A Legion of Bane and Embers

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>A Knight sworn to protect the city from evil. A vampire bound in chains. A desire that could destroy them both.</em></strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>Atlas</em></strong></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>I was trained to kill monsters-</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Not crave the one chained beneath my home.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>As a Knight of Cindervail I'm everything the Legion demands: disciplined deadly untouchable. But on the night of my final trial it wasn't the Legion that saved me.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>It was a vampire.</span></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Emilian.</em></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Now he's leashed and muzzled by the Vail my illegal asset locked in my basement. I only let him out for missions that need a monster's teeth. That's the story we tell.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>But the truth is darker. Every night I go back to him-for the heat the hunger the sin I can't stop committing. Our connection is forbidden. Addictive. And when my best friend vanishes and demons begin tearing through Cindervail I'm forced to face an impossible choice:</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Save the city I swore to protect-</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Or surrender to the vampire who makes me feel alive.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)><em>Emilian</em></strong></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>I wasn't born a monster.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>I was made one-and then left to rot.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>In Cindervail vampires like me aren't given trials. We're exterminated. I should've died the night I met Atlas the Knight who should have put a blade through my heart. Instead he let me live.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Now I survive chained beneath his home like a secret sin. Muzzled. Bound. Used as a weapon while I fight the city's nightmares by his side. We pretend it's duty. But I see the truth in his eyes every time he touches me-the tremor in his hands the hunger in his breath.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The city is rotting. The rifts are widening. Demons are coming through the cracks. Soon Atlas will have to choose-</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The city that made him a weapon</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Or the creature he should have killed.</span></p><p></p>