He left at dawn with ash still clinging to his sleeves, carrying the quiet hope of peace like something fragile in his chest. Her hand lingered in his for a moment beneath the old black yews, as if she believed the road would not change him, as if distance itself could be gentle. She told him to return. And he believed her, when he turned away and followed the path that led beyond the crows and the sea. But distance was not the only thing that grew in the days that followed. The friends he once called kin began to feel unfamiliar in memory, as though something had settled behind their eyes long before he noticed. A poison disguised as trust, sweet enough to drink without fear, while winter crept closer and the air itself began to feel thinner, like breath held too long in a sealed room. When he finally came home, there was only silence waiting for him. The kind of silence that does not greet you, but watches. Her face had faded into something pale and distant, as though life had slowly forgotten her name. Her skin felt like wax beneath the cold light, and in his arms she left the world without resistance. Only then did he understand that the same hands that had welcomed him back had already rewritten everything into a lie. And something inside him broke open. Not loudly. Not at first. But like a horizon splitting without thunder. The sky above seemed heavier as he spoke their names into the night, one by one, each word falling like judgment into a world that no longer deserved forgiveness. And with every name that answered him, the world grew quieter, as if even guilt was afraid to breathe. Dracula the Warlock… hold her in my arms… Dracula the Warlock… no blood can break this bond… Dracula the Warlock… I will burn down every gate… Dracula the Warlock… love and grief are my fate… What followed was no longer a journey. It became a slow extinction of everything that had once called itself justice. One by one, those who had smiled at him fell in the shadow of what they had done. Fields turned to ash beneath distant horizons, castles crumbled into memory, and even the sons of traitors learned that the past does not stay buried when it has been fed grief. Years passed like burning nights. Every banner that once stood in defiance eventually bowed, not in honor, but in absence. And yet even as the world emptied itself of resistance, he did not become free. Because nothing in him had moved on. The war had ended everywhere except inside him, where it still continued without rest. Dracula the Warlock… hold her in my arms… Dracula the Warlock… no blood can break this bond… Dracula the Warlock… I have burned every gate… Dracula the Warlock… love and grief are fate… And when at last there was nothing left to destroy, only silence remained where kingdoms had once been. He stood upon what had once been a throne, but it meant nothing now. Not victory. Not rule. Only endurance. The world had learned his name, but he no longer heard it as power — only as an echo that could not reach what he had lost. He still waited, in the way the broken wait for something that cannot return. And somewhere in every wind that moved across the empty land, her presence still lingered — not as memory, but as absence that refused to fade. Dracula the Warlock… the world bows low… Dracula the Warlock… before my hollow throne… Dracula the Warlock… and still she remains… Dracula the Warlock… forever mine alone…
