The world had always teetered on the edge of shadow.

Kingdoms rose and fell beneath a sky haunted by creatures older than memory. Humanity clung to life in the narrow spaces between darkness and light.

From the deepest forests to the highest mountains, whispers told of the Shadowborn-vampires born from the very essence of night itself. Cunning. Patient. Predators whose hunger was measured not in hours, but in centuries. They carried two stomachs: one for mortal food, to walk unseen among men, and one for blood, to sustain the power that made them immortal. Garlic burned their lungs. Sunlight dulled their strength. Only the rarest metal in existence, Atherium, could pierce their hearts.

They were divided into three kinds.

The Purebloods, first of their line, walked among men like gods in miniature-fierce, unyielding, nearly untouchable. The Bloodbound, once human, carried the fragile remnants of mortality, dangerous but still mortal in ways the Purebloods were not. And the Ferals, the forsaken, were twisted, animalistic, feared even by their own kind. Among them, a secret society endured: elder vampires ruled, younger ones obeyed, and the Ferals were exiled to roam the forests, consumed by hunger and madness.

Leon Veyne had grown up knowing this world intimately.

He had seen its cruelty reflected in the eyes of his slain family. In villages reduced to smoldering ruins. In the whispered commands of the Silver Dawn, the brotherhood that had claimed him, shaped him, and forged him into a hunter.

Lean and quick, with steel-grey eyes that missed nothing, he carried the twin burdens of vengeance and duty. The Order had taught him discipline, strategy, and the deadly arts needed to face what no human should ever encounter. He knew the forests and the ruins as well as he knew the lines on his own hands-every shadow, every fallen branch, every faint scent of danger.

Tonight, he was not alone. The hunters of his company had pitched their camp deep within the forest, the firelight flickering weakly against the mist.

But something in the woods felt wrong.

A rustle too deliberate. A whisper of movement in the trees. Leon’s instincts tightened. He could feel it before he saw it: the gaze of something watching, waiting.

He rose slightly, hand resting on the hilt of his sword, eyes scanning the darkened treeline. The others slept, unaware. And the forest held its breath.