Chapter 1

Under the night sky, castles and towers in the capital city of the Great North are strangely luminescent, glittering like the stars themselves, while the rest of the establishments are in the dark. Mayhem City is a combination of contradictions, the light and the dark, the rich and the poor, and the oppressor and the oppressed.

There are things in the air, gliding, flying; they are too huge to be birds. They look somehow human but not quite, given their horns and bat-like wings. In the outskirts of the city, one unfortunate human who dared to be out on the streets after the daylight has now become their prey. A group of those winged creatures drained his blood and left him on the ground to die.

Elysia seems to never her lesson; if anything, the lessons have made her numb and thick-skinned. Even though she was thrown into the dungeon nearly nine years ago, she is sneaking out of the palace grounds as usual. As being the place the king is residing, it is almost impossible to bypass these walls with guards in every corner of the grounds. Almost. Elysia has a trick in her sleeves.

She gazes at her reflection in the looking crystal on the wall, long raven hair, too pale skin, and the most she hates about herself are those things on her head and the black membranous wings on her back. Without them, she thinks she will look pleasant. It does not surprise her when her reflection disappears, neither is she when it appears again seconds later.

It is well into the night when she arrives at one of the darkest corners of the city, preventing anyone from recognizing her, though it might be unnecessary since the ordinary population of the city has rarely ever seen her. She flies low above the roofs. Over a deserted alley, she notices some square thing on the ground. She softly lands on the ground near the object. It is an old book; the papers have turned yellow. She picks it up carefully and flies away.

There should not humans at this hour on the streets because it is dangerous for them. She tries her best to avoid her fellow people who are searching for prey. They disgust her.

On the walls of a deserted building, someone has boldly scrawled graffiti in a black substance: “GO BACK TO HELL, DEMONS!” It has been hundreds of years that many kingdoms have been under the rule of her kind and yet, it seems humans’ hatred has never stopped for them.

It makes her recalls her father’s words: “We are the gods. They should feel honored for we are ruling them.” She can’t say she agrees with him, but it’s not as if he cares about her opinion or anyone’s opinion. In fact, she doesn’t think there is anyone who dares to disagree with him to his face.

It takes a while to fly over the high walls, the patrolling guards, and to successfully head towards her final destination. Upon entering her chambers through the high windows and folding her wings, she was dragged by her horn by someone.

Startled, she gives a quick sidelong glance to see the intruder.  An angry female with somewhat similar features as Elysia but looks slightly older.

 "Mother?” she whispers.

"Where have you been? Wandering around the city with no care? "

"Let me go!"

Her mother releases her ear and said in a whisper, "Have I not told you? You need to obey every rule and you must not make any mistake, no matter how small it is."

Seeing her mother's unusual anger, she mutters, "Yes."

"Why don't you understand your situation? No one else can know our secret." Her mother said in a tone so quiet that she almost did not hear.

"I am sorry. I won't do it again."

"Not just this, Elysia. You can't do anything that'd make you look suspicious. You can't afford to have a weakness." And then suddenly, in a normal tone, she continues, "It's time to take your medicine. You must take care of your health. I've been waiting for you."

It is common knowledge that Elysia was born with a rare disease that makes her slightly fragile. Normally, members of her kind have strength several times greater than humans, but hers is barely over one human.

Her mother turns and crosses the room, her red gown sweeping the carpeted floor. If anyone of her kind can look graceful, it is Sumerie, she believes. With nothing do to but wait, she considers her own boring but comfortable clothes, a black sleeveless shirt and black pants with knee-length boots.

Her mother hands her a goblet. She is familiar with the potion it holds: a disgusting liquid she can’t name. She still grimaces, even though she has been drinking this potion for as long as she could remember.

Finally, her mother leaves her to her peace. She wonders what kind of book she has picked up; it could be some sort of mysterious book that would lead her to great magic. Flinging herself onto the bed, she turns the book to a random page and reads:

“He picked me up with his powerful arms and walked over to the bedroom. I hid my face in his chest and said, ‘my lord’...”

Elysia instantly concludes that this is better than a spell book.

In the early morning, a loud bang on the door from her parlor interrupts Elysia's reading. Her fuzzy mind took several seconds to recognize where these noises were coming from.

The two chambers are connected. She hides the book under her mattress quickly. Whoever it is on the other side of the door must be very impatient, as the banging is louder by the second.

She crosses to the door. Evidently, whoever that is would not be a servant. A servant wouldn't dare to bang her doors. "Open the door, Elysia. It's important!" says a male voice through the door.

Hearing the voice, Elysia exactly knows who that is. He apparently thinks this is his place and he can go in and out whenever he wants. None of the servants and guards here wouldn't dare to prevent him from anything he wanted.

She highly doubts whatever it is would be important, as he said. She can already feel the impending doom. With a heavy sigh, she reaches to the decision that she will brace whatever it was coming.

She was so eager to read the book that she got little sleep last night. As soon as she wakes up, she continues reading the book. Feeling sleepless, she is already annoyed even before seeing him.

"Wait.”

She finds Kannax at the door, just as she expected. Born from a different mother, he is older than Elysia by almost a century, and yet he looks in his early twenties; her kind doesn’t age as much as humans do. Those who don’t know well about him are often deceived by his charming appearance.

"I brought your breakfast for you, little sister," he said with a half-smirk.

Whenever she sees Kannax, he has the uncanny ability to sound every sentence coming out of his mouth evil. Despite being disgusted by how he can possibly pronounce 'little sister' nastily, she decides against commenting on that.

Distracted, she notices in late that he is not alone. There is a young girl. A human girl. Looks younger than her by a few years. She is cowering behind him, looking frightened.

He enters her parlor without her invitation, dragging the girl by her hair.

“Stop,” Elysia snaps.

“What? Are you sympathizing with a human?”

“I am not. You ruining my morning with an ugly scene is all.”

 He settles himself in a chair like his own place and tosses the girl to the floor.

"I am not hungry," Elysia answers his earlier question.

"Why?"

"I've already had my breakfast." Even while uttering the words she is realizing what a stupid lie it is. Her appearance should be obvious to anyone that she just came out of bed.

“Ahh—is that so? I heard an interesting rumor about you recently. You want to know?"

"Not really.”

Ignoring her reply, he continues, "Some say you don't drink human blood. That is absurd, isn’t it? I mean, only scavengers drink animal blood."

How did he find out about that? She wears her best calm-and-collected face.

"What a joke. Who told you that?"

"Does it matter who told me?"

Kannax is trying to corner her, she knows that. She will not hurt this girl, not to mention human blood tastes like ashes. Yes, she has tried once she was a child.

The girl is sitting on the floor, leaning against one leg of the chair Kanna is occupying as if she has no longer her own free will. Her pallor looks unhealthy and bloodless. Just how much blood has he drained from this girl? It is so undignified that this innocent human is living her life as a blood slave. Elysia has never quite understood her anger towards her own race’s treatment of defenseless races.

"I don't have time for this. I have somewhere to go.”

It is her way of dismissing him, but he looks interested. "Oh? Where?"

She utters a random place. “House of Dreams” And she instantly regrets that. She could not imagine why that horrible place crossed her mind. She hasn’t been thinking about that or anything. In this entire city, it is probably the last place she would want to go.

He seals her fate by replying, "I am coming with you then. I could use a new slave."