Page 131 of Haunted Crowns
Their sacred blood is nothing but piss dressed in poetry.”
–Avaristo Rimashenko
Chapter 27
The chamber pulsed with shadow. The air carried the sharp tang of bloodwine, like a wound sealed too clean.
Avaristo sat unmoving. His golden gaze flickered beneath half-lowered lids. Fingers tapped against the glass while a holographic display hovered above the table, red text streaming across the dark.
PRINCE STEPHAN & PRINCESS ERIS DRAGOV NOMINATED – FIRSTBLOOD COUNCIL
THE DRAGOV LINE CONSOLIDATES
PRINCE & PRINCESS SIGHTED – PACK DEN. HONORED GUESTS OF KAREON DUSKBANE.
The goblet cracked. Wine leaked through his fingers like veins unraveling from a dying god.
This was not the future he had carved into bone and blood.
He had placed the pieces with precision. He had pulled old grudges from their graves and set them like snares. The war should have left their legacy brittle, ready to burn.
Instead, they were rising, fused, because of her. Eris Dragov. The girl meant to shatter. He had orchestrated collapse, shaped kingdoms from the wreckage, and she was unmaking him with grace instead of fire.
The goblet shattered in his hand. Wine sprayed across the projection, distorting the text into smears. He did not flinch.
Miloseva remained silent, her eyes tracing the crack forming in his control.
“Send word to the rogues,” Avaristo said. His voice was sharp. “The contract is live.”
“The royal family?” she asked.
A slow smile curved along his face. “Every. Last. One.” He rose. Glass splintered beneath his boots. The light followed each step, shadows trailing him like wounded specters across the polished floor. “The Dragovs will die. Their name drowned. Their kingdom leaderless and weeping.”
He could already see it. White marble veined with red. The crest shattered. The name Dragov spoken not with respect, but in dread.
He opened his arms. “A gift for the history books.” The rogue Lycans would answer. Exiled and bitter, they were starving for blood. “The Firstbloods will not forgive them, and when the people cry for justice, I will give them mine. I will burn what remains of the Lycans, and the Firstbloods, broken and alone, will have no choice but to kneel.”
Across the room, Rurik let out a humorless chuckle, fingers tapping slow against the glass table.
“Clever,” he said. “But I don’t want to just watch them fall. I want Stephan’s head on a pike.”
Avaristo glanced up, one brow lifting.
Rurik’s jaw tensed, eyes narrowing. “He’s interfering with my supply lines. Sabotaging routes. Choking the veins of my empire.” He leaned forward. “I want him dead. Not for the plan. For vengeance.”
Avaristo studied him in silence, then leaned in close, their reflections folding into the dark glass.
“Then we will bleed him slowly,” he said, voice quiet as ritual. “Until every vein of your empire runs clean.”
Far across the sea of schemes, the capital gleamed, unaware. The immortal heart of the Dragov Empire rose in marble and steel, crowned in crimson and silver. Rooftops shimmered beneath the sun as nobles in silk, warriors in scarred formation, and commoners surged toward the capital’s grand spectacle. A kingdom at its peak. A dynasty unshaken, or so they believed.
This was the Day of the Blood Pact.
For the Firstbloods, it was no mere festival. It was a holy recurrence, an annual sanctification of Dragov’s dominion, reaching back through centuries to the reign of King Vharog the Hollow-Eyed, the first to bear the name and command the flame.
The palace square churned like a living tide. Banners snapped. Torches burned. War horns echoed a song of power and permanence. The capital gates stood open, their iron teeth casting shadows over the endless procession of tribute. But beneath the grandeur, something waited. Tension coiled silently like rot beneath polished steel.
The air in the royal chamber was not still. It was waiting. Something unseen pressed against the walls, watching, listening.
