VoC: B1 — 34. Sacred Ground

PoV: 

1. Damon (Our Dhampir MC!)

Veil Of Chaos Index

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The inn’s common room swallowed Damon whole the moment he stepped inside—warmth and noise and the smell of roasted meat that made his aching fangs throb harder.

Vera’s explanation resurfaced that his body would still crave blood when famished, even if he didn’t strictly need it. 

The food Aria gave him was helping, but it would take time for it to be converted into blood inside his stomach. His hand brushed against his bag, where a vial of Vera’s blood rested. It felt heavier than it should.

He forced himself to pause just inside the threshold, letting his eyes adjust to the dim interior after the afternoon sun. It didn’t take long for Magic-Grade, C-tier [Dark Vision] to take effect. Yet, what greeted him wasn’t exactly a standing ovation.

Conversations didn’t stop; they just…shifted. Muted.

Eyes tracked him from the corners of vision, heads turning just enough to confirm what they already suspected from the pointed ears and purple skin. No, most of them knew he was here, sitting with the stunning, ruby-haired talk of the city—her servant.

Aria had been right to try to shield me with her privilege…as uncomfortable as it is, Damon thought, keeping his expression neutral as he moved toward the window furthest from the fire.

His mind was far from them, though; internal creatures in darkness were trying to talk to him, their voices mixing with corrosive, guilty self-commentary—Sophia’s nightly poetry painting him in the firelight.

“—half-breed filth—”

“—disrespectful Nightcrawler—”

“—didn’t even bow to her—”

“—should be a law—”

It rose unbidden in his mind, the words spilling through him like a memory that wasn’t his:

Monsters want to talk to me.

No quarter drawn by lawyers on a crimson sea.

Weep like willows, break like waves.

We are fragile creatures on collision with our judgment day.

Nightbirds say my name, but they don’t call it out to me beneath the rubble like the way you say it.

Weep like willows, break like waves.

We are fragile creatures on collision with our judgment day…

What am I doing, Soph… I did what I had to… What I had to…

[Indomitable Will] did its job, dampening the spike of anger, shame, and self-hatred for hiding his emotions from his worried little sister. He wanted to curl his hands into fists, punch something, lash out—anything.

He’d heard worse today. Hell, he’d killed people today. A few slurs from drunk patrons should barely register on the scale of things currently breaking him…yet they only cast a light on what he was running from.

Keep moving. Just keep moving.

Copper pressed against his leg, a warm, solid presence that helped anchor him. Through their bond, he felt the cub’s confusion, mixed with that protective instinct that had saved his life.

It’s okay, bud. They’re just scared of what they don’t understand. Give it time…

Reaching the second landing, he found the window he’d been aiming for that overlooked the street. Damon lingered by it, and movement outside caught his eye below.

His heart did something complicated in his chest—relief and worry braiding together—as his sister’s crimson hair caught the golden light. Aria, looking absolutely radiant, was beside the street below, moving away with someone.

Even from here, through rippled glass, he could see the transformation in new light. Not just the dress their mother had given her, but the way she carried herself. Chin lifted, shoulders back, every inch the mysterious sun elf royal she was pretending to be.

You’re growing up so fast… What am I doing? Am I making a mistake? Did I make a mistake… I don’t know. And that…hurts.

Copper hopped up onto his hind legs to get a look for himself, yet Damon barely took notice. He gripped his aching chest upon catching sight of the man by her side, showing practiced grace—Count Aldrich Ravencrest.

Damon’s mind supplied the details in his internal spiral, memories from childhood lessons filtering up through the fog of everything else.

Ravencrest. Northwestern territory, harsh borderlands. They manage the frontier where the kingdom meets the Marquess’ lands—constant demon incursions that slip through the patrols and walls. Tough people. Practical. Not like the southern nobles who’ve never seen real combat… Aria’s type of dream man.

He watched the count’s large, muscled frame shake with gentle laughter, watched Aria incline her head with regal poise, managing her own giggle, and something twisted in his gut.

She’s seventeen, despite our memories here. And he’s what, in his early to mid-twenties? Handsome, titled, clearly interested… Dammit.

Through the window, he saw Aria laugh at something the count said, saw her tuck a strand of hair behind one delicately pointed ear, and—

No. Stop. She’s safer in the palace while I handle this… Much safer.

This wasn’t about him being overprotective. This was about Aria being smart, capable, and currently navigating a situation he’d left her to handle alone because he’d been too busy dealing with his own crisis. And that…felt like his failure.

She’d come to him for help, and he’d dropped the ball, for what felt like the first time.

I failed her…but she looks like she’s doing well at navigating it… How much of that is [Sun Elf Pride]? No. Don’t doubt her. Never doubt her… She’s a good girl underneath all that trauma. Keep on, soldier. You’ve got work to do.

Releasing a low growl, he ran his fingers through his hair and forced himself to turn away. He’d made the decision. This indecisiveness, guilt, and deflection weren’t like him. He had to make tough choices for her, always for her.

“Gah… Just get to work,” he grumbled to himself, rubbing Copper’s ear and pushing toward the third floor. “Let’s go, bud. We got work to do. I have to trust her…”

The stairs creaked under his weight—he was heavier than he looked in this body, muscle and bone denser than human normal. Each step carried him further from the common room’s hostile attention, but the relief was minimal.

A woman, middle-aged and respectable-looking, passing on the stairs, saw him and immediately pressed herself against the wall, her hand clutching the simple wooden pendant around her neck.

“Holy Emperor protect us,” she whispered, brown eyes wide.

Damon kept walking.

Third floor. The hallway stretched before him, doors on either side, and everything smelled like old wood and lye soap and decades of travelers. His room was at the end—thirty-one, as Aria had mentioned.

You really have done a good job, Little Shego… 

The key she’d slid him during the conversation fit into the lock. His hands trembled slightly as he worked the lock, mental exhaustion finally catching up now that he wasn’t actively fighting for his life or putting on a mask for his sister.

Come on. Almost there. Just five minutes to collect myself… Five minutes alone. Sophia, Titania, I can feel you both like a phantom… Just keep believing. Keep believing… Am I on the right path? Is this what you wanted?

The door swung open.

Silence answered.

Of course it did. Titania wasn’t some genie in a bottle, waiting to appear the moment he rubbed the lamp and wished for comfort. She was a goddess of chaos, working plans he couldn’t see, moving pieces on a board that stretched across continents and maybe worlds.

Pick yourself up and move forward, he told himself, but his feet wouldn’t cooperate. You have work to do—the coffin. You need to attune to it for them. It’s their security. It keeps me alive for them…so mark it as your place of rest, idiot. That’s what you’re here for. Not to have a breakdown… Do the work!

Copper’s arms closed around his thighs, a low, worried rumble vibrating through the cub’s chest, snapping him out with a sharp breath of air.

“I know, bud. I know,” he mumbled, reaching down to scratch his neck. “Just…give me a second.”

But the second stretched, and the silence pressed in, and Damon found himself staring at his hands—purple skin, clawed nails, the faint prickle where thorns had erupted through flesh earlier. That sickening vibration of quills, sliding past bone and into a pumping organ, made his fingers twitch.

Sophia wouldn’t even recognize these hands…

The thought slipped through his defenses like water through a cracked dam, and suddenly he was spiraling again, [Indomitable Will] straining to keep him functional.

Shut up! Move! Attune the coffin. Focus on what needs to be done.

He forced himself forward, Copper reluctantly releasing him to pad over to look at it with him as the door silently shut on pressured hinges. And there, dominating the modest room like some kind of Gothic centerpiece, sat the coffin Aria had secured.

The coffin waited, dark wood gleaming in the fading light, and Damon approached it like a supplicant approaching an altar.

The craftsmanship was immediately apparent even to Damon’s untrained eye—dark wood polished to a mirror shine, silver inlay forming patterns that seemed to shift in the fading light from the window, hinges that looked like they’d never squeak in a thousand years of use.

Aria made this. For me. To keep me safe.

His fingers found the silver inlay, tracing the patterns. The system helpfully supplied information as he focused:

[Place of Rest - Unclaimed]

[Attune to this location? Y/N]

Yes.

The word formed in his mind, and power responded—not dramatic, not explosive, just a quiet recognition that sank into his bones like warmth after cold. The coffin pulsed once with silver light, the inlay flaring bright enough to cast shadows on the walls, and then the same converging, triple-circle symbol settled on its front.

[Place of Rest - Claimed]

[Resurrection Anchor: The Silver Chalice, Room 31]

[Note: Dhampir resurrection requires 24 hours in claimed rest location]

Something shifted inside him—a tether forming, invisible but undeniable. If he died now, this is where he’d return. This coffin, in this room, in this inn, where his sister had secured them shelter.

I’m immortal, the thought came with a dizzying mix of relief and horror. As long as I have this place, as long as I can return here within an hour of death…I can’t truly die.

His stomach lurched, and suddenly the blood Vera had mentioned—the way his body converted food into it, the way [Gnawing Thirst] made his fangs ache—all of it came flooding into focus.

I’m a vampire. A dhampir. Born from a dark ritual to an innocent princess… Would Mom approve of what I did? It wasn’t as if we couldn’t have handed them over to the authorities.

The room had a small mirror above the washbasin, but Damon found himself drawn to it anyway. He needed to see. Needed to confirm what he already knew. Unlike Dracula legends, he had a face in the mirror, possibly a benefit of not being totally a vampire.

The face that looked back was his. Mostly.

Hazel eyes, yes, but they caught the light wrong now, reflecting it back with a faint luminescence that was distinctly inhuman. Pointed ears that shifted when he was anxious—he watched them twitch as his jaw clenched. Purple skin that looked almost black in the dim light, but would mark him as other the moment someone drew closer.

And the fangs.

He opened his mouth, watching them extend slightly at the thought of blood, at the memory of arterial spray painting cobblestones red. His hazel eyes began to glow.

Would Sophia even recognize you?

The question hit harder than any of the assassins’ blows. Damon gripped the edge of the washbasin, knuckles going pale—or whatever shade passed for pale with purple skin.

Copper jumped on the bed, worry in his eyes, but it was so hard to handle the emotions rolling through him. The doubt. The world they’d entered.

She loved me. The me from Earth. The man who worked too hard and worried too much and made jokes to deflect from the fact that he was drowning. Would she love…this?

He thought about her smile—the real one, not the polite customer-service version—the way it transformed her whole face. The way she’d trace patterns on his chest at night, humming songs or whispering poetry under her breath while he drifted toward sleep.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m your prison,” her voice echoed in his memory, and his reflection blurred as tears finally spilled over. “Like you can’t relax because you’re too busy trying to fix everything for everyone.”

And what was he doing now? Trying to fix everything. Trying to save everyone. Aria, Sophia, his mother, and even a shark girl he’d barely met because Titania told him to.

What if I’m not strong enough? What if I fail them all? What if Sophia looks at me and sees a monster, and I’ve done all of this—killed people, made terrible choices, become this thing—and she doesn’t even want to be saved by me? Does she need me to save her…

His breath came in ragged gasps now, [Indomitable Will] buckling under the weight of everything he’d been shoving down since the moment he’d woken in this world, since he’d been sentenced to death by his grandfather.

Fist slamming against the wall, the hardwood didn’t even budge, splitting his knuckle.

Stop it! Don’t put your guilt on her… You have women who love you, so quit acting like you’re alone… You have women who need you.

He turned to look at the coffin, returning to run his fingers down its length, gratitude welling up where misery had festered at the touch.  

Wow, Aria. I didn’t praise you enough… You always make it possible for me to keep dreaming.

New York nights flooded back as the door closed behind him, the sight of him coming home to a cake or dinner—sometimes as bad as they could be—ready for him while she lay in bed, with a note thanking him for working so hard. 

Copper whined softly, pressing against his leg, and Damon realized he was just standing there, staring, as his vision blurred with tears he couldn’t afford to shed yet.

“I’m okay, bud,” he whispered, voice rough and thick. “Just…processing.”

He moved to run a hand down its side, the cold wood and metal frame grounding him in Sophia’s poetry and Aria’s teasing as he relived those precious memories of the week before their death. Only, these were warm, soothing:

“You bring the gladness, I’ll bring the gleaming.

“You bring the glory, I’ll bring the singing.

“You bring the table, I’ll bring the feasting.”

A smile tilted his lips as he rubbed away the tears leaking from his eyes, as he mumbled his little sister’s poking jab, “Somewhere in the distance, I hear wedding bells ringing.”

And Damon whispered what he’d wanted to say in that moment:

“You bring my morning, you bring my evening.

“I’m gonna praise you with every breath that I’m breathing.

“You bring the working day, so a man can keep believing,

“So a woman can keep on dreaming.

“You bring your spirit, I’ll bring the weeping…”

Lips curling in, he sank to his knees, fingers pressing against his brow as Copper’s furry arms wrapped around his back, the cub’s head resting against his ear.

“Titania, I have nothing else but the promises you’re keeping.”

I murdered people today. I felt a man’s heart stop beating under my hand. I watched the light leave his eyes. And I did it because I was scared they’d come back when I was with Aria, because I wanted to survive…

I need to hear your voice.

“They had families.”

The voice came from beside the coffin, quiet and certain. Not a question. A statement of the exact thought shredding him apart.

The world tilted.

The air changed.

He was still there, still held by Copper against the floor, face pressed into copper-colored fur, shoulders shaking. But he was also here, standing apart in that summer light, watching himself break. Spirit and body divided, tethered but separate.

Not dramatically. Just a subtle shift in quality—like the moment between waking and sleep when the world feels both real and not. The light from the window softened, took on a golden-amber hue that didn’t match the actual time of day.

Heat flooded the room—wrong season, wrong time of day, thick and golden like honey poured through glass. The sound of the inn below didn’t stop, but it muted, as if someone had wrapped the world in cotton. Time didn’t freeze, but it stretched, slowed, pulled taffy-thin between heartbeats.

Damon’s breath caught, and something in his chest loosened—not relief, but recognition.

He looked up through blurred vision, and there she was. Had always been there, maybe. Auburn hair catching that impossible summer light. Green eyes that looked at him like she could see every scar, every failure, every desperate prayer he’d ever whispered into the dark.

Titania knelt there in traveling leathers, auburn hair catching that impossible light, and her green eyes held everything—every prayer he’d whispered, every failure he carried, every desperate hope he was too afraid to voice.

“You keep thinking about their faces,” she said quietly. “How Kestral Savvax’s eyes widened when he realized he was dying, his hands reaching for his throat, trying to hold onto life. You can still feel his heartbeat under your palm—fast, then slower, then nothing. And you wonder if he had children. A wife. A mother waiting who will never know what happened to her son.”

It was a statement, reading his soul as Merana had, but deeper, with the weight of someone who’d watched countless souls break under exactly this burden.

The sob broke from his chest, raw and animal, and Copper’s arms tightened around him. But something else was happening—a gentle tugging in his ribs, like someone pulling at a thread woven through his heart.

“Is this real?” he asked.

“Real enough.” She settled beside his physical form, hand resting over where his spirit could feel it. “You needed distance from the pain to process it. Your body can grieve. Your spirit can think. Both are necessary.”

She looked up at his spirit-self, expression achingly gentle.

“You’re not a monster, Damon. You’re experiencing moral injury—when your actions violate your deeply held beliefs about who you are. You think good people don’t kill. You killed. Therefore, you must not be good. The logic feels clean, but it’s breaking you.”

Her hand stayed over his physical heart, spring warmth breaking past winter.

“But here’s what you need to understand: morality isn’t binary. It’s not a switch that flips from ‘good’ to ‘monster’ the moment you do something violent. It’s more like…” She paused, and the summer light shifted. “Like a river.”

He could see it somehow—water flowing clear and purposeful.

“A river nourishes the valley. Gives life. Sustains everything. But that same river, when its path is blocked, will overflow. Will flood. Will destroy. Not because it stopped being a river, but because its nature demanded it flow.”

She met his eyes with fierce certainty.

“You didn’t stop being good when you killed those men. You stayed true to your nature—to protect, to preserve, to keep the people you love safe. The violence wasn’t the point. Love was. And yes, sometimes love has teeth. Good must have teeth.”

The words settled into him like stones finding the bottom of a river.

“Sophia won’t see a monster,” Titania continued, voice softening. “She’ll see the same heart she fell in love with—the same soul who raised Aria through grief. Purple skin and fangs don’t change the man beneath the mask, Damon. She fell in love with your heart…this, your soul.”

His spirit-form’s breath shuddered. “But I’ve changed—”

“You’re adapting. Growing. That’s not the same as becoming something unrecognizable… A distinction you fail to make, that you share with your precious autumn-haired lover.”

She gestured to his physical body, still crying in Copper’s arms. “That man there is grieving who he used to be. That’s healthy. It means you haven’t lost your capacity to feel the weight of taking a life. But you get to decide who he becomes when he’s done grieving.”

The summer light pulsed, steady and warm, and she lifted her hand, guiding his eyes to the beams flooding the room. His beating soul slowed as a beautiful, perfect woman—his perfect woman shimmered into view, curled in the air, ghostly and slumbering.

“You asked if you’re on the right path. Here’s the truth: she waits for you to draw near, waiting for you to dry her tears… Sophia, Aria, you chose to protect them. You chose survival, not for yourself, but for something greater than yourself. And yes, it cost you the comfortable fiction that you could be good without getting blood on your hands. But you paid the price anyway.”

She stood, pulling him gently to face his physical form, whispering something Damon could swear was written in Sophia’s poetic heart.

“Stand on the shores of a sight unseen, she waits.  

The substance of her glass to your gleaming.  

Because your natural eyes only go skin deep,  

Those hazel eyes of your heart anchor her sea.”

The goddess’ words pulled him into the vision of the woman he’d fought to keep, to impress…to make sure she felt loved.

“But to her, Damon,” she whispered, “in the distance, what she hears is not loss, but hope of wedding bells ringing.”

Spiritual tears fell from his eyes, the slumbering woman written on his heart opening a flower within his heart. Titania’s fingers folded in his.

“Everything here isn’t quite what it seems.

So plumbing the depths to the place in between,

The tangible world and the land of a dream may meet.

…I am here, Damon, always… Trust yourself.

A beggar could be king within the shadows of my wing…

Because I have trust in you, as you have the trust of the two women in your life to bring the morning and evening to them, with every last breath you hold.”

Damon’s fingers tightened around hers, the honey-light flickering. Copper’s fur was under his palms again, real and warm, and his chest hitched as he drew a shaky breath.

“Will it always hurt this much?”

“The first kill lives with you forever.” Her honesty was brutal, yet somehow comforting. “The second hurts less, and that will terrify you. But the fact that you’re asking means you haven’t lost yourself.”

Copper’s low, concerned rumble transferred into his back, grounding him with a shuddering stream of air. The pressure eased with her parting words when it should have terrified him. They felt…right.

“Remember—you’re allowed to grieve and keep moving. Both can be true.” She pressed her hand over his spirit-heart. “You’re a good and faithful servant. What you did today was good—not easy, not clean, but good. You protected the innocent. Stopped people who would have killed again.”

The summer light began to recede at the edges.

“But what about—”

“Your mother is safe. That’s Stephen’s quest…for now. Yours is Cassie—the shark girl. She’s essential, Damon. Your guide to understanding this world and breaking cycles. Trust me.”

She was fading, warmth pulling back like the tide.

“Tell Aria everything. The kills. The fear. All of it. Vulnerability is not weakness—it is the root system that keeps the tallest trees standing. Like redwoods, remember? Roots intertwined. You can’t protect her by hiding your humanity. You protect her by showing her it is okay to be scared and strong enough to rise above it.”

The last of the summer light dissolved.

Damon slammed back into his body—heavy, exhausted, real. Copper’s arms still held him. The room was dim with evening. But something had shifted. The guilt hadn’t disappeared, but it had reorganized itself into something he could carry instead of something crushing him.

He took a shuddering breath and whispered, placing a grateful hand on Copper’s trembling paw with a comforting pat. His gaze turned to where the vision of his strong, vulnerable, and poetic girlfriend had been:

“…Thank you.”

Those words were all that came out, simple and clean as the dark emotions dispersed.

His heart bled out the filth. For Titania. For Copper. For Aria, who got him this coffin, despite being terrified. For Sophia, waiting somewhere in the dark. For everyone who gave him reasons to keep going.

He sat there another minute, letting spirit and body fully reunite, then pulled back from Copper’s embrace.

“I’m okay,” he said to the cub. “Or I will be… We have work to do.”

Copper’s tail wagged hesitantly.

Damon stood on shaky legs and moved to the window, looking out at the darkening city. Somewhere out there, Aria was charming counts and possibly seeing their mother again. He had to put his faith in her.

He’d gone the way of wayward wings in a world of trouble and sin, walking along a crooked mile behind a million rank and file.

But he was a good woman’s son.

Their innocence may have flown away from them, and they’d had to embrace forbidden fire… Yet, he heard her voice upon the wind—every woman in his life.  

“Come on home, home to me,  

and I will hold you in my arms—and joyful be.  

There will always…always be a place for you at my table.  

Return to me…”

He looked at Copper with something almost like a smile.

“Come on, bud. Aria left clothes for me. Then we have a pit fight to get to.”

The cub’s tail wagged, and despite everything, Damon felt something settle in his chest.

I can do this. Not perfectly. But I can do it.

For them.

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Next PoV: Sophia (Our Mimic Girl!)

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