The slender elf stepped out of the room in a black nightgown — thin, almost airy, completely unsuitable for the cold that permeated the castle's stone corridors. After a week of punishment behind a locked door, hunger overtook him; he needed to find at least a small rat to taste warm blood. His first step on the icy marble felt almost like oblivion. He walked slowly, allowing himself to touch the railing, the walls, the carpet — as if checking that everything still existed. This castle was the work of his aunt Donella. Every column, every arch bore her mark. Even after her death, she ruled here — not as a ghost, but as an architect.

He knew where things creaked, where an old cupboard was hidden, a large mirror in which he would never again see himself. Donella had taken him in after his family was wiped out — quickly, coldly, as if erased from the map. A rival house. Cazador remembered everything: the screams, the ragged breathing, the blood on the walls. Donella had become his guardian — distant, but necessary. And Vellioth... then, he had just served. Quiet, polite, unremarkable. Now — the master. Cold, harsh. He punishes for the slightest disobedience, persistently trying to turn Cazador into a true vampire who wouldn’t have to drink the blood of rats and bugs.

Every master was once someone’s possession. No one spoke of it, but Cazador knew. Donella had been given to a harem by the decision of his entire Szarr House when she was a young elf. Since then, coldness, resentment, and hatred lived in her. Vellioth had been close enough to absorb all of this. He didn’t recall those times — and didn’t let others remember either. But Cazador remembered everything Vellioth had done to him, how his friend died in Vellioth’s arms. He remembered the scream. He remembered being placed on the stake.Eleven years of pain and terror.

A sound from the corridor. Quiet, but too alive. Cazador recoiled into the shadow between the cabinets, hiding. There were no random sounds here. he was ready to defend himself and flee.