In an age now faded to myth, the world of Averlain was a vibrant tapestry woven from many threads. Humans built bustling cities and tilled the land with fierce, short-lived passion. In ancient forests, reclusive elves practiced magic as old as the stones, while sprites and faeries danced in mushroom rings, their laughter like wind chimes on a summer breeze. It was a world of harmony, or at least, a manageable level of discord.
Then, humanity discovered two potent forces: organized religion and systematic magic. The Church of the Eternal Light preached a doctrine of purity and order, its sunburst sigil promising salvation from the shadows. Alongside it, arcane colleges arose, teaching mortals to weave the very fabric of reality to their will. United by faith and firepower, they waged a glorious, brutal war against the demonic legions that sometimes clawed their way up from the underworld. They were victorious. But victory, as it often does, bred ambition.
The definition of "darkness" began to expand. It was no longer just demons. It became anything that did not conform to their new, gleaming vision. The reclusive elves were "haughty and untrustworthy." The mischievous faeries were "chaotic imps." And then there were the creatures of the night—beings who had existed since time immemorial, living in a delicate, often unseen balance with the world.
Among these were the vampires and the werewolves.
The vampires, particularly the noble Nocturne line, were not the feral beasts of campfire stories. They were ancient, sophisticated, and possessed of a terrible, beautiful power. Their rulers, the Crimson Heirs, were said to hold dominion over the night itself, their very blood a font of ancient magic. Legends spoke of their ability to weave compulsion with a glance, to seduce and control the minds of mortals, making them willing pawns. The werewolves, specifically the fierce Batumbakal clan, were their primal counterparts—creatures of immense strength and loyalty, bound to the cycles of the moon. For centuries, the Batumbakals served as the sworn protectors and enforcers for the Nocturne court. It was a symbiotic relationship of shadow and muscle, a dynasty built to last an eternity.
It did not.
The Church, viewing both lineages as heretical abominations, saw an opportunity. They whispered promises of power, land, and divine favor to the Batumbakal chieftains. Gold and titles were lavished upon them. The message was simple: why serve in the shadows when you can rule in the light? Why be the guard dog when you can be the master?
The betrayal was as swift as it was total. On a night of a full moon, the Batumbakals turned on their Nocturne masters. The grand citadel of the vampires, a place of moonstone spires and silent libraries, ran red with a blood that was both mortal and immortal. The Crimson King and Queen were slaughtered. Their court, their retainers, their legacy—all were extinguished in a single, bloody night. The Batumbakals, believing they had secured their future, took their payment and their new status.
The Church, however, had no intention of sharing power with "monsters." Branded as unstable and savage, the Batumbakals were hunted down in turn, their promised lands confiscated, their name made a curse. They were used and discarded, their clan shattered into scattered, hidden pockets, living with the shame of a betrayal that had ultimately doomed them as well.
But the Church's work was not quite finished. One thread of the Nocturne line remained. A single daughter, Celestine Raventhorn von Nocturne, the true Crimson Heir, had escaped the massacre.
For centuries, Celestine has been running. She is a living relic of a murdered world, a queen without a kingdom, a predator who just wants to be left alone. Her life is a carefully curated performance of anonymity. Every fifty years or so, she packs her most essential belongings—a few precious tomes, a portrait of her family, a set of silver tools, and a small, dwindling supply of her family's preserved blood—into a magically-expanded carpet bag, and she moves. She changes her name, her story, her entire identity.
She has been "Elara," the quiet midwife in a coastal village. She has been "Liliana," the reclusive scholar in a bustling city. She has been a dozen other women, all forgettable, all frail, all human.
Her current incarnation is "Mistress Elara," a simple herbalist and registered member of the Adventurer's Guild in the remote village of Oakhaven. Here, on the edge of a vast forest, she has cultivated a new kind of peace. A small, stone-and-timber cottage, a sprawling, chaotic garden of useful and poisonous plants, and a profound, aching solitude. It's a humble life, a far cry from marble halls, but it is hers. She spends her days talking to her plants, selling her wares, and fiercely guarding the secret buried not just in her cellar, but in her very blood.
She is the last of her kind, and three powerful forces would burn the world to find her. The Church, seeing her as the ultimate heresy, wants her erased from history. The Emperor, ensconced in his distant citadel, covets the legends of her blood—a fabled key to immortality and a tool to weave unshakeable compulsion over his subjects, securing his dynasty forever. And deep in the shadowy realms, the Demons crave her for a more terrifying purpose. They know a truth few remember: that the blood of a true Crimson Heir can be used as a catalyst to thin the veil between worlds permanently. They don't just want to control her; they want to use her very essence to shatter the barriers that hold them back, to plunge all of Averlain into an eternal, demon-ruled night. Her blood is the ultimate prize in a holy war she never asked to be part of.
Her existence is a quiet, lonely ballet of control. She drinks the blood of animals to sustain herself, a pale imitation of the power she was born to, and only in the deepest secrecy of her hidden cellar does she allow herself a taste of the old vintage, a tormenting reminder of what was lost. She hates the necessity, she hates the monster it reminds her she is, but most of all, she hates the relentless, grinding loneliness.
But fate, it seems, has a wicked sense of humor and a flair for the dramatic.
It begins, as the best and worst things often do, with a ruined flowerbed.
One evening, as Celestine is gathering lavender under a twilight sky, a massive, storm-grey wolf crashes through her picket fence, bleeding silver onto her rosemary and trampling her prized lavender bushes. It is monstrously large, its eyes are a piercing, intelligent amber, and it is very, very injured.
Celestine, ever the pragmatist, is more annoyed than afraid. "Oh, you terrible beast," she mutters. "Look at my lavender."
This is no ordinary wolf. And her decision to drag the unconscious, dangerously heavy creature inside her home and tend to its wounds—a decision made by the healer in her, overriding the survivor's instinct to flee—is one that will shatter her carefully constructed peace forever.
What follows is a story of goofy mishaps and profound danger. Of a vampire who tries to lecture a wounded wolf on proper pruning techniques. Of a wolf that seems to understand her every word, responding with clumsy, flower-based apologies. It is the story of a slow, bewildering connection between a woman who talks to fill the silence and a creature that listens as if it understands the weight of every secret.
But darkness is closing in. The Church, with its polished knights and insidious questions, is circling. The Emperor's spies listen for whispers of ageless women in forgotten villages. The Demons, sensing a shift in the ancient bloodlines, are stirring in the deep places of the world, their desire for her a palpable hunger that stains the edges of reality. A blood moon is rising, promising chaos. And the wolf at her hearth carries the scent of a deep, old magic—and a hidden history that could be the key to her salvation, or the final instrument of her doom.
So, what will happen to Celestine now? The last Crimson Heir, who just wanted to be left alone with her lavender, has opened her door to a mystery wrapped in fur and danger. Is this wounded creature a simple beast? A divine test? An agent of the Emperor? A demonic trap sent to lure her out? Or something else entirely?
Will this unexpected companion be her downfall, leading the Church, the Empire, or the Demons right to her doorstep? Or could this strange, budding friendship become the one thing powerful enough to protect her from the forces that seek to use her blood to reshape the world? In a world that wants her essence for its own ends, her only ally might be a wild animal... but in the shadows of Averlain, nothing is ever as simple as it seems.