"Teacher, this is Elias."
The words left Elias's lips and echoed faintly through the abandoned hall, vanishing into the heavy, breathless air.
For a moment, nothing responded.
The silence was so complete it pressed against his skin, a tangible weight of ancient stillness.
Then —
— from the depths of the ruin, a voice answered.
It was a woman's voice —
Soft, delicate, and so exquisitely sweet that it brushed against Elias's mind like velvet against bare skin.
A sound that did not merely reach the ears — it invited the soul.
"Starless night, bloodless throne,"
the voice sang, each syllable carrying a gentle hypnotic cadence.
"In the silence between heartbeats, you are known."
A secret code —
Words spoken in a rhythm and order that only he and a certain master had learned long ago.
Elias's breath caught in his throat, then slowly released.
They had accepted him.
At once, the ancient hall responded.
The cracked stones at the center of the floor shuddered, shedding dust as seams of light crawled between them in jagged, trembling lines.
With a grinding groan, the stones pulled apart, revealing a dark, spiraling staircase descending into the bowels of the earth.
An invitation.
Elias stepped forward without hesitation.
The stairwell exhaled a chill mist that clung to his boots and swirled around his ankles as he crossed the threshold.
The descent was steep.
The staircase wound tightly downward, carved directly from rough, black stone.
Rusty sconces lined the walls at intervals, long since dead, their brackets corroded into near oblivion.
Each step echoed dully, swallowed quickly by the oppressive air.
As he descended, the mist thickened, the temperature dropping with every level, until it felt as if he were wading through the breath of some slumbering beast.
Then the mist began to thin —
— and Elias emerged into a vast underground gallery.
The ceiling was a dome lost in shadow.
Cracks in the stone let thin shafts of red filter light through, painting pale veins across the dark floor.
All around him stood frames.
Hundreds of them.
Wooden, metal, some nearly rotted away, others preserved unnaturally by old, forgotten arts.
Each frame held a painting, a portrait, or a tapestry.
And nearly every one depicted the same recurring themes:
— The crimson gleam of blood.
— Pale, ageless faces with haunting eyes.
— Nights under blackened moons.
— Fangs, cloaks, crowns of twisted iron.
Vampires.
Their history.
Their forgotten kings.
Their lost wars and shattered thrones.
Time had devoured the names and stories of many of these paintings, but the images remained, fierce and enduring.
Elias moved slowly among them, his gloved fingers trailing across the cracked wood and torn canvas.
The air here was heavy with remembrance — as if every figure painted here still watched him, their gaze lingering hungrily in the gloom.
He passed an image of a castle impaled upon a mountain of corpses.
He passed another of a woman in mourning black, cradling a child whose eyes shone with crimson fire.
Each frame whispered a piece of a story long abandoned by the world above.
And then he saw it.
At the far end of the gallery, mounted high on a stone plinth, framed in intricate blackwood studded with tiny rubies, hung a portrait unlike any other.
He stopped.
Drawn irresistibly.
The painting was enormous — easily twice his height — and its artistry was unnaturally vivid, as if the figures within might step forth at any moment.
At the center of the image sat a girl.
No — a woman, but young.
Radiant.
Her hair was a brilliant, flowing red, cascading down her shoulders like molten rubies.
Her skin was the pure, cold white of freshly fallen snow, untouched by warmth.
Her eyes — piercing, burning, ancient — gazed out from the canvas with a presence that could shake the soul.
She sat on an emperor's throne, carved from dark stone and veined with crimson rivers.
She was not smiling.
Yet neither was she stern.
There was an unbearable majesty to her.
A regality that demanded surrender without ever asking for it.
And around her, standing respectfully at the base of the throne, were four figures:
A man with silver hair and golden eyes, cloaked in a mantle of stars.
A man in crimson armor, his face half-hidden by a blood-soaked helmet.
A man with a cruel smile, a black rose pinned to his lapel, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a broken sword.
A woman in deep violet robes, her face veiled, only her hands visible — hands stained permanently red as if dipped in blood.
All of them knelt or stood in postures of absolute loyalty.
Sworn vassals.
Elias's chest tightened as he gazed at the painting.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
His breath caught.
Because the man with silver hair and golden eyes —
— was him.
A wave of old memories hit him, before he suddenly came to his senses.
There was power here.
Old power.
Dangerous power.
He stepped closer, studying the intricate details.
Beneath the painting, carved into the stone base, were words written in an old, sharp script he barely understood:
"To the Crimson Empress, Sovereign of the Last Blood Court — we swear eternal fealty."
The Crimson Empress.
The name thudded against the back of his mind like a heartbeat.
This was no ordinary legacy.
This was the tomb of a dream that had once nearly conquered the world.
And now…
It waited.
Buried beneath stone and shadow, waiting for the right hands to lift it once more into the realm of the living.
Elias drew a slow breath, his heart pounding quietly in the cavernous stillness.
He had come seeking a fragment of power.
But what he had found was a doorway to something far greater —
—and far more dangerous.
He could feel it now, throbbing through the air.
An invitation.
A summons.
And he would answer it.