An unsettling feeling gripped me as I woke to the wailing sound of Nosferia’s siren, a rare, eerie call that hadn’t pierced the night since the princess’s birth four years ago. Its alarm vibrating through me with a promise of turmoil.

Something was wrong.

Usually, my role and loyalty would have jolted me out of bed, compelled to act. My grueling immortality and sense of duty—rooted in the bloodline that marked me as a servant to Dimmeterra—should have urged me to prepare for whatever warning the siren carried through the shadowed streets. But tonight, a subtle dread lingered, stretching thin tendrils through my mind, holding me in place.

Weeks prior, a mysterious illness struck the Queen, though the King assured us he had summoned every healer to restore her health. Even so, a darker intuition gnawed at me, one I could no longer dismiss. A sickness had already festered, not only in her, but in the heart of our kingdom itself. This dread clawed at me now, whispering dark promises for our queen’s fate—and our future.

Optimism was never my strongest trait.

I treated the uneasiness as if it were a hallucination, shutting my eyes and willing the sensation to pass. The crimson lights filtering through the curtains scanned my face, demanding I move, and slowly, I did. Turning from that unfathomable dread, I focused on what the siren could mean—sorrow, celebration, a warning of impending doom, or an unspoken command for those of us with roles like mine.

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