— Gerald Durnhart, “The Hunter's Guide to the Elixars and Oils”, page 1
“A Conduit?” Emily repeated. “I know it’s what vampires keep calling me.”
Mina nodded. “It means that, unlike most people, you harness magic differently. Sorcerers bend magic to their will, but you are its master. You’re the embodiment of all magic, the convergence of every arcane force that pulses through the fabric of our world.”
Emily stared at her, mouth slightly agape, but no words came. It sounded ridiculous. No. It was ridiculous. Her? The girl who flunked out of Peccatum University? This had to be some kind of mistake. A misunderstanding. She shook her head, trying to form words, but all that came out was: “What?”
“You have a powerful gift, Emily. A very powerful gift.”
Emily didn’t like the way she said that. Like whatever this gift was wasn’t a good thing.
“The vampire who attacked us the other night, Draven Theodgar, has been searching for you for a long time too. But unlike me, he isn’t trying to save you.”
Emily swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “He wants me because of my gift?”
“Not him, but the one he serves. The Queen of the Vampires.”
A chill traveled down Emily’s spine, and goosebumps riddled her skin. “Yeah, I’ve heard of her…”
“People don't speak her name often.”
“I picked up on that, yeah.”
“It’s not because they don’t know it, but because people believe saying it out loud summons her. In some places, they’ve erased her entirely, pretended she’s just a legend, a cautionary tale to scare children. But she’s real. And she’s worse than the stories. Armies have tried to kill her. Not just one or two desperate warlords, but entire kingdoms have thrown their best at her. Legions of soldiers, battalions of mages. Even some of the best monster hunters out there. They all thought they’d be the ones to take her down.”
“Every monster hunter I’ve met has said the same thing… only angrier.”
“I don’t blame them.” Mina exhaled through her nose. “She doesn’t rule like the King of Peccatum or Elkvale. She stays on an island far beyond Ageria’s shores where no one can reach her. Anyone dumb enough to go looking never comes back. You don’t challenge Lockhart. You don’t hunt her. You don’t even think about her unless you have to.” Mina paused. “But the problem is, Emily… you have to.”
Emily’s appetite was gone. The thought of eating another bite made her sick. She was finally getting the answers she had been looking for, but already they were leaving her with a bad taste in her mouth.
“She’s looking for you, and Draven has been leading the search.”
“You said he wanted to imprison me?”
Mina nodded. “Queen Lockhart is invincible to everything except you. The magic in your blood amplifies any spell you cast to levels Ageria hasn’t seen in centuries. With training, you could wield power no sorcerer could ever match. Where they cast a fireball, you can cast a forest fire just as easily. If they can summon a storm, you can summon a hurricane.”
“W-why wouldn’t she just kill me?”
“Your blood doesn’t just amplify spells, it amplifies all magic, including the kind that vampires use. If she locks you away, prevents you from learning, from growing stronger, you’ll never be a threat to her. You’ll become her own personal blood bank. She’ll keep you weak, chained in a cell, barely clinging to life. Just enough food and water to keep you alive.”
Emily wasn’t sure how to respond. She just stared in silence, her eyes wide. Her heart was racing faster.
“The last Conduit was locked in Lockhart’s dungeons for eighty years. She kept him just strong enough to sustain her, to siphon the power from his blood whenever she wanted. And when he finally died, his gift was reborn. Passed onto a newborn child, the next baby to take its first breath the moment his heart stopped beating. And then the hunt starts all over again.”
Dread flooded Emily’s body. She didn’t know what else to feel. The last Conduit, a prisoner for eighty years. Nothing more than a well for the queen to drink from. Emily swallowed hard at the thought. The cold stone walls, shackles biting into her flesh, her body withering away in the dark. Her heartbeat was so hard that she could hear it in her ears like a drum. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. But it was. She closed her eyes, her pulse hammering against her ribs. “So… I kill her first.”
“Yes.”
Emily was quiet for a moment. “All this time I was hoping to find someone who could help me kill her. I tried looking for someone who could train me. I asked other monster hunters in Peccatum, I asked the Ironguard… but no one wanted to train me to fight vampires. They all thought I was too small and weak to even swing a sword.”
“Your life is in danger, Emily. I’m not going to sit by and watch you suffer the same fate as every Conduit before you. They want you for your gift, but I’m going to train you to use it against them.” She paused. “I’m going to make you into a monster hunter. Like me. It’s the only way you’ll become strong enough to kill her.”
It was exactly what Emily wanted to hear, and yet, it left her quivering inside. She hadn’t expected the Queen of the Vampires to be as powerful as Mina said she was. For a moment, doubt crept in. She was barely surviving in Peccatum, and now she was supposed to kill the most powerful vampire in the world? “I can’t even control my magic,” she said. “I thought I was just bad at it.”
Mina reached over, and rested her hand on Emily’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice. Queen Lockhart is a sadistic woman. If you don’t fight back, if you don’t kill her, then not only will your life be over, but so will the lives of countless others. She has ruined the lives of so many people, and she’ll continue to do so if you do nothing. I—” She hesitated, then corrected herself. “They need your help.”
Emily glanced up, matching Mina’s gaze again.
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“You’re the only one strong enough to kill her.”
Emily sat there, frozen. The room suddenly felt too small. The walls too close. The air too thick. She could still feel the taste of burnt bacon on her tongue, but it may as well have been ash. This wasn’t a choice. It was a death sentence.
Emily opened her mouth to respond, but the words caught in her throat.
“It won’t be easy,” Mina said. “The journey never is. But I’m here to help you through it, as best as I can.”
Emily looked at her hands, the scars that now marred her palms, the faint, jagged lines that hadn’t been there before. Her fingers curled slightly. She knew the answer. Knew it deep in her gut, in the marrow of her bones. She couldn’t do this. Even if she trained, even if she spent years learning, it wouldn’t be enough. Mina had just told her that entire armies had tried and failed. What hope did a half-starved, runaway girl who flunked out of magic school have?
But there was no other choice.
Her heart kicked against her ribs, faster, harder. All those nights spent curled in the cold, her bones aching, and her stomach empty. The orphanages that turned her away, the factory foremen who took one look at her thin arms and shook their heads. No one had ever looked at her and thought she was worth saving. And things could get worse than that? If she agreed to this, it wouldn’t just be to save herself. It couldn’t be.
Queen Lockhart. She was the reason Emily’s life had turned to ash. She was the reason Emily had spent half a year running, the reason she had no home, no family, and a constant fear that one day a vampire would swoop through the alleys and snatch her up.
She was the reason her parents were turned into monsters.
Emily’s fingers clenched into fists, her nails digging into her palms. Her heartbeat roared in her ears, thudding like a war drum. Her breathing became sharp. She exhaled, forcing herself to meet Mina’s gaze again. Her silver eyes shimmered in the sunlight. “You can train me?” Emily asked quietly.
Mina nodded. “I’ll do all I can.”
Emily hesitated. Every instinct told her to run, to say no, to pretend she could find another way. But there was no other way. She didn’t want to live a life on the run. She didn’t want to live a life bound in chains. And the only way she could avoid it was by doing this.
“Alright. I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her before she…” She paused. “Well, not kills me, but you know what I mean.”
Mina didn’t smile. She just nodded in return, as if she had already known this was how it would end. “It’ll take time to train you. Even if you were ready right now, we can’t get close to Lockhart, not without killing Draven first.”
“Isn’t he dead already?”
Mina gently grabbed at her left forearm. “Doubt a splash of holy water killed him, but it left him severely injured. It’ll take him some time to recover. We’ll need to take advantage of it.” She sat up slightly. “He’s Queen Lockhart’s Huntsman. The dog she sends to do the devil’s bidding. Once you’re strong enough, you’ll be able to put him down easily.”
Emily glanced at her palms again.
“Right now, you're weak and malnourished. It’s the reason you overexerted yourself the other night. There was hardly any energy for your magic to feed on, and it started taking a toll on your body.” Mina took a strip of bacon, holding it up for Emily to see. “Your magic is what’s kept you alive, but it’s also killing you. You aren’t controlling magic, it’s flowing through you. If your body isn’t strong enough to contain it, or if you can’t get it under control, then…” The brittle bacon cracked in two.
“… Lovely,” Emily said nervously. Never in her wildest dreams would she have figured this was the reason everything kept happening. Turns out, she hadn’t been failing at all. She just hadn’t known what she was. But it only begged the question, why hadn’t she been able to do this earlier? If she could have demonstrated magic this powerful in front of her teachers, she would have never gotten kicked out.
“Once you’ve recovered, we’ll start training. Rest for now. And finish eating,” Mina said, standing. “I’ll draw you a bath as well. It should help a little. Once you’re done, I’ll reapply the ointment and bandages.”
Emily blinked up at her, surprised. Then, she gave a small, weary smile. “Thank you…”
Mina nodded, then disappeared into the washroom.
Emily let out a long sigh, letting her body sink into the cushions. She wasn’t sure how she should be feeling. The weight of everything pressed against her chest, but… beneath it, she had a small feeling of hope. She had a place to sleep. Food to eat. For the first time in a long, long while, she wasn’t running. Maybe, just maybe, things were turning around. But there was still the elephant in the room.
Mina.
She was a vampire.
And yet she was offering her all this support. It felt suspicious. From what Emily knew, vampires were deceivers. They always had a motive. Still, this was the best shot she had at revenge. She’d just have to be cautious, until she knew Mina wasn’t up to anything else.
Emily finished eating, and when Mina returned, she lended her a hand. Her legs wobbled as Mina pulled her to her feet. Her knee buckled at the first step, and she lurched forward, barely catching herself against Mina’s arm.
“Easy,” Mina murmured, adjusting her grip. “Give it a second.”
“I didn’t think I was this weak.” Emily clenched her jaw in frustration. She had never felt this weak before, not even after nights of starving in the alleyways, not even after running for hours on legs that should have long given out. If magic really drained this much energy from her, then she never wanted to overexert herself ever again.
“Give yourself time.”
“I don’t think I’d argue against sleeping more,” she replied with a lighthearted chuckle, though Mina didn’t seem to share her ammusment. After a few more steps, the feeling in her legs returned. It was pins and needles at first, but she managed to stand on her own.
The washroom was small but warm, lit by an oil lamp hanging beside the mirror. She released Mina’s arm and steadied herself against the doorframe. Her legs trembled, but they held.
Mina studied her for a moment, then gave a small nod. “Take your time. I’ll be waiting out here when you’re finished. You can leave your clothes on the floor, there’s a fresh pair on the stool by the tub. Tomorrow we’ll go out and get you some more, but it’ll do for now.”
“Thank you.” She paused. “Um… master? Should I call you that?”
Mina grimaced. “Just Mina.”
Emily nodded, suppressing a small grin. “Right. Thank you, Mina.”
She nodded. “Remember to wash your hair.”
Emily stepped inside and shut the door behind her, pressing her back against it for a moment.
This was real.
A home. A real one. Not a rat-infested alleyway, not a rotting crate under a bridge, not a stack of bricks with a wooden plank propped above her head. She had walls. A roof. A bath. Clothes. She wasn’t sleeping on the ground tonight.
The thought sent a flutter through her chest.
Emily peeled off her filthy clothes, wincing as the fabric stuck to her half-healed wounds and bruised skin. She was covered in dirt and grime, her arms littered with scrapes, her ribs tinged in sickly shades of yellow and purple. She had seen herself like this a thousand times before, but tonight, for the first time in a long while, she was about to change that.
She climbed into the tub, and the moment the hot water touched her skin, a sharp, searing sting spread through her entire body. She stifled a yelp with her palm and groaned into it as she slowly lowered further into the boiling water. Eventually, the burning dulled, and Emily melted into the water until it swallowed her up to the chin. She let out a long and heavy sigh.
It was heaven.
She hadn’t realized how much tension she had been holding in her muscles until now. The warmth seeped into her bones, coaxing out aches she had long stopped noticing. It wrapped around her like a cocoon, like something she had only felt in dreams.
She closed her eyes, her body sinking further, her heartbeat slowing. For a moment, she let herself imagine staying like this forever. No running. No fear. No hunger. Just the warmth enveloping her. She traced her fingers against her bruised ribs and pressed down gently. A dull ache spread through her chest. It would fade, she told herself. Eventually, it would all fade.
She reached for the soap and began scrubbing, working through layers of grime and dried sweat. The water darkened quickly, swirling with filth she had nearly grown accustomed to. It was both satisfying and humiliating, watching it wash away.
By the time she was done, the water had turned cool and murky.
She should have gotten out, but she lingered. Because as soon as she left this bath, she would have to step into something new. A new life. A new purpose. For the first time in years, it wasn’t just terrifying.
It was exciting.
The first volume of this series isn’t going to be as heavy on the actions as the later ones. It is very much inspired by one of my favorite books growing up as a kid, Ranger’s Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan. In the book, the main character, Will, spends majority of the time training under Halt, a ranger. Growing up, I just loved watching the characters struggle and grow gradually before the climax. I wanted to do something similar, and so much of the first volume revolves around Emily’s time training under Mina. We’ll get to see the beginnings of many dramas soon to boil over in the coming volumes, as well as a few monster hunts as Emily starts learning the ropes. So, the volume won’t be completely devoid of action, it’ll just be a little sparse. I just wanted to take time to build up this world and these characters. I love reading scenes where characters are just hanging out, living life, getting things done. Think of this as the calm before the storm, and trust me, that storm is brewing.
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