Inside, the temple is nothing like its aged and worn exterior.

The floors are made from a glistening white stone and the wood pillars and archways that support the walls and high ceiling glow in the kaleidoscope of light that filters through the stained glass windows. There are enough pews to seat half of the kingdom, but something tells me that it’s been quite some time since that many people have attended services. It smells like dust and incense and a few furtive glances from my spot in front of the lectern reveals cobwebs in unlikely places.

There is a long table that runs along the wall behind the pulpit, which the younger of the two men stands over and busies himself with something I cannot see. His older colleague stands idly nearby and I have to force myself to look away because when I see his smile and creepy stare, I am thoroughly unnerved.

“Here we go.” the young man mutters to himself.

When he turns around, I can see that the object he has produced from a clutter of items is an old skeleton key made from brass. He motions for me and against my better judgement, I follow.

The three of us move along the back wall of the temple and into a corridor on the west side. There is a spiral staircase there and we ascend without exchanging a word. It’s a tad uncomfortable for me to gather up my skirts and move in slippers I would otherwise not be caught dead in, but I make it to the top and am met by a small and unremarkable door.

It takes but a moment of fidgeting on the younger man’s part, but once the key slips into the latch, the door swings open soundlessly before us. Though I am the shortest, I still have to duck to fit through the passageway. Luckily, the room beyond allows all three of us to stand at our full heights despite the lack of free space to move.

The light is dim here and I have to blink a couple of times in order to let my eyes adjust. Once my vision is clear, my lips part and I turn slowly in awe in order to get a good look at everything.

Parchment is plastered from wall to wall, displaying sketches in charcoal and hastily-scribbled notes in ink. There are illustrations of vampires and the lifelike qualities they possess make me wonder if the inspiration for them was drawn from reality. Everywhere I turn, there are diagrams and maps, drawings that reference locations and places I have never seen before.

A small desk lays tucked in one corner, with a candlestick and an opened leather-bound journal on its surface. It is here that the younger of the two men moves towards. It takes a little shuffling to slide out the wooden chair and sit down, but he manages without much trouble.

“What is all this?” I ask quietly, picking up a page from the floor and glancing over an eerie side-by-side sketch of human and vampire teeth comparisons.

“My study.” the younger man answers back cheerily.

“Silas is a scholar.” the older one interjects with a broad smile.

“And a cartographer.” the young man, who I now know is named Silas, adds. “And a scrivener. I also have some experience as a corsetier but uh… Well, that’s a story for another time.”

The book that was left lying open on his desk is massive, but Silas seems to know what he is doing as he thumbs through its many pages. He eventually stops on a section in which a hand-drawn map has been articulately sketched in precise detail. Towards the bottom of the page, I can see the familiar shape of the kingdom’s borders and ‘Naver’ has been written in neat script beside it. Yet the focus of the map does not seem to be on the city at all.

Rather, it seems that great care has been put into marking off the vast expanse of woods to the north and the mountain range that begins not far from where we are now. Three spaces in particular have been circled in a bright red ink and at a glance, I can see that they have been labeled with the word ‘den’. There is one on the southern range, maybe a few miles from the kingdom, another stretches across the peaks to the north, set beside a lake that I have never before heard of and the third is located somewhere between the two.

“Do you know the countryside well, Miss Fayne?” Silas asks me.

I shake my head, but decide I am better off not confiding my personal life to two complete strangers that have taken me to their secret hideout.

There’s not much to say, anyways. I once lived in the outskirts of the city walls, but I was very young at the time. That was when my father was still alive and though my memories are vague of him, I knew he was an ackerman by trade and that was why I was born on a farm in the country. After his death, my mother was quick to leave that life behind. She fled to the kingdom with me and for a while, it was just the two of us. Then she remarried, started a family anew and once in the comfort of my stepfather’s wealth, there was no need to wander far from the protection of our new home.

Silas motions for me to come closer and I do, shuffling near the desk as much as I can and leaning over his shoulder to see what he intends to show me. His finger lightly taps the very base of the mountain range right above Naver that was circled in red.

“This place here is where my research began.” he begins.

He shuffles with the journal a little, pulling at one of the many pages that stick out from the rest at various angles. A small note that has been folded in half slips out and when he smooths out the crease at the center, a hastily-made illustration is revealed.

The drawing depicts the base of a mountain and a small rocky overhang that is situated over the slope. A shadowed pit sits at the cliff center - the mouth of a cave.

“You see, I have been researching those creatures for quite some time.” Silas explains. “I started wondering where it was they were coming from. Where do they go when the sun comes up? If they made their den too far, there was no possible way they would be able to make it back without perishing. Even with a vampire’s speed and strength, they would not be able to find safety in time.”

It made sense. I’d always heard that they came from the north, but how far north exactly? They were mindless and bloodthirsty beings, but they weren’t stupid. I was also surprised at the notion of picking on such a dangerous subject to research. The idea of watching those monsters so closely with the chance that they could eat you didn’t quite seem worth all the knowledge in the world, in my opinion.

“So, about a year ago, I started setting up traps within areas of Naver that were frequently visited by the vampires.” continues Silas. “I would leave a mixture of dye that could go unnoticed in the dark, but in daylight hours, could leave very distinguishable tracks in which to follow. They appeared as mere puddles on the ground and the specimens paid no mind as they walked through them. After the hunt had ended, I spent the next few days marking off individual trails and mapping them out. Every single one of them returned to the same place.”

“The cave?” I ask.

“The very same!”

He looks excited that I am following along, but I don’t quite share his enthusiasm. Silas seems fascinated by the beasts, studying them in his own little field guides. Thomasin and I had studied them, too, but in ways that helped us slaughter them faster. Perhaps it was just two sides of the same coin.

“That is when I began to look into the history of the mountain range outside of the kingdom. And that is where Uncle Elias came to be a part of my study.”

Beside us, the frizzled older man stands taller and juts his chin out proudly. I nod in understanding but all I feel is relief that I have names to put to these two lunatics.

“I’ve worked as the groundskeeper at this temple since I was just a lad.” Elias informs us with a wistful grin. “Grew up looking at those mountains my whole life. My father before me, Silas’s grandfather, used to refer to them as the Goddess’s Diadem.”

“...Why?”

I don’t mean to ask the question so bluntly, but it slips out without meaning to and my cheeks immediately turn pink in shame. But Elias only chuckles and does not take offense. He raises his hands and steeples his fingers into a triangular shape that hovers over his forehead, creating a mock version of a tiara.

“Our father was once the priest of this temple, Miss Fayne. He oversaw weddings from the entire kingdom, including the king and queen’s. And when he saw those pretty crowns they wore, he likened them to the pointy peaks of the mountains.” he tells me.

The thought makes me smile a little and I decide not to say anything more. Instead, I look to Silas, who is anxiously awaiting his turn to speak and return to the story of his findings.

“Ahem. Right.” he says, clearing his throat. “So, I knew my uncle was familiar with these parts. He showed me the trails and familiarized me with the lay of the land. And I was fortunate that he allowed me to set up a study here, so that I could have a place to record my findings.

“We prepared for months, mapping out the woods and steadily exploring the mountains little by little. During these expeditions, we made an interesting discovery. You see, Miss Fayne, there are plenty of cave mouths that lead into the mountain. But there are only three that are large enough to allow passage for humanoid figures.”

My eyes lower to the map before us, scanning slowly from one red circle to the other. All three were quite a distance between one another. Maybe a few days worth of travel in between each one.

“I have theorized that a forced rockslide can easily block off these entrances.” Silas concludes, brimming with delight as he sees my expression change from fitting the pieces of his plan together. “Closing off the one nearest to Naver would leave the creatures exposed. They would have to travel through the woods and across the country for days to reach the city, but making it back by sunrise would be impossible.”

“Is this why you tracked me down? You want me to be some kind of muscle man and help you lift some heavy rocks?” I question warily.

They both laugh but I hardly see what is so funny. With where his long-winded explanation is going, I don’t quite understand what else he could be suggesting.

“Oh no, Miss Fayne, no.” Silas replies rather fast. “I assure you, our meeting was quite coincidental. I made a grandiose mistake while conducting extra research that night and if it weren’t for you and Miss Alpendane, I could have paid for it with my life.”

Part of me is selfishly envious. Maybe if he had paid with his life, there would have been no cost for Thomasin’s. But I shake the thought away. As a hunter, I swore to protect the streets and the people of this kingdom. Wishing ill will upon anyone goes against the very principles in which I stand for.

“We do not expect you to follow our outlandish schemes.” Elias chimes in gently. “But we are clearly not the experienced slayer that you are, Miss Fayne. We cannot protect ourselves and pull off this task simultaneously. Having someone of your fighting calibur would be an immense advantage.”

“We may think of the creatures as mindless or basic beings, but they are not stupid.” adds Silas. “If we were to limit their access out of the mountain, they would recognize the danger of coming south that far. They would be forced to survive solely on what they find in the forests if their only means of escape are rerouted to the other two cavern mouths.”

Throughout the detailing of the uncle and nephew’s plan, I can feel my pulse begin to pick up. Something heated burns hot in my chest. I like their idea, but it is not enough. It’s too passive. I inhale to quell my excitement, then stand up taller and thoughtfully think over the information I have just been told.

“Why stop there?” I propose.

Silas blinks and Elias looks alarmed, but confused. They await for me to keep going, staying silent to ensure they understand my meaning.

“As long as those monsters continue to thrive, no one will be safe.” I add in a serious tone. “Perhaps blocking the first cave entrance is not enough.”

“Do you suggest we should block all three?” Elias interjects. “But that would take time. Weeks, even! We would have to traverse a very dangerous area, not to mention we’d be close to the creatures. I’ve heard it said they can smell human blood.”

“Oh, they can.” I assure him gravely. “And I am well aware. However, if we can block the first two entrances during daylight hours, our safety is assured.”

Silas frowns. I think he knows where I am going with this and it makes him squirm in discomfort.

“And the third cave…?”

I take a deep breath, then regard the two men in complete seriousness. They promised me revenge and that was exactly what I wanted. But just herding the animals that killed Thomasin and letting them live in exchange for a more restrictive diet? That was not revenge. That was settling for a lesser sentence.

“If we can block off all other ways out, we can drive them to the end of the mountain range. We can enter during the day and lure them out into the sun, then successfully wipe them out all in one fell swoop.”