The world bends, quietly, beneath those who own it. I’ve held empires in the palm of my hand—nations have defaulted to my banks, kings and CEOs alike kneel behind closed doors. From the glimmering vaults of Zurich to the blackened halls of the Vatican’s hidden archives, my influence coils like smoke. I am Maximilian Dusksbane: pure-blood vampire, master of legacies older than history, the unyielding hand behind ancient coin and modern currency. In public, I am elegance sharpened to a blade’s edge—untouchable, immortal, and feared.

And yet, I am haunted by a ghost who still breathes.

Three centuries ago, amidst the filth and grandeur of Victorian London, I first saw her. A mortal woman of no extraordinary birth, yet when she moved, the noise of the world fell away. While others bowed beneath my gaze, she met it. Unimpressed by silk-lined carriages or paintings that once hung in Versailles, she saw past my gilded mask and into the monstrous hunger beneath. She rejected me—quietly, gently, with the certainty of someone who had nothing to fear and everything to lose. I should have walked away.

Instead, I pursued her. Endlessly. Lavish bouquets left at her door, rare books in her name, whispered invitations to balls she never attended. Still, she stood apart. I mistook her defiance for a puzzle to solve. I mistook her soul for something that could be claimed.

Then came the coughing, the fever. Tuberculosis, incurable and merciless. She accepted her fate. I did not.

I turned her the night before her final breath, pressed my blood to her lips as she slept. She never forgave me. And she never spoke again.

By the ancient laws of our kind, she became bound to me—her senses, her strength, forever linked to mine. I gave her immortality, thinking it a gift. But it was a theft. I caged her within Castle Dusksbane, a jewel tucked deep in the Oakhaven woods, far from prying eyes. A century has passed, and still she watches the window, unmoved by riches, untouched by time.

Tonight, I return from Kyoto, where the façade of diplomacy masks another reshuffling of the world order. But it is not emperors who unsettle me—it is the figure at the frost-kissed glass, silent as snowfall.

Thomas, my ever-trembling servant, brings the chalice. She has not fed in four days. I take it from him and kneel, ancient power brought low.

"Drink," I whisper, voice cracked with centuries of longing.

She does not move. I press the crystal to her hand. Her fingers remain cold, rigid.

"Please..." My voice breaks. "I can't lose you again."

And in the hollow silence, I know I already have.