V THE FIRST
THE BOOK
V The First
by WM
The world remembers the legend.
This remembers the blood before...
Dracula.
When the world was new...
“When the world was new, dark and empty,
she was there.
When the first dawn came about,
and the first man gave his first steps,
she was there.
She walked the land under pallid moons
and blazing fires,
with no one to share her endless night.
Then there was light.
She was the first of all of us,
Us, Children of the Night,
The All-Mother in the Dark,
was the First, yet not the last.
She was there from the beginning,
She will be there beyond the end.
BOOK I
RISE OF THE BASARABS
Before Christ
The Age of Empires and Prophets
Beneath the iron skies of a forsaken century,
where famine hollowed the fields and plague darkened the air,
a banner rose against the crowns of kings—
a lone wolf’s cry echoing through the Carpathian peaks.
In the hush between prayers and battle-drums,
a prince forged a kingdom from blood and sorrow,
while in secret, moonlight bound a seeress to his fate,
their hidden child—silver-haired, star-cursed—
destined to hunt the lords who drink the night.
Through candlelit halls and shadowed forests,
a servant girl’s tears met a warrior’s weary heart,
and from their fragile spark would burn a legacy
to outlast empires, to haunt the chronicles of men.
The Rise of the Basarabs is a song of iron and ash,
of lovers marked by prophecy,
and of a land that trembled beneath the weight
of both its mortal kings and the one they would call Dracula.
1.1
Janna
1400 AD
The Girl at the Edge
Around the dawn of the fifteenth century, in the Kingdom of Bohemia, a young girl found herself standing at the very edge of despair.
Janna had scarcely seen seventeen summers.
She was in the first bloom of womanhood, her beauty deepening with each passing day.
So too was her sorrow.
Born into privilege, she had known the warmth of noble halls and the promise of a great future.
Then tragedy came.
Her house fell.
Its name was forgotten.
Its honor reduced to whispers.
The descent was absolute.
Condemned to a life of servitude, she carried not only the shame of a fallen bloodline, but a far crueler burden.
She heard voices that no one else could hear.
They haunted her waking hours and poisoned her dreams until the world itself became unbearable.
At the edge of an abyss, she believed a single step would bring silence at last.
But there are moments that neither chance nor the will of men can alter.
Some encounters are written long before they come to pass.
Janna had been chosen by destiny.
She was fated to love a prince whose blood carried the legacy of kings.
From that union would be born a son destined to command armies, unite a fractured realm, and ascend as Vlad II, Prince of Wallachia.
And from his blood would come another.
A prince whose name would outlive kingdoms, inspire countless legends, and echo through the centuries.
Vlad III.
Dracula.
Begin the Journey
