*Eldovian Era 1722, 12th day of the 12th month*

“A city for your Coven,” Elsbeth spoke, “I suppose I always expected it, though didn’t think I’d still be alive when you finally did it. After all, how many of you are there, 15? 16?”

“21 including the Western Branch,” Rassa replied.

“Even with 21 of you, an entire city will feel fairly empty,” said Elsbeth.

“Even in a Coven City, you should only find 1 Vampire for every 100 humans, or else there would be a severe food shortage,” Rassa sighed.

“A little over 2000 is still just the population of a small town, Rassa, are you planning on expanding?” asked Elsbeth.

Rassa stood from his seat, looking out over the courtyard of the Southern Moonshadow Branch, his hood down low to shield his eyes from the burning sun.

“Down here, under the watchful eyes of those who conscript to the Order of the world, those of Chaos find themselves forced to blend in or face retribution for simply being,” said Rassa, “When we have a place of our own, we can simply be. Not as rampant bloodthirsty beasts like the populace tends to believe we are, but as members of our own thriving society. As powerful as we are, Elsbeth, I will not allow my Coven members to kill without cause, and in a city that is their home, they will not feel the need to. Perhaps at first there will be hostilities, nervous humans tend to be that way, but give it a decade, maybe two. Give the humans long enough to get it out of their systems and they will learn. Hatred and Fear are awfully tiring emotions to cling to, no?”

Elsbeth sighed, “I suppose I can agree with you there. Do make sure to build me a retirement home, will you? I am getting on in my years and am already well on my way to training my replacement”.

Rassa smiled, “Of course. If there were such things as honorary Coven members, you would be one of the first on the list, Elsbeth. It would be just as much an honour to have you live the twilight years of your life among us”.

Elsbeth chuckled, “Don’t ever stop weaving those honeyed words, Lord Moonshadow. Nor should you let your claws and fangs grow blunt. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I hope we meet again”.

Rassa nodded, “I don’t know, I think one Elsbeth is enough for a few lifetimes at least”.

“Good thing you’ll live through those and then some,” Elsbeth finished the wine in her glass before she stood, “Come, if you have so much to build no doubt you have plenty of materials you’ll need, I’ll help you source and transport what I can. No doubt Talo will help with that too”.

Rassa nodded, “Much obliged, Elsbeth”.

***

*Eldovian Era 1722, 20th day of the 12th month*

Ebony stepped gracefully through the rows of cages at the slaver’s market. Her green eyes appraising the numbers, her nose appraising their health. The cages were eight metres long and two metres wide, housing between 20 and 30 slaves in each. Most were divided by age rather than sexes.

“Are there any that catch your eyes, Lady Moonshadow?” asked the Slaver who walked by her side, his stride a lot clumsier than her own. Ebony did not reply as she calculated the numbers in her mind.

“Perhaps if you told me what you were looking for-”

“There are roughly 4000 slaves here, considering at least 400 of them need urgent medical attention and another 1000 are too young, too old or too lame to work hard labour, I will pay 10,000 gold, for all of them,” said Ebony.

The slaver tripped over his own feet, “10,000…All of them?”

Ebony nodded, “Yes, all of them, is that a problem?”

The slaver’s eyes widened, “I, no, Lady Moonshadow, I’ve just never had an order of such magnitude before, I-”

“You need not worry about transportation, tomorrow several trains have been rescheduled to transport them, you need only ensure that they are at the station on time. My assistant, River, will handle the details,” Ebony said, pointing to the young man behind her before she turned and continued walking down the aisle towards the exit.

The slaver’s market in Barday was one of the largest in Eldovia, though Port Lovolon got it’s fair share as well. She’d already been there the day before though, Neva having already procured the needed supplies and sent all but those needed for the journey north. Mathius had diverted the trains for the week it would take to transport them all north.

Word had spread quickly thanks to both the trains and the communication crystals. The last she had heard, there were 20,000 slaves and free men in search of work headed north to Toulle.

The building supplies were harder to procure in time, but Kit and Ollie had been flying back and forth between the supply sites and the northern end of the Endless Lake. Talo was due soon enough with several supplies as well.

With such an enormous labour force and movement of supplies, the whole continent had been shaken by the power that Moonshadow wielded but had never put to use. Ebony could not wait for them to see the city itself. She had yet to lay eyes on the site, but she had seen the trail of monoliths that Rassa had built on his journey back, marking the way north through the Desolate Lands.

Ebony smiled, the humans truly had no idea what they were capable of.

Just as she was about to exit through the market gates, Ebony paused, turning at a scent that was so familiar to her, but that she could not quite place.

Her eyes scanned the slaves in their cages, zeroing in on one with several older slaves. She scented the air again briefly, and found her eyes focusing on a woman with her long, dirty white hair tied on top of her head with a strip of fabric. Her dress simple and like a uniform that all the slaves were wearing. Her skin perhaps not so wrinkled, but old and stressed from years of work none the less. Ebony frowned at the familiarity she felt towards the old woman.

Then, the woman turned ever so slightly glancing up and revealing emerald green eyes.

Ebony froze on the spot.

She’d been a child last time she’d seen her, and even then, their encounters had been few thanks to their individual work. Ebony had never expected to see her again, let alone recognise her. Yet those eyes were unmistakable because they were the same ones that had always looked back in her own reflection.

Ebony turned away, leaving the market with the knowledge that among the slaves she had just purchased, was her own mother.

***

*Eldovian Era 1722, 31st day of the 12th month*

Iah used the shadows to lift and set the stone into place. She and Sel had been working on Lyserna’s City Wall for an over a month now. The wall, though, was far grander and more impenetrable than anything Iah had laid eyes on before.

Thanks to the setting in of the winter, the wall froze just as quickly as she and Sel could put it into place. A concerted effort was needed from the both of them to not only place the stone correctly, but also to ensure that it was stable so that in the warmer months, the wall would not crumble if one knocked into it too hard.

Lyserna was situated on the North-Eastern side of the Mountain in which they had found the Sun Stones. There, a deep valley dipped towards the north, Lyserna situated at the Eastern end on a slightly elevated plateau. This Plateau had been gradually expanded and flattened by Rassa, Iah and Sel as they created the foundations of the city they were building.

The wall was step two. It circled an area of approximately 10,000 square kilometres, the enormous mountains and plunging valleys making it an expansive beacon. The area inside the wall, on the plateau, looked to be a barren wasteland at this moment.

“Exactly how many people are you hoping to house in this city?” Iah had asked when she’d realised the scale at which Rassa was building.

“When it is fully active and at capacity, I wouldn’t be surprised if it could house at least 10 million,” Rassa had replied.

Iah had only felt shock at that number, “That’s only slightly less than the entire population of Eldovia. Where do you suggest we get all these people from?”

“Once they are happy, safe and provided for, humans tend to breed quite freely,” Rassa replied, “It will take a shorter time to reach such a population than you might think”.

“Oh, with just making sure they are safe and provided for?”

Rassa sighed, “Let’s imagine that we start with a population of 20,000. We need to assume a few things, first that there is an equal distribution of the population between birth and 70. Second, that only those between a certain age will reproduce, let’s say 18 and 35. It will take 18 years for maturity, and finally we’ll assume there are, say, 2,000 deaths a year. Obviously, if there are no changes, for the first 18 years, the population will only increase by a very small increment every day, a few hundred maybe. But by the time the first birthed here started to have children of their own, there’ll be some changes. Of course, assuming that the death rate remains the same, a quarter of a century after that next generation reaches maturity, the population would have grown by nearly 5 times. In other words, in less than half a century we could be looking at 100,000 people rather than the initial 20,000, and that number is from birth rates alone, not from migration. What’s more, the higher the population gets, the faster it will increase”.

Iah had had to pause to wrap her head around the thought.

“Can we really create such an environment in such a cold and desolate place though?” asked Iah.

Rassa had smiled, “That’s were the Sun Stones come in. Not only do they filter light, they filter weather, too. The Sun Stones, when connected and functioning, will create a barrier that is set to emit a 12-hour cycle of light and darkness. With that comes heat. Light in general generates heat. Of course, it’s not a God, in can’t generate a stable environment consistently forever, but it will certainly be a lot better than outside of the barrier they create”.

At this stage, Iah was beginning to question if Rassa would ever run out of these insane ideas. After the memories he had shown her and Sel of the old Covenant City Walls and designs, Iah wasn’t sure he would. With so many lost things, surely he could recreate and improve upon them for centuries to come.

The walls that Iah and Sel had been building from the stone they had carved from nearby quarries, were fifteen metres thick at the base, and five metres thick at the top for the majority of the wall. The walls were on an incline mainly to mirror the mountain itself, but also to ensure that any snow that landed on them slid off easily. The wall was thirty metres tall, and the internal structure housed multiple tunnels and guard stations as well as room for sanitation pipes and pipes for the distribution of clean water.

At six equally distributed points around the perimeter was an even wider section of the wall known as the sun towers. These were mostly hollow, and built so that they would house the sun stones when Rassa returned and was able to put them into place.

Iah turned to look at Sel as he placed a final stone into place.

“Well, if anyone needs to build a wall in the future they know who to come to,” Iah huffed, “It’s got to be the new year by now, don’t you think?”

The constant darkness made it hard to tell. Iah and Sel had not seen the sun in several weeks.

“I’m sure he will return soon, Iah,” Sel replied, sensing the worry in her tone, “Come, we’ll return to the castle”.

Aye, Castle. They’d built that first, it put Moonshadow to shame. It reached many times further into the sky and was built both into and out of the side of the mountain. The home of the Moonshadow Coven. Thanks to the structure being largely carved from the mountain side, there were many Evanine veins still within it’s structure. It made the castle glitter when the sun hit it, for however briefly that was. In the darkness though it appeared the looming shadow that Rassa had no doubt wanted it to be.

From habit, Iah found herself not just returning to the castle, but checking the communication crystal in the southernmost tower. Sel followed behind, ever vigilant. They’d been the only company the other had for the last month and had reached a sort of tacit understanding and routine.

To their surprise, the crystal was not dormant.

Iah rushed forward and activated it, she found herself staring at two familiar faces.

“Ebony?” asked Iah with a smile, “And Neva?”

The two women smiled back, “Oh good, we were starting to wonder if we were too far out”.

Iah quickly lost her smile, “Where is Rassa?”

“He is monitoring construction of the first outpost along the railway from Toulle. Mathius and Layton are with him,” Neva replied.

“He sent the two of us on ahead along with a multitude of materials in order to begin construction of the city itself,” Ebony replied, “Halfway through our supplies you two are to return, and Rassa will come to Lyserna with Layton. We’ve worked out a rotation process in order to monitor construction at both ends as well as the transportation of supplies and the management of Moonshadow itself”.

“He has paired us?” asked Iah.

“Yes, Talo and his band will handle supply transportation to the first outpost, Kit and Ollie are managing Moonshadow for the time being, and the remaining six of us will rotate between Lyserna and the Outposts. Ebony and I are currently at what Rassa told us was the halfway point. He built a Communication Outpost here to ensure faster communication between Eldovia and Lyserna,” explained Neva.

“So, you’re on your way to us now?” asked Iah.

“From what we understand, we’re 3 days out,” Ebony replied, “What should we look out for when we arrive, and are the days always this short this far north?”

Iah smiled, “Sel and I haven’t seen the sun in weeks, Ebony, there isn’t day at all where we are. As for what you should look for, it’s the only structure here, you won’t miss it”.

Neva and Ebony looked at each other before turning back to Iah and Sel, “If you say so, we’ll be with you shortly”.

“Can’t wait to welcome you,” Iah smiled, then the communication crystal dimmed.

Iah spun to face Sel, “What do you think? Yeti for dinner?”

Sel chuckled at her suddenly lighter attitude, “Lead the way”.

*The First Vampire will continue in The Ruin of Eldovia*