The castle had stood for over a millennium, its stones soaked in enough blood and secrets to drown a lesser structure. Deep beneath the Austrian Alps, carved into bedrock that had witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the chamber waited in perpetual shadow.
Lysander Ravencroft descended the spiral staircase with the fluid grace of something that had never been entirely human. Two thousand years of existence had refined his movements into an art form—every step deliberate, every gesture containing the weight of centuries. His pale fingers trailed along stone walls that had been ancient when Rome still mattered.
The underground chamber opened before him like a cathedral built for darker purposes. Thirteen chairs arranged in a perfect circle, each one carved from a different stone, each one holding a being that had watched civilizations crumble into dust.
