The night was a festering wound, its air thick with ash and the copper reek of blood, coiling around Magnus Varik like a noose. In the shadowed courtyard of his crumbling estate, the blood-red moon pulsed, a diseased heart casting fractured light across scorched stone walls. His empire—a brutal mosaic of steel and slaughter—reeled as flames devoured the towers, set by cruel hands. A primal fury clawed at his chest, a feral pulse that screamed for vengeance, stirred by the screams of his dying people.
Jakob's warning about Isabella, the southern noblewoman, burned in his mind, a spark beneath the inferno roaring through his veins. His skin scorched, as if branded by unseen flames, his senses honed to a predator's edge. A snarl tore from his throat, raw and unbidden, a call to the werewolves his father had gifted him at birth—beasts of his bloodline, now a vast pack multiplied in secret, waiting in the wilds. He crushed his fists, nails carving flesh, blood dripping black under the moon's merciless glare. The curse of his bloodline, a power Darius Varik had wielded, now raged—a tempest shredding the man he'd been.
Inside the estate, servants fled through smoke-choked halls, their cries drowned by the crackle of fire and the crash of collapsing beams. Whispers of their lord's moonlit madness—a curse that could summon death—had broken their nerve. Beyond the walls, the forest burned, trees reduced to skeletal pyres, nearby villages razed to ash, their people slaughtered. Magnus felt each loss like a blade, his anger coiling tighter, the beast within howling for the pack he held back. Not yet, he vowed, though the curse begged for release.
A scream—human, then silenced—pierced the night, joined by a chilling hiss that wasn't animal. The sound sank into Magnus's bones, his head snapping toward the blazing treeline, amber eyes blazing like embers. The curse flared, a molten tide searing his blood, and the moon seemed to writhe, its light bleeding into the sky like a fresh wound.
"Magnus!" Jakob's cry sliced through the haze, raw with terror. The older man staggered from the arched doorway, face pale as bone, a longsword trembling in blood-slick hands. A gash wept crimson across his brow, fresh and angry. "The scouts—Gavrin's back. Something butchered the others. Pale things with fangs, led by a woman who seemed… human, then not. They're burning everything."
Magnus's lips curled, teeth too sharp, his rage a living thing. "Show me."
They wove through the estate's corridors, torchlight recoiling from Magnus's shadow as if it sensed the monster within. The air thickened with smoke and the stench of charred flesh, as they descended to the lower levels. Stone walls loomed, scarred by fire, like a crypt's jaws. In a dim chamber, a lone candle sputtered, its flame shrinking from the dark. Gavrin, a wiry scout, writhed on a blood-soaked cot, his armor shredded, claw marks raking steel like paper. His eyes, wide and unseeing, stared into nothingness, his breath a broken wheeze.
"What did this?" Magnus's voice was a growl, his anger a blade honed by the screams outside.
Gavrin flinched, his gaze darting to Magnus, then away, like prey before a predator. "From the woods," he rasped, voice cracking like dry bone. "Pale things—fast, fanged, eyes red as blood. Drank Toren's life, left him a husk. Led by a woman—human one moment, charming, then… fangs, silver eyes. She burned the villages, the forest. Laughed in my head." He clawed at his scalp, nails drawing blood, his voice a sob. "She reeked of death… and roses."
Magnus's blood surged, his rage boiling at "her," the image of her shifting form fueling his fury. "Who?"
Gavrin's mouth gaped, but only a whimper escaped. He curled into himself, trembling, as if the memory were a knife in his gut.
"Lock the gates," Magnus snarled, his thoughts flickering to the werewolves waiting in the wilds, their power a heartbeat away. "Triple the guard. Nothing moves."
Jakob's eyes pierced him, fear and grief warring. "Magnus… she's tearing everything apart. Human or not, what is she? What's in you to stop her?"
Magnus didn't answer. He stormed from the chamber, boots pounding stone like thunder, the screams of his people stoking his rage. Answers lurked in his father's study, a vault sealed since Darius Varik's death under a moon as cursed as this. If the beast was breaking free, the truth hid there.
The study was a crypt, its air thick with dust and the reek of buried sins, now tinged with smoke. Shelves sagged under tomes older than the empire, their bindings cracked like brittle flesh, some singed by stray embers. A massive oak desk loomed, its surface scarred by his father's fury. Magnus lit a lantern, its flame casting shadows that writhed like specters. He moved to a locked cabinet, its iron bolts a childhood terror, and shattered it with a fist, wood exploding like bone.
Journals spilled forth, their pages yellowed and heavy with secrets. He seized one, his father's handwriting slashing the page like a wound.
The Varik blood is a plague. It carries the First Beast's mark, a pact born in the Old War's shadows. The blood moon wakes it, hungers for it. Pale drinkers, led by their silver-eyed queen, seek the Key of Destruction, a relic to unmake the world. She shifts, human to horror, confusing all. Our werewolves, born of my blood, wait for you, Magnus. Guard them—unless the beast claims you.
Magnus's breath caught, the journal trembling in his grip, his rage a furnace at the thought of his father's werewolves—his birthright, now a vast pack, hidden but ready. A scream tore through the night, joined by a chilling hiss and the crash of falling stone, so close the walls quaked. His vision sharpened, the room's edges blazing with unnatural clarity. The curse wasn't coming—it was here.
The door burst open, Jakob staggering in, blood streaming from a gash on his arm. "Magnus—they're inside! Pale fanged things, led by a woman who shifts—they're burning the halls, killing everyone!"