The royal palace of Trangdar, usually a stoic beacon of Northern pride, felt heavy. The suffocating, intoxicating aftermath of the confirmation celebration clung to the stone walls.
The grand ballroom, which just hours ago had echoed with the clinking of crystal goblets and the boisterous laughter of foreign dignitaries, now lay completely abandoned. It was nothing but a hollow cavern littered with the remnants of a prince's eighteenth birthday.
High above the courtyard, Devin lay in his private chambers.
The velvet canopy of his sprawling bed offered absolutely no comfort. He stared blankly at the vaulted stone ceiling, the shadows flickering from the dying embers in the hearth. Count Sapien's jagged, horrifying smile was burned into the back of his eyelids.
"I sense God's blood flowing in his veins." The words echoed relentlessly in Devin's mind, a cursed mantra he couldn't shake. And then, there was the whispered promise. Regret will follow you, boy. The Cyprians were fanatics. They were a nation swallowed whole by the dark, driven by a twisted, venom-fueled theology. But one thing they were not known for was empty threats. If Sapien said regret was coming, it was already at the gates.
Devin lay perfectly still, straining his ears to listen to the rhythmic, comforting clank of the night guard patrolling the courtyard below his window.
But the air in the room felt… wrong.
It was unusually thick, pressing down on his chest like a physical weight. A strange, metallic tang began to seep under his door, sharp and acrid, making the hairs on his arms stand on end.
Devin gritted his teeth, grabbing his chest. It was a violent, involuntary reaction. A primal, biological warning system that his profound lack of faith could not suppress. His body knew something was coming before his mind could comprehend it.
The first sign of the nightmare wasn't a clash of steel. It wasn't the frantic ringing of the alarm bells.
It was an unnatural, absolute silence.
The rhythmic footsteps of the courtyard patrol simply ceased. One moment they were there, and the next, there was only a dead, heavy void.
Then, a sound tore through the quiet night.
It was a guttural, wet tearing of flesh, immediately followed by a high-pitched screech that belonged to no known beast in the North. It was the sound of a nightmare made flesh.
Devin threw off his heavy covers, his bare feet hitting the cold stone floor. His heart hammered furiously against his ribs. He rushed toward the heavy oak door of his chambers, but before his fingers could even brush the iron-wrought handle, the castle plunged into absolute pandemonium.
The alarm bells finally began to shriek, but their frantic ringing was instantly drowned out by a deafening chorus of inhuman roars.
Devin shoved the door open and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor.
The scent hit him like a physical blow. Copper. Voided bowels. And beneath it all, the sickly-sweet, unmistakable chemical stench of Cyprian venom.
He froze. At the far end of the grand hall, illuminated only by the flickering, dying light of a few wall torches, he saw them.
They were massively swollen, their muscles tearing through their dark uniforms. Thick, black veins bulged violently against pallid, stretched skin. When they turned their heads, Devin saw their eyes—solid, fathomless pools of obsidian. There was no reason in those eyes. No empathy. No humanity.
The venom had accelerated their biology to impossible proportions, elongating their limbs until their knuckles brushed the floor. They didn't carry swords. They didn't need to. Their hands ended in jagged, bone-like protrusions that sliced through the air like scythes, and their jaws snapped with the mindless ferocity of rabid wolves.
"Hold the line!" a voice roared.
Devin pressed his back against the cold stone wall, watching in paralyzed horror as Ser Vantor, the seasoned captain of the royal guard, rushed into the corridor with six heavily armed men. These were men who had trained their entire lives to protect the crown.
"For Trangdar!" Vantor bellowed, charging the nearest Cyprian beast with his heavy broadsword raised high.
The beast didn't even bother to adopt a fighting stance. It didn't try to dodge.
It simply stood there and took the sweeping blow directly to the chest. The steel blade struck true, but instead of sinking into flesh, a horrific screech echoed through the hall as the metal scraped against hardened, venom-laced bone. The blade didn't even chip the creature's ribcage.
The beast tilted its head, almost curiously, and swiped its massive, clawed hand.
It was so fast Devin barely registered the movement.
Ser Vantor's head was separated from his shoulders with a sickening, wet crack. His decapitated body stood frozen for a fraction of a second before crumpling to the floor, a geyser of crimson erupting from his neck, painting the ancient tapestries of Devin's ancestors a slick, glossy red.
The remaining guards broke formation, screaming in terror, but it was useless. It wasn't a battle. It was a bloody, indiscriminate massacre.
The monsters moved with a terrifying, insectoid speed. They scaled the smooth stone walls, their bone-claws digging into the masonry, before dropping from the vaulted ceilings onto fleeing servants. Devin watched, his breath caught in his throat, as a young maid he recognized from the kitchens was tackled to the marble floor.
She didn't even have time to scream before the beast ripped her entirely in half.
The marble floors quickly became a treacherous, slick river of red. The walls were painted with the visceral remains of the people Devin had sworn to protect just hours prior. His stomach violently heaved, and the bitter taste of bile rose in his throat. He covered his mouth with both hands to stifle a gag.
He couldn't fight this. No one could.
I have to find them, Devin thought, his mind racing through the sheer panic. Father. Mother. Bridget.
Turning away from the slaughter, Devin sprinted toward a narrow alcove and threw his weight against a hidden panel in the stonework. It gave way, tumbling him into the secret servants' corridors that ran like arteries behind the main walls of the castle.
It was pitch black inside, but he knew the layout by heart. He ran blindly, his bare feet slipping and sliding on the cold stone, which was already growing sticky with blood seeping through the floorboards above. The entire castle was shaking. The heavy, thudding impacts of the Cyprian onslaught made the very foundations of the palace tremble.
He aimed for the guest wing. He had to get to Bridget. He prayed to a God he vehemently despised that his older sister had managed to lock herself inside the fortified suites.
He reached the end of the passage and burst through the hidden doorway, stumbling out into the hallway of the guest wing.
The heavy, iron-reinforced wooden doors to Bridget's suite hadn't just been broken. They had been pulverized into jagged splinters.
"Bridget!" Devin screamed, his voice cracking, entirely abandoning stealth.
He rushed into the room and stopped dead in his tracks.
He found her in the center of the ruined chamber. The elegant Queen of Colstar, who had danced with such carefree joy, who had downed flagons of ale and laughed until her sides hurt, was unrecognizable.
The room was utterly demolished. Smashed furniture, torn silk curtains, and deep gouges in the stone walls painted a picture of a desperate, violent struggle. Bridget, despite her drunken state, had not gone down quietly.
A shattered silver candelabra lay near her outstretched hand, the sharp ends coated in thick, black Cyprian blood. She had fought. But standard human strength, even fueled by sheer adrenaline and desperation, was nothing against the venom.
Two Cyprian beasts stood over her.
They hadn't just killed her. They had systematically dismantled her.