aged man with the long gray hair. His hand fell on her shoulder and pulled her backwards. "You will not do anything until we decide they deserve help."

Brianna looked over her shoulder, shrugged his hand off and answered: "They have traveled here with the ash of a creature that has brought us many corpses, we crave as much of that knowledge as they do. Those ashes hold that." She looked at the middle-aged man, then towards the leader. "Pilu, you told me only last week what an enormous talent I had when it came to traveling the realms. Believe me when I say that all the knowledge I have picked up from the Otherworld, points to me helping them."

Pilu, the oldest among the small group, shifted his rugs, not letting his eyes drift away from the platinum blonde girl. He seemed to think.

"She is no better than those creatures, Brianna. You have helped many of her victims' souls cross over. You know this, you have felt their tremendous pain."

"The Hunter is no better, yet you focus on the one with the longest life."

"I really would love to stop killing, if only I knew how," I mumbled so quietly only my own ears could've heard. No one was paying attention to me though.

Kate shuffled in place, eventually taking a step closer to me. Her eyes remained on the 'Ahr a Donn' at all times. My body buzzed at the idea that maybe she moved closer because she felt comfortable around me. It probably wasn't that though, there was more chance that she wanted to get away from the center of attention.

"I forgive her," Brianna eventually said. "I have heard of greatness as well, and I won't believe you if you say you haven't."

My lips curled up into a proud little smile. I hadn't heard anyone else speak up for Kate, apart from Jason and the wolves.

Pilu looked at the middle-aged man. "She is your daughter Kalatum, I will leave the decision to you."

He gave a short nod, before addressing his daughter. "As I have known you my whole life, you are as stubborn as that mountain, and it truly is more energy draining to try and stop you from doing things than it is to help you achieve your goals. Donn protect me, but you have my blessing to help these strangers."

Brianna clapped in her hands, spun around and hugged her father. When she let go of him, she looked us both in the eyes and said: "In three days, there will be a moon eclipse. That night, the veils between the realms will be thin and conversing with the souls of the deceased will be possible. Until then, I will give you a place to sleep."

"And in return for our help, you will work on the fields. There is much to be done for the Moon festival."

"Moon festival?" I asked.

"Rituals must be celebrated, for the dead will dance in our streets."

Shivers crawled up my skin at the thought of seeing dead people walk over their already creepy streets.

I looked to my left, where Kate only gave me an awkward half smile and a shrug.

Now I understood why Ayana was disappointed, and yet, I also very much understood why everyone else preferred to stay away from this town.

***

The grain silo at the end of the town was not what I had expected to be a resting place. Yet, here we were, standing next to the long column filled with grain. Drapes hung from the iron bars surrounding the silo to the bone pillars standing a few feet to the south, making a little hut. It was cozy, only big enough for a double bed and nothing more.

"I hope you both don't mind sharing a bed, but no human will share a room with a vampire. Especially not one with a reputation like yours."

Kalatum showed them inside, he lit a single candle in a glass bowl standing on the side. The hut smelled of grain and of dried wood. I had to admit that I didn't dislike it.

"You should change your clothes tomorrow, I'd prefer if not everyone knew we were keeping a vampire as our guest. You too Hunter, you might not have the same legacy as the princess yet, but you are rapidly making a name for yourself. Anonymity can both do you some good in the next few days."

With that he left us in our chambers. Here close to the mountain, the warmth of the day still lingered.

"I guess we should be thankful to at least have something of a roof. Even though we clearly are not welcome here," Kate mumbled.

"Why is that anyway?"

Kate looked at me, her left eyebrow pulled up. "You're a Vampire Hunter, and you know who I am."

"Do I, though?" I took a step closer. This close to her, I had to look down to keep eye contact.

Her eyes squinted, when I didn't look away, she huffed and turned around.

"I know you're a vampire and that brings a head count with it. I know that, it's what I grew up with. Yet, I got the feeling in there that your head count is a lot larger than any regular vampire." Kate picked up the pile of gray clothes Kalatum had left for us, and started sorting them. "So tell me, why is it that they weren't even open to hearing you out and simply went to the death sentence straight away? Uh?"

Kate groaned, and walked out of our little tent. With quick, nervous steps, she marched along the mountain. I groaned in annoyance, but followed her nonetheless.

"Stop running away!"

That made Kate stop in her tracks. She turned around, her eyes blazing.

"Running is what I do, okay? Why can't anyone just accept that?"

"You're talking about Jason, right?"

Kate huffed.

"Jason, my dad, even Alex doesn't understand."

"Who is Alex?"

Kate sighed, she looked so very tired. So much older all of a sudden.

"My friend and confidant. Perhaps the only person in the court that I actually trust."

She started walking again, along the steep sides of the mountain that encircled Tech Duinn like it were embracing it. At the end, Kate climbed a rock formation that was large enough to sit on. They peered over the town. I let myself down next to her, yet far enough to not touch her.

We sat there in silence for what felt like an eternity. My eyes skimmed over the darkening silhouettes of the Twin Mountains in the south, the horizontal planes of the meadows that eventually would go over in the White River and the forest of the Green Lands. The colorful views turned monochrome and I admired the beauty of nature once again.

"My whole life, I was limited to the grounds of the palace." Kate spoke softly. "Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful place, but after fifty years, you have seen every crack in every wall. All my knowledge came from books, I had never really seen anything other than the noblemen that visited the palace or the guards that were training on the palace grounds. I wanted to explore," Kate said with such a fragile voice, that I could only sit there and listen. 

"So, I explored. Well, until I learned that the real world was not as perfectly groomed as the palace life. A group of Hunters attacked me only hours after I got out of the palace. That's how I met Jason. He saved me." She chuckled at the memory. "I was so not ready for the world back then. No one had ever taught me anything, at least not anything that mattered, like how to make sure my Thirst was kept under control. Although, I learned over the years that it isn't that simple. Especially not for me. You see, I am the only vampire born like this. I age like you, only slower. I am not frozen in time like all the other vampires."

My eyebrows creased.

"How is that?"

"My parents, back then the prince of the Green Lands, and my mother were pregnant with me when they went to the Ancient Witches to ask for something to stop the Shibaura from destroying the world. Half of humanity was already slaughtered in a year's time. They didn't know, nobody knew really, that not only four humans were made vampires. I, only a blob of growing cells back then, had received the full wave of magic. It grew with me, making me unique. That's why the Hunters chose me for the ritual, that's why you heal faster I'm guessing. Because that magic is part of me as it is part of every witch."

Part of this story I remembered from Mimi and Jason.

"So, you're a witch?"

Kate laughed, then shook her head.

"No, I don't think I can cast any kind of spell. It just means the vampire curse is purest in me. I got the full dosage, and I had to learn how to live with the most nasty consequences."

My hands tingled, I gripped the rock underneath me when I asked the question. "Which were?"

Kate dropped her gaze. Her feet wiggled and her hands were drawing patterns in the dust. Slowly, she breathed in deeply.

"Don't judge me, please," she said while the air left her lungs.

My eyes fell on her rigid posture, she pulled her legs to her chest and let her chin rest upon them.

"You have heard of the Blood Queen, yes?"

My body tensed at that name. Horrid stories resurfaced. It was those stories that made me hate vampires. Not the small ones where there was yet again a household attacked, you heard stories like that from animal attacks as well. Those stories of the Blood Queen, the wild and untamed Queen of vampires, the Mad Queen, those stories spoke about how she slaughtered cities filled with humans. Hundreds of humans were killed in one night, in gruesome ways, purely for pleasure. In history, they went down as the Bloody years or the Dark years, in the south they even called them the Age of Loss, in remembrance of all the souls lost during that decade of terror. Not only the Green Lands had suffered by the hands - or teeth - of the Blood Queen, but so did the Dry Lands in the east, Loya in the west, but most of all, the south and all its kingdoms.

"Yes, I have heard of the Queen." My voice tightened around the words.

Kate's breath hitched, her hand shook so much that the dust slipped through her fingers.

"It's not the queen."

My eyebrows knitted together in confusion, before fear crept up my spine until it reached my heart. No, please, don't say it, Kate.

"It was just a name they gave me. Someone must have seen the royal emblem I always wore. Or perhaps they recognized my mother in me. It was never her though. It couldn't have been her, considering that she is bedridden." Her voice quivered at the last sentence.

Silence stretched between us. I didn't really know what to say to that. My body felt numb, even though I really should pull out my knife and plunge it in her heart. All I did was watch how Kate leaned forward on her knees and stared out in the dark before us. Once again, I ignored everything I ever learned just to look at the shaking body of what-was-supposed-to-be my nemesis. How could I feel for her after she confessed to being a mass murderer?

She took another shuddering breath before she spoke once more, her voice steady but quiet. 

"My whole life I had been given tainted blood, blood from the criminals in the human cities or the sick that were already dying anyway and begged for their end. That's how a fragile peace came to be, why there is no war raging right now. I don't know how much you know about current politics between races. But it's all based on a single piece of paper that states a very clear contract. Humans give us their criminals every month so that we, vampires, have food enough to keep our killing instincts under control. It gets packed in small bottles, and all the family heads receive each an amount equal to the size of their family members. In return, vampires stay away from human towns, giving them guaranteed safety."

"Not really though," I huffed. 

It wasn't news to me - or anyone really - how peace remained in the Green Lands. Vampires couldn't kill innocents, as stated their law, but like every law, it got ignored by some. Humans, the supposed guilty ones, meanwhile got shipped off to the vampires. It kept a balance that only remained as long as both parties kept their end of the deal. And knowing full well that humans were struggling to meet their monthly quota of human scum, it was indeed as fragile as a twig. Not that vampires were that much better at keeping their end of the bargain, otherwise my creation wouldn't have been necessary.

"Like all rules, there are those who break them. Vampires are no different in that matter. They were once human after all."

Kate rested her cheek on her knees and looked at me. There were dark circles under her eyes. She was even smaller like this, fragile even. I wanted to be mad at her, hate her. I should feel for her like this, and yet, I did. I wanted to comfort her, protect her against the hard world that hated her so much for who she was, even though none of them knew her.

"I promise you, I never meant to hurt all those people. It's just, once I tasted fresh blood, my body took over. It filled me with a power I had never felt before. For decades, I had only been a shadow of what I could've been. What I am. Unfortunately, once you cross that line, there isn't a way back."

We both let her words settle in the near silence of the night.

"You're sitting here with me, aren't you? Perhaps, it's a sign that change is possible."

She had returned her gaze forwards once more. The silence was only broken by distant sounds of the town, people laughing and talking, clattering from cutlery.

"Apparently great trauma is an amazing wake-up call." She chuckled but it was hollow. The guilt shone in her eyes, and I felt it drift from her in waves, like body heat radiated from a human's skin.

"You and I are not that different, I might still not know much about you, but I do know that." It was more of a statement than anything else, but it made me feel good to say it. To own up to the truth that I had been ashamed about ever since I met the princess. "And hey, maybe I just need a traumatic event to stop killing your people," I chuckled.

Kate turned to me, her lips a small smile. A small sound left her mouth, perhaps a little snicker. I smiled back and we sat there in silence, watching how the world turned dark and quiet around us.

"That's strange." Kate sat up, and her previous vulnerability completely disappeared. She pointed at the dark outline of the Twin Mountains in the south. "You see that?" Her whole body was leaning forward. "They shouldn't be like that, they should be the same height. That's why they are called the Twin Mountains, because they are identical."

Unrest settled in the princess's body, and not a second later she jumped up and started to walk up and down the rock formation. The gears in her head turned.

"The world is changing, and I can't help feeling that everything will fall apart sooner rather than later. Am I the only one who feels that threat in the air?"

She exhaled, her hands waved through her long hair, making her look disheveled.

My eyes remained on the silhouette of the Twin Mountains, mountains that didn't look at all equally tall. The left top pointed straight up to the sky, reaching the sky high and mighty, towering above the other, which looked small and barely a mountain at all.

I realized that it looked exactly like a balance where one side was heavier than the other. Brianna's precious words echoed in my head. She told me about her dream, of me and the Vampire Princess. About how I would help her restore the balance.

A shiver ran down my spine.