THE BLOOD OF NOCTURNE
Stories of Dracula, the crimson king. Something different from what have been told.
The dream returned again, thick with fog and the stench of old blood. Elara stood barefoot on blackened soil, surrounded by whispering shadows. A voice echoed through the mist — ancient, intimate.
“Izolda…”
She didn’t recognize the name, yet it struck something buried deep, like a cracked bell in her bones.
She woke before dawn, heart pounding. Behind her ear, blood trickled from a place no wound should be. She dabbed it with trembling fingers and stared at the smear of red. It was the third time this month.
At first, she told herself it was stress. Nerves. Imagination. But when three monks arrived that morning cloaked in silence and dusk-colored robes, her doubts unraveled.
“You’ve heard the Call,” the eldest said. “The Seal weakens.”
They knew her name. They spoke of an order older than kings. And of a man — a monster — bound beneath soil and stone.
Dracula.
Elara’s blood remembered things her mind could not. And now, the past clawed its way forward — not as memory, but as prophecy.
