The reality of everything was slowly starting to sink in. I was in Westeros, as Vlad Tepes Dracula, vampire extraordinaire. The worst part of being in Westeros was the uncertainty of everything. I did not know where I was in the timeline. I could be in the Age of Heroes for all I knew; Brandon the Builder might have just rounded up and done the finishing touches on the Wall a few hours before I came here.
The Dawn Age was out, judging by the presence of the Wall, but everything from the Andal invasion to the Age of Valyria and Aegon's Conquest was possible. Now, uncertain timeline aside, there was the issue of what exact verse I had landed in. Was this HBO'sGame of Thrones, the interesting but heavily watered-down and twisted version of the actual book that spawned such a fascinating world? Or was this the more unfamiliar ASOIAF that GRRM has yet to finish? Or was this some fandom world created by a bored, aspiring writer with a penchant for fanfiction?
The unknowns were too many. There were way too many questions, and I had little to no answer for most. There was only one thing for certain: the danger to my life here was minimal at best, moderate at worst. Physically, I was the strongest thing on two feet. Even if this was somehow the Age of Heroes, I doubted that whatever heroes were present were a match for even a starving and depressed Dracula.
My only real threat lay in my neighbors: the Others and the White Walkers. Now, depending on whether I'm in the HBO verse or the book verse, the White Walkers were not a threat. I'd watched the series, and finished it in fact, which meant if Arya Stark could manage to shank the Night King with her cute little dagger, then I would roll over the ugly bastard like a tractor over weeds. The difficulty was turned up if my opponents were the book version of the Others instead.
Unlike the show, from what little I remembered, the Others in the book were described as Fae-like. They were less undead moving corpses and more Unseelie Fae that served a greater monster, the Great Other. Something I assumed to be the literal concept of Ice and Death.
Then there were the dragons. This time, I could feel an immense sense of curiosity flow through me. Dragons. Majestic, giant fire-breathing creatures of legend. Not even Dracula had seen one, despite his much-debated title of Son of the Devil or Son of the Dragon. If I remembered correctly, dragons were not night creatures. They were beings from another realm entirely. That little waif of a girl in Nocturne had been the only one to summon one.
I put my thoughts on hold as I slowly came to a stop. My movement had been instinctual. Deep in thought, I had handed off the pilot switch of the body to what remained of Dracula, and he had led us to his studio, the place he did most of his thinking, or more accurately, brooding over the past few months.
The fire in the hearth had long since gone cold, but as I pushed open the doors and stepped into the study, I stared at it, and with a mere flex of intent, the castle responded. Wood groaned as sparks suddenly flared from unseen furnaces deep beneath the stone. Moments later, a fire roared to life in the massive fireplace, brightening up the study a second later.
"This does not absolve you of sending me to Westeros instead of Earth," I mumbled to the castle, to no reply as I continued to stroll in.
I stood before the desk, Dracula's desk, my desk now, and pressed a hand against the surface. Everything felt familiar and not. There were glimpses of memories, of sitting at this desk for long hours, writing theories, of bouncing a blonde-haired kid on my knees as I taught him abstract algebra.
Yet there were also patches of memories where this desk felt just like a regular, random desk, just boring wood and lacquer and nothing more. Regardless, as my hand remained pressed on the wood, I began to feel something. Not from the desk itself, but from Castlevania. I could sense it now more than ever: Dracula's connection to the castle. A neuron in a vast, shifting brain. And at the center of that brain… something.
The thought unsettled me. This heightened sense of connection felt off. Even Dracula hadn't achieved this much.
I pulled my hand away. Instead, I smoothly stood up and walked to the pit in the study, a pit that held thousands of shards of mirrors that floated by themselves.
"Assemble," I said as I waved a hand, the vocal intonation needed to supplement control over the artifact in a way that the original Dracula had grown past. The mirrors spun in a haphazard but paradoxically careful way as they arranged and fit, not seamlessly joining but close enough to display the whole of my reflection back at me instead of a disjointed mess.
My fingers moved instinctively. I had the memories. I knew the runes. So my fingers went to carving, bringing to life red etchings that glowed on the mirror. I was transcribing the spell of farsight: light-bending glyphs, runes burned into the fabric of space itself. There was a sum total of three types of magical mirrors in Castlevania. The first and most common was the Communication Mirror, which was simply used to project self and send messages, much like the Valyrian candles this world had.
Then there were the Transmission Mirrors, which were rarer and used to teleport things over vast distances in an instant, as long as you were able to scry wherever you wanted to go. Then last but not least, was the marginally more common Distance Mirror, which, as the name implied, was used to scry into the far distance or any location. As long as the user knew what he was looking for, he was bound to find it. Each type of mirror was a treasure of its own. The bigger they were, the more precious.
Dracula's mirror, the one he had liberated from Dragoslav, was a combination of all three. A one-of-a-kind artifact created by the secluded Carpathian hermits as their magnum opus, before Dragoslav slaughtered them en masse to ensure they never created another like it.
I finished etching the runes a few seconds later and immediately called out, "North of the Wall." Silence followed, and for a second, I assumed I had done something wrong. Doubt began to creep in before I ruthlessly crushed it. The air vibrated, and the glasses hummed a low tone that was almost imperceptible unless you were listening for it.
Then, images bloomed to life across the mirror, and I saw snow-covered valleys. Black forests. Mountain peaks that sought to kiss the sky. Giant mammoths and their riders. Real, actual giants. Wolf packs on the move. Chittering creatures with a carapace that reflected sunlight, making them nearly invisible in the snow. An aurora spilling blood-red across the northern sky. A black castle jutting out of a mountain. The giant Wall in the distance, alongside black-cloaked men who manned it.
The scrying stretched to the whole of the North, then stopped dead at a stretch of flat lands that led deeper. The Lands of Always Winter were barred to me. I rested against the desk, mind in thought. To put it simply, I was in the far north, beyond the Wall. Centered atop a mountain ridge with close proximity to some scattered Wildling clans. And in the halfway stretch to the Lands of Always Winter, which meant my proximity to the Others and their White Walkers was uncertain at best. Current level of danger to me: low to moderate.
I stood, turned away from the floating mirrors, and moved to the shelves, pulling out books. Some were written in languages no longer spoken. Others I recognized instantly: a treatise on myths, one of Lisa's journals on old European folklore, a compendium on the cosmology of dead realms. I flipped through them with practiced ease, searching for… something. Anything. A hint. A match. A theory.
Because I was hit with a sudden thought: what were the White Walkers, really? I knew the Others were basically Unseelie Fae, which meant nothing I knew mattered. It was most likely going to be wrong. But the White Walkers were a more familiar foe.
I picked a book on zombies, or as they were called in this world, wights, and began to riff through it.
At first glance, it was necromancy, obviously. But not like the night creatures my Forgemasters could make. Forgemasters raised the body and inserted a foreign soul into it, which more often than not was the soul of a demon. They bound it, gave it shape, and commanded it with limited autonomy. These creatures, according to the fragments I recalled from the show, were part of a much deeper system. Night creatures had been roaming the earth for longer than most vampires. Which was a deeply unpleasant thought.
White Walkers were different. The regular zombies they raised looked just like that: regular zombies, carefully preserved in the icy environment of the North. But I was still not sure of the real threat. And without an idea of what I was searching for, I couldn't scry.
Even if they were out and about outside the Land of Always Winter.
"Can you feel them?" I threw the question out with no true thought for a reply. "The Great Others. The thing shrouding the Lands of Always Winter?"
I was replied to with silence. I don't know why I bothered. Perhaps the castle wasn't as alive as I was trying to make it out to be, and it was all in my hea— There was a slight tremor in the stones beneath my feet. It was not a quake. And I very much doubted anyone was throwing ballistas at the castle, which ruled out an attack.
This was recognition. Castlevania could feel them. But it didn't understand what exactly it was feeling, which made two of us. And as I pondered how sentient my dimension-hopping castle was, I realized that if Castlevania could feel it, then whatever lurked in the Lands of Always Winter might be able to feel it too. Before I could think too deeply about it, a door creaked behind me, followed by light, measured steps.
"Isaac," I said without looking. "How long have you been watching?"
"Long enough to know we're not alone in this world you've brought us to, Master Dracula," he replied.
He stopped a few paces behind me, silent, patient, and present. The perfect assistant.
"There are things out there that even the castle doesn't recognize," I said, as I stared back at the mirror. "And I find that... disconcerting."
Isaac nodded, though I only imagined that was what he was doing. "Do we engage?"
"Not yet." With any luck, never, I noted internally, as I shut the book in my hands and slid it back into place. "We just arrived, and this is not our world. So for now, we observe. We learn. We map the land and catalog its dangers. I need to know more about what this world is: the powers at play, if they're a threat, and what they fear." The words came easily.
"And if they fear nothing?"
I turned, my red eyes gleaming in the firelight.
"Then we give it something to fear." My voice echoed out, not harsh, just cold. Dracula's behavior slipping and meshing in so much, I didn't know where I began and where he ended anymore.
Isaac bowed his head slightly at the familiar. "As you command."
Movements drew my attention. I moved to the mirror and peered into it. Night had fallen. There was a flicker. Movement in the snow. A line of torches winding their way close to the base of the Frostfang Mountains. Slow. Organized. Armed.
Humans.
A scouting party? Or a hunting party?
"Send one of the night creatures," I said. "Not to attack, but to follow. I want to know who they are. I want to know what they think they'll find." The Frostfangs were a wide mountain range. They might simply be returning from a hunt or heading towards another village... still. Dracula's distaste and distrust for humans complemented my general lack of interest in interacting with the free folk so soon.
Isaac gave a low hum of approval and turned to leave. "Of course, Master Dracula."
"Also," I added before he stepped out of the room. I wanted to ask about the children. I knew he must've been keeping an eye on them, but rescuing them must've been somewhat out of character already for Dracula. Extending that courtesy to making sure to keep up to date on them just might be enough to strike Isaac as odd. So I left that. Instead, I shifted tracks. "Send word to Hector. I want you both to begin working on a few cold-resistant variants of the night creatures."
Isaac paused in the doorway. "To patrol?"
"To scout." I corrected. I thought of the Land of Always Winter. If I couldn't see into it, then I would send someone else to do so. Someone or something that was easily disposable. "Protect as well," I said simply. Then, after a beat, I continued, "So we can prepare."
He left without another word.
The fire crackled behind me as I turned back to the mirror and stared out at the region north of the Wall once more. I wasn't sure if I was here to save this world or to damn it. But I was here. And that was more than enough to change everything.