Vienna, 2:15 AM
He took the last road in silence.
He strolled dejectedly on a long coat, a hood pulled low, and the hum of a name in his throat—one he was too guilty to say.
Vladimir.
Ramiel walked the cracked driveway leading to the castle. The sky overhead was low and bruised with cloud. Somewhere far behind, Turkey and its blinking lights slept in ignorance.
The castle rose like a wound in the landscape—still regal, but now hollow. He felt it before he stepped across the gate: absence.
The iron doors were wide open.
He paused, just once, fingertips brushing the scorched metal. Too easy. Too quiet.
Inside, the destruction wasn't theatrical—it was surgical. Every memory stripped. Every wall bleeding. Someone had known exactly where to cut. Almost everything was shattered in pieces.
He stepped across the stone hall. Past the scorched tapestry. Past the dust-covered piano. Down the long corridor where shadows used to bow.
Then the throne room.
Vladimir's body sat propped against his war dais like a broken monument. A blade driven through his neck, with signs of struggle.
Ramiel stared.
His eyes scanned the room. The floor bore signs of something dragged, clawed. Struggled. A woman's scent hung faint in the air—Varyselle.
He closed his eyes. Just once.
Then opened them with the heat of stars burning behind them.
His hand hit the floor.
The air warped.
A vertical line of light tore open space, humming with raw harmonic force.
Through it stepped the Choir of Blades—seven figures in liquid armor, horrifyingly beautiful, wordless, excluding etheral elegance. Ramiel spoke without looking at them.
"She's been taken. He's dead. That makes it war."
The lead figure's voice was metal drawn over stone. "What is your will?"
Ramiel stood.
"Summon the full Choir. Unlock the vault. Bring the Eye. I want them gathered before dawn touches Vienna."
A long silence.
Then all seven vanished, a mockery to the gigantic wings that adorned their backs.
He moved forward, past Vladimir, without looking back.
"By the Oath of Fire and the Pact of the Sky," he said under his breath, "let vengeance begin."
Outside, the wind stirred dust. The castle behind him no longer felt like a ruin. It felt like a tomb.
He didn't whisper a goodbye.
That was not their way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The walls wept heat.
Chained at the center, Varyselle knelt—her wrists bound behind her back, eyes rimmed red, jaw set hard. The room stank of iron and magic.
Zariel entered like a shadow with a heartbeat.
She didn't look up.
"You're early," she said flatly.
His boots echoed across the stone floor.
"Ramiel is dead."
Three words. The certainty in the sentence knocked her mind out.
Her lips didn't part. Her body didn't move. But the silence that followed cracked like a dropped blade.
Zariel circled her slowly, like a predator playing with his prey.
"He died like the rest of your kind. Screaming about love and loyalty and memory..."
Still, she said nothing. Not even a breath.
Zariel leaned closer.
"But you didn't feel it, did you?"
That reached her.
A flicker in her eyes. Doubt. Just enough to let rot in.
"You would've felt it. The pulse. The tear in your blood. But it didn't come, because he died alone."
"You're lying," she whispered.
"I don't need to."
He stood before her now, holding the unlit hilt of Hellbringer— the weapon he had formed from the Shurahims turned bone legion.
"You're not here because I want to hurt you. You're here because you're the last piece."
He raised the hilt.
"You, Varyselle, are the final key. Your essence will wake the blade. And with it—I will end him all over again. Properly this time."
"He's not dead," she said.
But her voice broke.
Just once.
Zariel whispered a phrase—old and cruel—and placed the hilt against her sternum.
She gasped, but didn't struggle.
Her body arched as the runes ignited, drawing out something deeper than blood. A silver-red light pulsed from her chest into the weapon. Slow. Clean. Inevitable.
Tears streamed down her face, she couldn't tell him how much she loved him. That opportunity....
A vampire without essence is not alive.
As the last of it left her, her.
Varyselle was dead.