The candles in the chamber of Ordo Nocturne had long burned to stubs, their wax dried into the grooves of the ancient floor. Elara lay motionless on the bed they'd given her. A narrow thing with a canopy carved from bone-colored wood, but her mind had fled the walls.
She stood beneath a sky veiled in ash.
The landscape was unfamiliar. The trees were taller here, their limbs reaching like bony fingers, clawing at nothing. A silver mist curled across the ground, whispering in tongues older than man. The moon above glowed pale and full — too full — and it pulsed in rhythm with the thudding of her heart.
No… not her heart.
Something else.
Elara stepped forward. The air crackled as she moved. This was not one of her usual dreams. No tapestry of memory, no blood-drenched cathedral of Dracula's sealed past. This was new. This was now.
Somewhere in the distance, a howl shattered the silence.
Not like the ones in the valley, those sorrowful, ancient notes of wild beasts. This one was different. Angrier. Sharper. And it pulled at her as if it had hands.
She stumbled through the dream-forest. The ground beneath her feet shifted. Her surroundings bled and blurred like melting oil paint, one moment a thick thicket, the next, a crumbling fortress of obsidian stone.
And then she saw him.
He stood beneath the moon, back turned, shoulders heaving with breath. His form was cloaked in shadow but unmistakably human, tall, built like a predator born for running. Moonlight caught the silver threading his jacket, the faint shimmer of something not entirely of this world.
He turned.
Elara's breath caught in her throat.
His eyes gleamed with the flicker of a beast — not golden, like the werewolves she'd glimpsed before, but a strange, unsettling silver. His skin was pale, kissed by the chill of vampiric blood, yet his scent, she could feel it even in dream, was warm, wild, and full of storming earth.
He was both.
She knew it without knowing how. Just as she'd known Dracula in her bones… she now felt this one beneath her skin.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The figure tilted his head.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, voice low and edged with restraint. "This dream isn't meant for you."
She stepped closer. "I've seen him. The one beneath the seal. The one you'll face."
At that, something in the air shifted. His jaw tensed. For the first time, she saw the veins in his neck, the sharp lines of a face forged by battle and bloodlines that should never have touched.
"You know nothing of what's coming," he said.
"I know enough," Elara said softly. "I know you're afraid."
That made him turn fully. His eyes locked onto hers, and for a heartbeat, the dream flickered — the forest behind him collapsed into a battlefield. There were ruins, ash, blood soaking into stone. Her vision swam with memories not her own, fangs bared in rage, a castle drowned in fire, a man standing alone before the return of darkness.
Then it was gone.
The forest returned. And the boy — no, man — was breathing hard, as if he, too, had seen something impossible.
"You're one of them," he said. "A memory-walker."
Elara blinked. "What?"
"The blood remembers," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "It calls when it's close."
She stepped forward again, this time careful, as though not to wake whatever thread tethered them.
"My name is Elara Vornescu."
He studied her.
"I know that name," he said at last. "My father spoke of it. Said there was once a woman named Izolda who cursed the blood of the throne. He said her line was still cursed."
Her mouth went dry. "Your father?"
He nodded. "His name was Vahriun. He said if I ever dreamed of Izolda, it would mean the night was ending — or just beginning."
She stared at him.
"You're his son."
"Yes."
"You're… the Half-Born."
He didn't reply. The silence was answer enough.
The mist thickened suddenly, coiling around them. The wind screamed through the trees, and in the distance, Elara heard the unholy chant of something waking.
The dream trembled.
"You need to wake up," he said suddenly. "Now."
"Why?"
"Because he's calling. And if you stay, he'll see you."
Elara tried to speak, but the mist surged, swallowing her vision. The world peeled away like old paint — and the last thing she saw was the Half-Born's eyes, filled with a sorrow ancient and infinite.
---
She awoke with a gasp.
Her hands clutched the sheets, drenched in sweat. A single candle still flickered beside her, casting shadows that danced like wolves across the chamber walls.
She sat up, heartbeat racing. The words lingered in her ears, as clear as if whispered across her skin:
"The blood remembers. It calls when it's close."
She looked toward the window. The moon still hung full in the sky, swollen and watchful. But something beneath it had changed.
The Call had found her, too.
---
The chamber was too quiet.
Elara sat in the middle of her narrow bed, knees drawn to her chest, a single candle flickering at her side. Wax had long begun its slow descent over the iron holder, curling like a dying leaf. The night air was cold enough to bite, even through the tapestries clinging to the stone walls like old skin.
The members of Ordo Nocturne had left her alone hours ago, whispering about signs and omens. Since hearing those words — Hello, Izolda — her thoughts had not been her own. It was as though something ancient had stirred behind her ribs, something watching her through borrowed eyes.
And now… she could feel the pull again. A tension in the air. A shiver in the bone.
The Call.
It had come not only to the wolves.
It had found her.
Elara tried to stay awake, to resist the tug, but the moment her head tilted to the pillow, the world vanished.
And another opened.
---
She stood in a place she had never seen but somehow remembered.
Towering trees surrounded her, gnarled and pale, like the fingers of buried giants. Their bark bled sap that shimmered silver in the moonlight. Fog curled across the ground, shifting with each breath she took, as if the land itself was aware of her presence.
There was no wind.
No stars.
Only a bloated full moon, its glow unnaturally sharp, casting long shadows that moved when she didn't.
Elara turned slowly.
This wasn't one of her usual dream-visions of the crypt or the seal. There was no scent of blood or stone or memory. This place pulsed with something alive. Not the past… but the now.
A howl tore through the stillness.
It was long and furious, not the mournful cry of a wolf, but something raw, something ancient. A challenge. A warning.
And then came footsteps. Fast. Heavy. Something was running.
Her breath hitched as she glimpsed him ,a shadow in motion, a figure darting through the fog with the grace of a predator. He slowed near a clearing, his back to her. Broad shoulders rose and fell as he caught his breath. Steam curled from his body.
She stepped closer.
His coat was torn at the shoulder. His boots were coated in mud. He stood like a man used to violence but exhausted by its weight. And though she couldn't see his face, something about him made her chest tighten.
He turned.
Silver eyes met hers.
Elara staggered.
The man was beautiful in a way that was wrong. Not soft or angelic, but carved, sharpened. His features were too perfect, too symmetrical, too still. And beneath that stillness coiled something wild. Something untamed.
Werewolf, she thought first. But no , not just.
His skin was cold-pale. His aura was dusk and thunder. And his heartbeat — she could hear it in the dream, thrumming beside another, deeper beat.
Two hearts.
"You shouldn't be here," he said quietly.
Elara swallowed. "I didn't come here on purpose."
"No one comes here by purpose. The dream chooses."
"Then… it chose us both."
His gaze narrowed. "That shouldn't happen."
She stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"Someone the moon has cursed."
He turned, as if to leave her there in the mist.
But she didn't let him.
"I've seen the one beneath the seal," she said. "I've seen his eyes in the dark."
That stopped him.
He faced her fully now. His posture was different — alert, defensive, like a wolf bracing for a threat.
"You've seen him?" he asked. "You've touched the blood?"
"I'm marked by it."
A long silence passed. Then he exhaled, slowly.
"My father said if I ever dreamed of Izolda, it would mean the night was breaking."
She flinched. "You know that name?"
He nodded. "Too well."
The dream shifted then, the forest falling away into images of fire, ash, battlefields. She saw a man like him, older, taller, wielding magic and blade. Behind him: legions of wolves. Before him: a dark shape rising from flame.
Dracula.
Then the image burned to black.
---
Elara gasped as the forest returned.
"What did I just see?"
"My father," the man said. "And the war he couldn't stop."
"What's your name?"
"Ethan."
She blinked. "Ethan… Half-Born?"
"That's what they call me. What they fear."
She looked down at his hands , not claws, but knuckles tight with strain. "You're both vampire and wolf."
"I am neither," he snapped, then softened. "But yes. Both. More of the wolf. That's the part that screams when the moon is full."
She looked up at him with a gentleness that surprised even her. "I dreamed of you before tonight. I just didn't know it."
"Then you're the one my father warned me about."
He moved toward her, step by step.
"Your blood is old," he whispered. "It calls to mine. I can feel it."
"What does it mean?"
"It means the game has begun."
Suddenly the air around them vibrated with power.
A low growl echoed in the distance. The dream forest trembled.
"Wake up," Ethan said urgently. "He's near."
"Who?"
"The one who calls. The one we can't stop unless we stand together."
The trees shrieked in unison.
"Now, Elara. Wake up before he sees"
But it was too late.
In the distance, two glowing red eyes opened in the fog.
---
Elara screamed awake.
Sweat drenched her gown. The candle was out. Her chest heaved, heart pounding in rhythms too fast, too sharp.
Two hearts.
Two lives.
Her visions were no longer dreams.
They were summons.
She threw back the covers, hurried to the cracked mirror across the room. Her face was pale — ghost-pale — but her eyes burned with something fierce.
She whispered the name.
"Ethan…"
And from the forest far beyond the monastery walls, a howl answered.