Kyon's First Person Point Of View.

Memories that weren’t mine flooded through me like a riptide, sweeping me into moments I had never lived.

Faraday’s mind had become a graveyard of centuries, and I was trespassing.

Sifting through his thoughts was like digging through the ruins of a fallen city—some parts broken, others missing entirely. It wasn’t seamless. I felt the gaps, the distortions, the moments where I knew something was being withheld.

Even now, I couldn’t tell if that was because Faraday had hidden things away or if my own mind was rejecting them.

But I pressed on.

I had to.

Because somewhere in this labyrinth of stolen time, there was an answer. A way out. A weakness in Conrad’s carefully spun web.

And then—

A flicker.

Not a memory from the distant past, but something recent. Just days old.

I fell into it, felt the world shift and realign, and suddenly, I wasn’t standing in front of Conrad anymore.

I was watching him.

The room was vast but suffocating, lined with towering bookshelves and the cold gleam of candlelight flickering against stone walls. The air smelled of old parchment, blood, and something colder—something ancient.

Elijah stood with his arms crossed, his presence sharp as a blade, facing the man I had come to know as Conrad Williams.

Or as Faraday had known him—Lord Williams.

The weight of history pressed between them. The tension crackled, thick as a coming storm.

"You speak of chaos," Elijah began, his tone light but edged with steel, "but what I see is an outsider meddling in my affairs. You may be older, Williams, but this city answers to me. Don't confuse your age with authority."

Williams chuckled, a low, humorless sound that reverberated through the chamber. "Age and authority are not mutually exclusive, Elijah. But you are mistaken about one thing." His voice dropped, the cold edge of it slicing through the air. "This is not your city. It belongs to the bloodline. To the council. You are merely a steward—a piece on the board, whether you care to admit it or not."

A steward.

That word stuck in my mind like a thorn.

Elijah’s lips curved into a sharp smile. "A piece? Interesting perspective, coming from a man who hasn't stepped out of the council's shadow in centuries."

Williams moved with the slow confidence of someone who knew he was in control. “You think you’re clever, Elijah, but cleverness will only carry you so far when the scales tip. And they are tipping. You’ve let rumors spread, let the hunters grow bold, and now this... half-blood boy threatens everything we’ve built. The Sanguis Antiquus does not tolerate negligence.”

My breath hitched.

He was talking about me.

This wasn’t just political maneuvering. I wasn’t some distant anomaly they were only mildly concerned about.

I was a problem.

A threat.

And Conrad had been the one to name me as such.

"Negligence," Elijah repeated, his voice laced with amusement. "That word again. Tell me, Williams—was it negligence that allowed a young, ambitious upstart like me to build one of the most powerful covens in Europa? Or perhaps the council is simply losing its grip?"

A faint growl rumbled in Williams' chest, low and warning. "Mind your tongue, boy."

Something shifted in Elijah’s expression, the mockery in his smirk vanishing, replaced by something colder. "Do not mistake my hospitality for weakness."

And then—

A blur of motion.

Faster than I could track, Williams moved.

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Elijah’s goblet slipped from his hand, shattering against the floor. Wood cracked under the force of impact as Williams’ hand wrapped around Elijah’s throat, lifting him clear off the ground.

“You forget yourself,” Williams hissed, his voice venomous. “I was tearing through armies before your bloodline had a name. Do you truly think you can stand against me?”

The memory wavered.

Like water rippling over glass.

I was being pulled back.

......

I gasped, stumbling a step back into the present. The chamber was gone. The candlelight had vanished.

Conrad was still standing in front of me, watching.

I clenched my fists, trying to steady myself.

The weight of the memory pressed into me, the knowledge of what I had just seen twisting in my gut.

They don’t see you as an anomaly.

They see you as an infection.

And Williams—Conrad—was the one already setting things into motion.

My heart pounded.

I wasn’t just being manipulated into a decision. I was being cornered. Conrad had been working behind the scenes before I even understood what game I was playing.

Elijah resisted him.

That was the only thing that mattered now.

Because if Elijah wasn’t willing to bow to the council, then maybe—just maybe—I could use that.

Think, Kyon.

Conrad’s expression was unreadable. But I had seen him lose patience in that memory. I had seen the limits of his control.

If I could push him—if I could find the right crack—

Sia’s voice whispered through The Pulse, cautious, steady.

What did you see?

I hesitated.

Because I wasn’t sure what it meant yet.

Because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it.

But one thing was certain.

I was running out of time.

I stood at the center of the storm, but it wasn’t just the room closing in on me.

It was the weight of the decision I hadn’t yet made.

Conrad was watching. He had made his offer. His words, polished and deliberate, had slithered through the air like smoke, curling around my thoughts, choking off any sense of escape.

But the trap was already set—I was just walking into it at my own pace.

I could feel the Pulse. The whisper of something beyond words. My EchoFlux had been restless since I walked into this place, reacting in a way I didn’t fully understand yet.

Something had shifted. Something was happening beneath the surface.

And I had to figure it out before it was too late.

The first problem was Conrad.

The second was Elijah.

Neither of them was an ally, and both had their own agendas.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t use one against the other.

Elijah wasn’t on Conrad’s side—I knew that much.

Faraday’s memories had given me glimpses of something deeper, a power struggle neither of them had fully acknowledged in front of me.

The conversation had played out in my head over and over again, slipping in between the cracks of my thoughts:

"You speak of chaos," Elijah had said, his voice like a blade, "but what I see is an outsider meddling in my affairs. You may be older, Williams, but this city answers to me. Don’t confuse your age with authority."

Williams—Conrad—had only chuckled. "Age and authority are not mutually exclusive, Elijah. But you are mistaken about one thing. This is not your city. It belongs to the bloodline. To the council. You are merely a steward—a piece on the board, whether you care to admit it or not."

A piece on the board.

That was what I was too.

A piece. A pawn.

Elijah had resisted him before, but how far would that resistance go?

Would he risk open defiance just to help me?

And what did helping me even mean to him?

Varvaya’s words from the Fang & Flame resurfaced with chilling clarity.

"Do not let him touch you."

At the time, I hadn’t fully understood why.

"Physical contact can strengthen his influence. Even the briefest touch can be enough for someone like Conrad to slip past your defenses. Keep your Flux active on your skin at all times, like a barrier."

It made sense now.

Vampires weren’t just predators—they were readers. They could feel blood the way an artist felt paint beneath their fingers. They could sense truths, unspoken emotions, vulnerabilities.

If I got too close to Elijah—if I let him feel my blood—he would know.

He would feel my fear, my resistance, the sheer wrongness of this entire situation.

But so would Conrad.

If I made my intentions too obvious, he would notice before I got the chance.

So how the hell did I pull this off?

There was another way.

A riskier way.

Psycho Flux.

It had worked on Faraday. I had pushed into his mind, had twisted his will and pulled at his memories until he was a puppet on my strings.

But that had been when I was desperate. When I had been fighting for my life.

This was different.

Elijah wasn’t Faraday.

He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t vulnerable. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to let someone like me play with his thoughts.

If he sensed the intrusion, he would shut me down instantly.

Or worse.

But what if I wasn’t trying to control him?

What if I just needed to reach him?

A subtle nudge. A whisper of intent. A message that only he would understand.

I wasn’t sure if it would work.

But I had no other choice.

I inhaled slowly, my mind racing through everything I had seen in Faraday’s memories.

There was something else—something I hadn’t fully processed until now.

"You will watch him. And you will obey. This boy is more valuable than he understands. We must not allow the others to take him first."

Faraday had been ordered to keep an eye on me.

Not to turn me. Not to kill me.

To contain me.

Conrad didn’t want me falling into the wrong hands.

Which meant there were other hands out there. Other forces that wanted me just as much as he did.

And Elijah had to know something about that.

He had built his coven without the council’s control. He had been playing a long game against them, carving out his own power in Europa.

And Conrad had come here to correct that.

The moment I saw that memory, I understood something crucial.

I wasn’t just some random half-blood.

I was a bargaining piece.

And I needed to use that before I lost my only chance.

The room was waiting.

Conrad was waiting.

Elijah was watching.

I had seconds to make a move.

If I stepped too close to Elijah now, Conrad would notice. He would see the shift in my body language, the way I reached out—not physically, but strategically.

He would shut me down before I could act.

But if I didn’t do anything…

I was trapped.

I had to get Elijah’s attention without being obvious.

I had to make him understand without saying a single word.

I had to get close without raising suspicion.

And I had to do it now.