The mine was nothing more than a yawning tomb, a black crater weeping soot and ember. Charred beams had collapsed like the bones of a dead giant. The air reeked of burned stone, molten metal, and above all—flesh. Crows fought over the corpses in a frenzy of wings and screams. Every step cracked unseen embers, every breath brought back the bitter taste of smoke.
And yet, from the pit of ash, a figure emerged.
The Count.
His cloak was nothing but a charred rag. His skin, blistered and scarred red, pulled his face into a grotesque mask, half-melted. One eye was clouded by fire, the other intact, burning with a glacial clarity. His blackened hair clung to his skull, and his ragged breath whistled in his throat. But he stood. Straighter than a corpse had any right to.
He raised a trembling hand, leaning on a stone still warm. Pain tore through every nerve, but he smiled. A split, deformed smile that revealed teeth stained with blood.
— My son...
The word rolled from his throat like a prayer and a curse at once.
He had seen him. That boy—no, that young man—who had risen against him, who had borne the blade without faltering. His eyes, his voice, the way he stood his ground... Yes. There was no longer any doubt. He carried his blood.
And he had rejected him.
Cold hatred tangled with a dark pride. The Count's rejection only fanned the fire of his desire. He no longer wanted to simply capture Victor: he wanted to test him, break him, then shape him. Drag him back to his origin. Prove to him who he was, where he came from.
— You think you've found your family, he murmured, his burned lips stretching in a rictus. But your blood... your blood isn't yours. It's mine. And I will come to remind you.
Around him, other staggering figures began to rise from the wreckage: survivors covered in ash, mutilated men but still on their feet. They sank to their knees, heads bowed, as if he had stepped out of hell not as the defeated, but as their master.
— The camp is destroyed, one of them gasped. Half the men are—
— The other half will do, the Count cut him off. As long as I have a hand to hold the blade, I am not defeated.
His rasping voice cracked like a divine order. The survivors fell silent, petrified.
Then another figure appeared. Slimmer, straighter, parting the rising mist. Draped in black, face hidden beneath a hood, it glided forward without a sound, like a shadow slipping across the embers. The Count fixed it with his intact eye, his gaze hardening.
— You.
The voice that answered was low, almost honeyed, but carried a chill that made even the soldiers step back.
— I was sent to witness your failure.
The Count sneered, his jaw tightening, but he did not lower his eyes.
— It was no failure. It was a meeting. A revelation. I saw the boy. My son.
Silence pressed down. Then the silken voice hissed again:
— The Brotherhood has been informed.
The word cut the air like a blade leaving its sheath. Even the survivors turned their faces aside, as if the mere name had struck them. The Count flinched—just once. One heartbeat where his smile cracked. The Brotherhood. Even he did not dare speak that name aloud too often.
— The Brotherhood wants the boy erased, the hooded figure continued. Him... and those around him. The old soldier. The girl. The hunter. Even the child. They already know too much.
The Count's fists clenched. His wounds pulled and tore, but he stood firm.
— I will kill them. But not him. Not my blood.
An edge of impatience flashed in the hooded voice.
— The Brotherhood does not ask. It commands. And those who forget it do not last long. You've paid the price yourself.
The Count inhaled, his jaw grinding. A drop of blood slid from his cracked lips. His eye blazed with fury.
— Then let them command. I will take the boy. I will drag him back to his roots. I will show him where he comes from. And when he bends the knee... when he understands... then the Brotherhood will see I did not fail.
A tense silence followed. The hooded figure did not answer, but its silence weighed like a threat. Then, slowly, it stepped back, dissolving into the mist, swallowed by the forest.
The Count remained, surrounded by his maimed men and his smoking ruins. Pain consumed his body, but he stood tall. His gaze fixed eastward—toward the road where his prey fled. His son. His challenge. His defiant heir.
He raised a burned hand to the gray sky, fingers still trembling.
— You escaped me once. Not twice.
Around him, the mist thickened, swallowing the field of ash. And in that suffocating silence, two certainties remained:
The Count was not dead.
And the Brotherhood was waiting.
END OF BOOK I