Octavia Grigore/Background/1673

Octavia’s pale eyes sharpened, colder than the night air. She drew a breath, each word coming like a crack of ice underfoot.

“They survived," she began, "because something darker than death claimed my father.”

Octavia paused, then explained. “It was the summer of 1661. I was nine, and Wallachia burned with desperation. When the peasants surged on our manor by torchlight, and dragged my mother away, my father rose again, his sword ultimately coming to her rescue. Unfortunately, once she managed to flee from her attackers, something... else... took my father.”

She looked deep into the red liquid of her wine glass, remembering. “There, in the riot’s heart, stood a feral and monstrous Tzimisce—slender as shadow, covered in bony spines and pale as death itself. It had watched my father for seasons, waiting for the right moment to claim my father as its own. After my father fought the riotous mob away from my mother, the creature struck at him, fangs sinking deeply into his throat. Blood blossomed under the torches, and the world stood still fora moment, the mob of peasants shocked and terrified.”

Octavia closed her eyes for a moment. “Father rose reborn in ravenous frenzy, blade in hand and fangs bared. Like a wolf starved by winter, he lunged into the swarm—tearing flesh, splintering bone—until the peasants lay scattered like broken reeds. His monstrous sire vanished back into the forest, watching with hidden eyes.”

“The manor’s walls held fast; fire consumed our silks and heirlooms, but not the stones of our foundation. As dawn approached, Mother and I emerged from the smoke-scarred courtyard. We were alive, but our home lay half in ruin and half in shadow of the monster Father had become.”

She paused, gaze drifting across the dark vines as though she could still see the flames. “For eleven years, Mother and I lived as prisoners beneath his obsession. Each day he slept, each night we quaked behind locked doors. Mother tended her blackened garden in silence; I learned to move unseen, my small voice swallowed by those empty corridors, lest I stoke my father's wrath. He ghouled my mother while I was still young, and used her to bring him blood — victims she managed to coax or otherwise get back to the manor. His sire followed the Road of the Beast, and his lessons were infrequent and often brutal as he shaped my father from afar, watching.”

The lantern’s glow etched each line of her face. “Then came the spring of 1672. His sire returned in earnest—a towering horror of flesh and bone—seeking to claim me and Mother as tools, or food, I'm not certain. In the great hall, Father’s savage instinct flared. He frenzied and tore that ancient creature apart, drinking deep of stolen power—diablerie they call it.”

Octavia’s voice dropped to a rasp. “Mother was terrified of him, and pleaded for mercy, but he was lost in the rage of his Beast and turned on her with a howl, ripping her life away with the savagery of his claws across her throat. Blood gushed like a hellish wellspring and I stood frozen, pressed against the granite wall, as her final gurgling breath faded into the dust, her sad, frightened eyes locked with my own.”

Her hands clenched, knuckles white. “Then... he came for me. His fangs bit with ruthless insistence—pain like lightning searing every nerve. Death claimed me, but he stole even that. I awoke bound in unlife, a thing of darkness. He looked at me, covered in Mother's blood and the ichor of his Sire, and smiled. Smiled! As my own ravenous hunger set in, he said to me 'now, my Little Blossom, you shall be mine forever.”

She lifted her head, eyes blazing with frost and steel. “Eleven years of captivity taught me endurance. That night made colder than any winter. I hate him. I despise him. I will never be his. I knew then I needed to escape, but it would take me years to achieve.”