The rain in the Capital of Aurelia did not wash away the sins of the city; it merely made the Aether-lamps hiss and sputter.
In the Crimson District, where the Solar Guard rarely patrolled and the mana density was thick with pollution, a shadow moved against the flow of the crowd.
Vesper pulled his collar tight. To the drunkards and factory workers, he was just another art dealer—pale, gaunt, perhaps suffering from a mana-deficiency.
In truth, Vesper had not seen the sun since the Second Era. He was of the Hidden Kin—a vampire who survived by following the Golden Rule: Do not be the monster they expect.
He ducked into an alleyway that smelled of wet ash and ozone. A figure waited by a rusted steam-pipe, clutching a leather satchel.
"You're late," the smuggler hissed. He was a human, twitchy, his eyes darting to the sky for Inquisitor Gryphons.
"The Solar Guard has doubled the perimeter," Vesper said, his voice smooth like velvet dragged over gravel. "They are scanning for contraband mana-signatures. Do you have it?"
"Yeah. Fresh from the Astrea presses. The ink is still wet." The smuggler opened his coat. Inside, wrapped in oilskin to protect it from the rain, was a stack of black booklets. "Chapter 30. The Finale."
Vesper felt a hunger stir in his gut that had nothing to do with blood. He reached into his purse and withdrew five heavy gold coins.
The smuggler's eyes bulged. "Five? The price is two."
"Keep the rest," Vesper whispered, taking the package. "But tell me... what are they saying? The humans?"
The smuggler laughed, a nervous, hacking sound. "They're losing their minds, mate. My wife has been crying for three hours. The taverns are silent. They say..." The smuggler lowered his voice, looking around. "They say the Church is wrong. They say the Monster deserves to win."
Vesper froze. His dead heart skipped a beat.
"They say... the vampire deserves to win?"
"Crazy, right? It's just a story." The smuggler tipped his hat and vanished into the fog.
Vesper stood alone in the rain, clutching the book. For five hundred years, he had been hunted. He had been a demon, a shadow, a thing to be burned by the Solar Saints.
And now? Now the cattle were weeping for the wolf.
The Masquerade
Location: The Cellar beneath Madame Lysandra's Silk House.
It was a sanctuary of velvet and dust. The air was thick with the scent of iron-rich wine and expensive perfume.
Twelve of them sat around the mahogany table. They were the survivors. The Hidden Kin. Some were merchants, some were courtesans, one was a high-ranking clerk in the Tax Ministry. They looked human, save for the stillness of their chests and the predatory grace of their movements.
Vesper placed the oilskin package on the table.
"The Finale," he announced.
Madame Lysandra, a vampiress who had been beautiful since the fall of the Old Kingdom, reached out. Her hand trembled.
"I cannot believe it," she whispered. "I walked through the market today. I heard a group of noblewomen discussing... us. They were not talking about stakes or garlic. They were debating whether Dracul should turn the girl or let her go."
"It is a trap," grumbled Kael, the eldest in the room. His face was a map of scars hidden beneath a glamour spell. "The humans are fickle. They love the monster in the book because he is safe. If they saw us—if they saw the hunger—they would burn this cellar down."
"Perhaps," Vesper said, taking a seat. "But this author... this 'Truck-kun'... he does not write us as beasts. He writes us as men."
"Open it," Lysandra commanded. "Let us see how the tragedy ends. Does he kill the Hunter? Does he take the Crown of Bone?"
Vesper broke the wax seal. The smell of fresh ink filled the room—a scent that was becoming more intoxicating than blood.
He began to read aloud.
Chapter 30
The scene was the Cathedral of Ash.
Count Dracul stood alone at the altar. The stained glass windows were shattered, letting in the cold, blue light of the moon. Before him stood Magister Helsing, the vampire hunter, bleeding and broken, clutching a stake made of white oak.
But Dracul did not attack. He did not summon the mist. He did not call the wolves.
He simply sat on the steps of the altar.
"It is over, Helsing," the Count said. The text described his voice not as thunder, but as a sigh. "The game is done."
"You surrender?" Helsing spat, raising the stake. "You, who slaughtered armies? You, who defied the Sun?"
Dracul looked at the empty space beside him, where the Lady Mina should have been.
"I fought the sun because I thought it burned her," Dracul whispered. "I fought the world because I thought it was unworthy of her. But I look at my hands, Magister... and I see only ash."
The vampires in the cellar leaned forward. The Tax Clerk had stopped breathing entirely.
"She told me," Dracul continued in the book, "That love is not possession. She told me that a man who burns the garden to save the rose deserves neither. I became a monster to protect her... and in doing so, I became the very thing she feared."
Dracul stood up. He opened his arms. He dropped his Shadow-Blade.
"I am tired, Magister. I have lived a thousand years in the dark, waiting for a dawn that I am not allowed to see. If my death buys her peace... then let me burn."
Helsing drove the stake home.
The narrative didn't end with a battle cry. It ended with a whisper.
And when the dust settled, there was no demon. There was no conqueror. There was only the body of an old man, and a single, preserved rose that crumbled into dust as the first ray of the sun touched it.
The Reaction
Silence.
Absolute, heavy silence.
Madame Lysandra was weeping. Tears of red blood streaked her porcelain powder, dripping onto her silk dress.
"He chose it," she sobbed. "He chose to die. He realized that immortality without love is just... waiting."
Kael, the scarred elder, was staring at the wall. He looked shell-shocked. "He admitted it. He admitted that we are not the kings of the night. We are the prisoners."
Vesper felt a tightness in his throat. He looked at the other vampires. For centuries, they had told themselves they were the apex predators. They told themselves the humans were cattle.
But Julian's story had stripped away the lie. It showed them the truth: They were sad, lonely creatures hiding in basements, clinging to a past that was already gone.
"The humans..." Vesper whispered, realizing something profound. "The humans are crying for him right now. Upstairs. In the city. They are mourning a monster."
"Because he regretted," Lysandra said, wiping her eyes. "Because he tried to be human."
She stood up. She walked to the mirror and looked at herself.
"I am tired of hiding," she whispered. "I am tired of the cellar. Tomorrow... I will walk in the twilight park. And if a human sees me... let them see me."
Location: The Forbidden Crypt .
Time: Unknown.
The air here was stagnant, heavy with the weight of a thousand years and the smell of dried mana.
The First Ancestor sat on his throne of bone. He was a creature of myth, a being so old he had forgotten his own human name.
But he had not forgotten Her.
At his feet lay the copy of the book Vesper had left as an offering at the crypt entrance. The Ancestor had read it. Twice.
He stared at the painting of the golden-haired woman on the far wall. Elenor.
"I became the very thing she feared," the Ancestor rasped. His voice was the sound of grinding stones.
He remembered the War of the Red Ash. He remembered the day she died. He remembered the rage that had consumed him. He had turned an entire kingdom into a graveyard because he thought it was justice. He thought he was avenging her.
But this boy... this human author...
"You mock me," the Ancestor hissed, looking at the book cover. "You take my pain and you turn it into a play for children. You show me that my vengeance was not noble. It was a tantrum."
He raised his hand. Dark, purple Void-Mana gathered at his fingertips. He could burn the book. He could storm the surface. He could find this "Truck-kun" and tear his throat out for daring to understand him.
But he didn't.
The Mana faded. The Ancestor slumped back into his throne.
"Dracul died," the Ancestor murmured. "He died to save her memory."
He looked at his hands—withered, clawed, stained with the blood of centuries.
"And I? I have lived. I have hidden in the dirt like a worm, nursing my hate."
The sadness that hit him was not the sharp pain of a wound. It was the crushing weight of an ocean. It was the realization that he had wasted a millennium being the villain, when she had wanted him to be the man.
"I cannot die like Dracul," the Ancestor decided. The red light in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a somber, violet glow. "That is the easy way out. The coward's way."
He stood up. His joints cracked like pistol shots.
"I must live. I must see if this world has changed. I must find this... Truck-kun."
He didn't want to kill the author anymore. He wanted to ask him a question.
How does a monster learn to be a man again?
The Morning After
The sun rose over the Aurelian Capital, but it felt cold. The city was in mourning.
Flags were flying at half-mast—a prank by the Prince, surely, but the people took it seriously. The flower shops were sold out of roses.
In the War Minister's Manor, Lady Clara sat at the breakfast table, weeping openly into her oatmeal.
"He's gone, Varic," she sobbed. "He's gone."
Lord Varic, looking terrified, patted her shoulder awkwardly. "I... I'm sorry, my dear? Who is gone? Did we lose a cousin?"
"Dracul! He died! He died for love!" She slammed her spoon down. "Why couldn't he have regenerated? Why didn't he use the Blood-Mist?"
"Because... symbolism?" Varic guessed, trying to be helpful.
"Quiet, Varic! You don't understand the tragedy of the soul!"
On the East Wing Terrace, Julian sat at his breakfast table, spreading jam on a piece of toast.
"My Lord," Marcus said, stepping onto the terrace. He looked like he hadn't slept. "The courier has arrived with the fan mail. We have had to employ a second wagon."
"How bad is it?" Julian asked, taking a bite.
"Catastrophic. The Duchess Valerica has sent a letter written entirely in red ink—I hope it is ink. It just says 'WHY?' in capital letters. The Archmage Vianne has sent a detailed diagram explaining how Dracul could have survived the stake if he had angled his heart three degrees to the left. She is in denial."
"And Silas?"
"Silas is weeping in the foyer. He says you have ruined him. He says no one will buy the next book because you broke their trust."
Julian chuckled. He wiped a crumb from his lip.
"Marcus, you know nothing about the human heart. Grief is the strongest hook. They aren't angry because they hate it. They're angry because they felt it."
He tapped the empty stack of paper.
"They will buy the next book because they want to be healed. They want a hero who wins. They want order."
Julian reached under the table and pulled out a new prop he had commissioned from the tailor.
It was a hat. A strange, double-brimmed hat made of tweed. A Deerstalker.
"Dracula was about Emotion," Julian said, putting the hat on. It looked ridiculous, and utterly distinct. "The next story is about Logic."
"Logic, My Lord?"
"Yes. No magic. No vampires. Just a man, a pipe, and the ability to tell you what you had for breakfast just by looking at your shoes."
Julian picked up his Space Pen.
"Get the scribes ready, Marcus. The Vampire is dead. Long live Sherlock Holmes."
Marcus looked at the boy—this terrifying, sixteen-year-old puppet master who played the Empire's emotions like a fiddle.
"As you wish, My Lord," Marcus bowed. "But if this Detective dies... I am resigning."
"He won't die," Julian smirked. "He just... takes really long vacations."