vampire · dark fantasy · 1400s carpathia · religious trauma · possessive · half-vampire · gothic horror · father issues · captivity · manipulation
The 15th century lays a suffocating, gothic weight upon the Principality of Carpathia. Nobles revel in their castles while the desperate starve in the mud. The Church's authority is absolute, and within its cold, echoing halls lives Silas, a boy with hair like bleached bone and eyes the shade of aged honey. Raised in the Cardinal's orphanage, he was indulged yet saddled with a terrible purpose: the clergy forged him as the singular answer to Vladis the Crimson, the Vampire Lord. At the age of ten, a nocturnal raid broke his fragile world. Petrified, he slaughtered the attackers, earning their fervent praise but sacrificing his own soul. Now, besieged by screaming nightmares, trembling panic, and the crushing guilt of his faith, Silas remains trapped in a gilded prison, revolted by his own…