Far across the frozen west, beyond the reach of summer winds, lay a land drowned in silence. Snow fell endlessly, swallowing valleys, villages, and forests alike. The kingdom’s once-verdant plains had become a dead sheet of white, a graveyard where the echoes of life were long buried.

At the heart of this desolation stood a castle—ancient, weary, its towers sagging under years of blizzards. Its stones groaned under the weight of storms, yet it endured, as though too stubborn to collapse. The locals called it the Ashen Keep, though none dared approach its gates.

Inside, rot and ruin thrived.

“Peter!”

The voice carried through the corridors—harsh, imperious, impatient.

“Peter! … Peter!”

The roar reverberated against the stone walls, yet only silence answered. Those few who dwelled in the castle—creatures more wretched than noble—had long learned to let the summons pass. They feared the master of the castle, yes, but fear no longer bred loyalty.

At last, the sharp echo of uneven footfalls broke the stillness. Slow, deliberate, dragging as though each step cost more than the old man had left to give.

“Y-yes, Master,” Peter stammered, bowing deeply as he entered the chamber, never daring to lift his gaze.

On the bed, shrouded in shadow and foul stench, reclined the source of the summons. His skin was death-pale, his body riddled with decay. Worms writhed in the hollows of his flesh. His once-magnificent frame—broad-shouldered, regal—had collapsed into rot. Yet his eyes still burned with the intensity that had once bent armies to his will.

Lord Victor Lambert.
The first son of night. The heir of Hades. The creature kings had once feared above all others.

“Bring me a goblet of blood,” he rasped. His frown never lifted, his voice rough as brittle ash.

Peter bowed lower. “At once, Master.”

The servant shuffled back out, the sound of his faltering steps trailing through the halls. Victor leaned back against his pillows, his lips curling in disgust as another worm wriggled down his arm. He had not bothered to brush them away for years. What did it matter? His kingdom was lost. His court, crumbled. His empire, gone.

From his frost-bitten window, he gazed down at the kingdom that once belonged to him. Snow, only snow.
A cruel joke of the gods.

He remembered crimson fields of conquest, the southern dominion carved beneath his sword, and the terror that spread when his banners rose. But those days had ended thirty years ago with a treaty written in his blood.

He had lost. To a wolf.

The werewolf king, Aaron, had shattered his armies, burned his citadel, and written his victory across history. Since then, Victor had rotted in exile, forbidden to cross the borders of the wolves’ domain. They had taken half the world, while he wasted in this mausoleum of ice.

His empire devoured. His power reduced to nothing.
And his hunger—endless.

Half an hour later, Peter returned, wheeling a cart. “Your goblet, Master.”

Victor snatched the cup and drank greedily, but his throat gagged on the taste. He spat the blood back into the goblet, snarling.

“This sludge again!? Preserved blood! Do you dare bring me scraps fit for vermin!?”

The goblet flew across the chamber, shattering against the stone wall. Peter scrambled backward, trembling, his frail body shaking.

“F-forgive me, Master,” he choked. “We have… no more human blood.”

Victor’s eyes ignited red in the shadows. “Then summon Elijah. If I do not feast by dawn, Peter… it is you I will devour.”

The old man crumpled to his knees, pressing his forehead to the filthy floor. “Mercy, my lord! I have served you for three centuries…”

A sound tore through the storm outside—a roar, wild and ancient. The walls trembled. Peter lifted his head with relief.

“Elijah!”

Outside the frost-crusted window, a great white dragon descended, moonlight glistening against its scales. Smoke coiled from its nostrils as it clutched a lamb’s corpse in its massive jaws. Around its neck gleamed a black collar of steel, Victor’s name etched deep into its spikes.

Elijah, the last of Victor’s great companions.

The dragon lowered the gift at the castle’s gate, its eyes blazing with warning as Peter approached.

“Know this, old man,” Elijah’s voice thundered, gravelly and commanding. “This carcass belongs to Victor alone. Should another lay hand on it, I will burn them alive.”

With a heave of its colossal wings, the beast vanished into the night.

Peter did as commanded, bleeding the lamb and preparing a tray of fresh meat and blood. He carried it carefully toward the master’s chamber, but before he could leave the kitchens, a voice as smooth as silk blocked his path.

“Fresh blood?”

Amanda.

Once betrothed to Victor, she leaned lazily against the doorframe, her lips curved in hunger. Another of the exiled, another who had once basked in Victor’s glory and now withered in his fall.

“This is for the Master,” Peter whispered desperately. “He has not eaten in days. Please, my lady. Let him have it.”

Amanda’s smile curdled into scorn.

“That creature brought this ruin upon us. We might have ruled empires, Peter. Instead, we rot in his shadow. Why should he feed while we starve?”

Her voice rose, calling in her subordinates. They stripped the tray from Peter’s hands and left him beaten on the stones.

In his chamber, Victor’s lips curled. His senses heard it all—their scorn, their betrayal, their theft. Once, this woman had sworn she’d worship him even in hell. Now she spat in his rot.

So be it.
They had never loved him—only his throne.

And thrones, unlike love, could always be won back.

Midnight

The moon hung cold and heavy over the snow, casting a crystal glow across the frozen plains.

From the silence, a carriage descended through the sky, drawn by seven unicorns whose manes glistened like silver flame. They landed at the gates of the crumbling castle, hooves striking frost into sparks.

A man in black stepped down, handsome and grave, his aura radiant and terrible all at once. He bowed, extending a hand toward the figure still within the carriage.

A woman emerged, regal in her bearing, pride glittering in her eyes. She walked across the snow with deliberate grace until her hand brushed against the frostbitten plate above the castle gate.

Her fingers lingered as she whispered each word carved there in steel.

LORD VICTOR LAMBERT.

And in that instant, the forgotten castle seemed to stir from its slumber.