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CJ undergoes the most dramatic transformation.

His vampire nature flares visible as deadly fangs extend, but it’s his dragon heritage that truly manifests.

Black scales shimmer across his skin in patches, his eyes shift to vertical pupils, and his fingernails lengthen into claws that could tear through stone.

Isolde glows with the silver light that normally quivers beneath her skin. It radiates outward, forming a corona of power around her. Within that light, I can see the echo of what she might become. A being of terrifying beauty, neither vampire nor angel, but something new altogether.

We move forward, the wards washing over us in waves of revealing light. As we progress deeper, I notice script along the walls, more celestial text, but interspersed with something older, something I’ve seen only in the most ancient repositories of knowledge.

“These inscriptions,” I say, my voice echoing strangely in the tunnel. “They’re a history. The creation of the Sanctuary, its purpose.”

“Can you translate as we walk?” William asks, his voice strained as he fights the ward’s effects.

I nod, focusing on the flowing script while maintaining our forward progress. “It says the Sanctuary was created after the first Blood Crown ritual, when Damadere’s transformation revealed the true potential—and danger—of Sanguinarch power.”

“Created by whom?” Isolde asks.

“By a coalition,” I translate, scanning ahead. “Fallen angels who regretted their part in creating the Sanguinarch bloodline. Elder vampires who feared Damadere’s growing power. And... this is interesting... dragons.”

CJ’s head snaps toward me. “Dragons? They aren’t even part of this realm.”

“Not anymore, no.”

“Well, fuck me,” he mutters. “They used to be here?”

“Seems that way.”

“Why did they leave?”

I shrug. “There is no mention of that.”

We continue deeper, the tunnel gradually widening. The air grows heavier, charged with power that makes my wings tremble. I can feel currents of uncelestial grace flowing around us, streams of fallen power converging ahead.

“We’re approaching the centre,” I warn as the tunnel curves downward. “The nexus point where the boundaries between realms thin.”

The tunnel ends abruptly, opening into a vast cavern that takes my breath away. The celestial in me, fallen though I may be, recognises the sacred geometry of the space immediately. It’s a perfect replica of creation itself, modelled after the most holy spaces of Heaven.

The cavern extends farther than should be possible beneath SilverGate, its ceiling lost in shadows high above.

The walls curve in a perfect sphere, covered entirely in flowing script and images that move independently.

At the centre stands a circular platform of black stone, larger and more elaborate than the dais in the antechamber.

But what draws our collective attention is the ring of statues surrounding the platform—seven figures, each depicting a Sanguinarch in various stages of transformation. Their faces are hauntingly lifelike, expressions caught between ecstasy and agony.

“The original seven who attempted the Blood Crown ritual?” William asks, moving closer to examine them. “Six failures, one success.”

“Damadere,” Isolde says, approaching the seventh statue. A female figure whose stone features radiate power and terrible beauty.

“Yes,” I confirm, reading the inscription at the statue’s base. “Damadere, the first and only to complete the transformation.”

As we move around the circle, something causes me to freeze in place. The sixth statue, positioned directly before Damadere’s, bears a face that sends a shock of recognition through me.

“Isolde,” I say quietly. “Look at this one.”

She joins me, her breath catching as she sees what I’ve seen. The statue could be her twin—the same delicate features, the same curve of lips, the same determined set of the jaw. Only the eyes differ, carved with an expression of fear that Isolde would never allow herself to show.

“It’s not me,” she says after a moment, though uncertainty colours her voice. “It can’t be.”

“No,” William agrees, examining the inscription. “This is Elise Morvoren. According to this, she was forced to attempt the ritual in 1897.”

“Morvoren,” Isolde repeats. “My great-grandmother.”

“The resemblance is uncanny,” CJ observes, looking between Isolde and the statue.

“She was a female twin,” I murmur.

“What happened to her?” Isolde croaks. “Clearly she didn’t replace Damadere, so she…”

“Became a display item in The Collectors’ grand assembly,” CJ grits out. “Here, all of them. This is their magnum opus.”

“Gods,” Isolde says, putting her hand to her mouth. “I feel ill.”

“She’s still in there,” I whisper grimly, noting the way the statue’s carved face seems to follow Isolde’s movements. “The Sanguinarch bloodline breeds true. Power recognises power, and blood calls to blood across generations.”

Isolde approaches her ancestor’s statue, reaching out to touch the stone face. The moment her fingers make contact, the entire cavern erupts in silver light. Every inscription on the walls flares to life, the moving images accelerating until they blur together in a kaleidoscope of ancient memory.

“Isolde, step back,” William commands, but she seems frozen in place, her hand pressed against the statue’s cheek.

The statue’s stone lips part, releasing a voice that sounds like autumn wind through dead leaves. “Blood remembers... She comes for you…”

“Ah,” Isolde chokes out as her ancestor forces out the words from her prison. “I’m so sorry!”

“This isn’t your fault,” CJ says, going to her and placing his hand on the back of her neck, turning her away from the statue and into him. “None of this is your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she sobs into his chest. “It’s sickening. I hate this! I hate them!”

“Anger is good,” William says. “We can use that to fight them.”

“William,” I say quietly, but he glares at me to defy him outright. I don’t, because he’s right. But there is a time and place for such declarations. She needs comfort right now, not a call to arms.

William’s gaze returns to the statue of Elise Morvoren, a complicated expression on his face. He knows as well as I do that this place, this Sanctuary, is more than just a repository of knowledge. It’s a crucible, a testing ground, and Isolde is at its heart.

CJ holds Isolde, murmuring reassurances against her hair.

The light from the inscriptions dims, the rushing images slowing, coalescing once more into discernible scenes. But the atmosphere in the cavern remains charged, electric with the echo of Elise’s ghostly warning.

“Damadere is coming, and she knows Isolde is a threat to her reign,” William adds, his eyes still fixed on the statue. “A Sanguimonarch of equal or greater potential.”

Isolde pulls back from CJ, her tears subsiding and anger replacing her sorrow. “Let’s make that greater then, shall we? Whatever it takes. A bond between the four of us that will make or break us. We are already fated, let’s make it fucking official.”

Silence fills the chamber as we stare at her.

CJ is the first to speak.