The Book of Past floated in the air, its black leather skin cracking like ancient bark. From within it spilled light — not golden, but red, the deep shade of old blood. Everyone present froze. Nyx. Nia. Stacy. Carl. Even the witches. The air thickened until breathing felt heavy. The book trembled violently, pages fluttering as whispers poured out — voices of the long-dead calling through time.
Then, without warning, the space around them warped.
Fog rolled in. The floor beneath their feet transformed into cold cobblestone. The present vanished.
They were standing in the past.
It was the age of York Gald — the most powerful vampire ever born in the Mirror World.
York stood upon the grand balcony of Varkor Palace, tall and commanding, wrapped in black velvet robes embroidered with silver. His sharp crimson eyes surveyed the kingdom below him. He was young then — noble, brilliant, chosen by the Vampire Union to be crowned as the next High Vampire Lord, the protector and ruler of their kind. The world bowed to him. Power flowed naturally through his veins.
But every bright flame casts a shadow.
And York's shadow had a name.
Ryko Boyle.
Brother by blood — enemy by heart.
Ryko watched York's rise from afar, jealousy burning like acid beneath his skin. He envied everything: York's strength, his intelligence, his charisma — and above all, the love York had earned from Iliana George, the most graceful woman in the Mirror World and the daughter of the Mystic Council. Ryko desired what he could never possess.
And desire turned into obsession.
In secret, Ryko turned to forbidden science. His ally, Pony Mare, a gifted but reckless alchemist, had once created a strange green pea — a failed experiment designed to control the mind. Fearing punishment for unethical magic, Pony sealed it away, declaring it a mistake.
Ryko did not see a mistake.
He saw opportunity.
One stormy night, Ryko stole the enchanted pea.
He waited patiently.
The day came when York rode through the misty hills of Kyber, traveling to propose to Iliana. Hidden in the shadows, Ryko unleashed the spell. The enchanted pea twisted York's mind, turning him into a puppet. Under its influence, York committed the act that shattered his honor and destroyed Iliana's soul.
When the spell broke, York awoke to screams — to blood — to Iliana's eyes filled with horror and betrayal.
The vision shifted.
Firelight flickered. Iliana stood trembling before the Vampire Council, her white gown stained red. The elders spoke their judgment coldly.
Impurity meant death.
York tried to defend her. He begged. His voice broke. He fell to his knees.
No one listened.
Iliana's eyes no longer held love. Only rage. Only grief.
"You," she said, her voice shaking with power, "will lose everything you hold sacred. Your power will fade. Your bloodline will rot. And your name will bring death to those you love."
As flames rose around her, she screamed her final curse.
"Each time a child of your line is born, two shall die. And if ever one of your blood seeks to regain the power of a vampire, he shall awaken the Red Moon — and end both worlds."
Her body burned.
But the curse lived.
It bound itself into York's veins.
When dawn rose, York's fangs crumbled. His strength vanished. His immortality shattered. He fell from the heavens of power into mortal dust.
Banished and stripped of his title, York wandered through forests and cities until he reached the human world. There, he met Rayana — kind, gentle, and unafraid of his darkness. York confessed everything: the curse, the shame, the blood that damned him.
Rayana stayed.
She said love was worth any curse.
Fate answered cruelly.
When Rayana gave birth to twins, her body weakened. As Iliana's curse demanded, one child and the mother died. Only one infant lived — a boy York named Ushika.
York raised Ushika in fear and sorrow, warning him never to walk the vampire path again.
But when Ushika turned twenty-five, curiosity defeated fear.
He married Pompy.
He wanted a family.
The light shifted.
Pompy gave birth to a son, Ramika — and at the moment the child cried, York and Pompy collapsed together, their hearts stopping as one. Ushika fell to his knees, understanding too late.
The curse had claimed his father and his wife.
Ramika grew under Ushika's trembling care — kind, gentle, and weak, plagued by an incurable illness. Yet love found him in the form of Liala, whose warmth pierced sorrow itself. Though afraid to curse her, Ramika married her.
For a moment, happiness lived.
Then Liala conceived.
"The blood cannot stop," Ushika told his son. "Only redemption can break it."
They did not know what redemption meant.
Winter came.
Liala gave birth to twins. History repeated itself.
One baby was stillborn.
Liala died.
Only one child lived — a boy with eyes blacker than midnight. Ushika named him Raym. Ramika died months later, leaving Ushika alone to raise the last survivor of three generations.
Far away, the dying alchemist Pony Mare wrote his final confession — every secret, every sin — into a book he named The Book of Past. Before he could reveal it, Ryko murdered him. Ryko ordered his descendant Jamie to destroy the book.
Jamie preserved it instead.
The vision darkened again.
Raym, grown, married Veena. When she conceived, nightmares haunted him — visions of death beneath a red moon. Desperate, he fled to Ushika. The old man attempted a forbidden ritual requiring two lives for one.
Ushika failed.
But Ramika's spirit completed it, saving the child and sealing their doom.
The child was born under a black moon.
A red star-shaped mark burned upon his neck.
Veena died holding him.
The child cried — half human, half vampire.
When the vision ended, the book revealed its final truth.
"Thus was born the one destined to end the curse and both worlds. The child of light and darkness. His name shall be Nyx Gald."
The book closed.
Thunder cracked.
The red moon pulsed.
As the last page turned on its own, a final line appeared:
Written and compiled by Pony Mare… and the Unknown.
A red handprint pressed itself into the page.
And silence fell.