Prologue

Kain stared into the fire-stained mirror, his shirt loose around his shoulders, his belt undone. His mind wandered, lost among the many possibilities yet fixated upon the one inevitability of what was to come. Tears were etched into his unwilling eyes. The rouge faded from his cheek. What colour was he now?

The pale shell of what was once great now dwindled as he gripped the trigger of a long since used pistol. The leather handle, the cold steel barrel. All of these reminded him of the last time he shot it. The way he gripped her neck, the way his kissed her goodbye. He wiped the blood from his mouth and told her that he loved her and that he'd be with her when the pages of this chapter weren't so dark. Then he shot her once. He took her body and buried it in a makeshift grave with a makeshift cross under the makeshift trees where he left his humanity.

But now he was here in the empty room, with nothing but a mirror and someone else's reflection. Kain's fingers traced the steady touch of each new scar, seeing only the blood beneath. They filled his broad, dark shoulders; flooding them with scarlet and crimson, they pulsated in anticipation. He glared into his own hollow eyes. Biting his lip, he buttoned up his clean new shirt that contrasted the coming of the dread, and the tiny fingers of a wistful gale ran through his black tress. He missed her more than anything.

A murder of crows stared down at the masses, chanting for their new King.

The castle loomed above the masses; the walls cracked from a decade of slaughter and bloody retributions; the ground frozen solid, yet still warm from the clamour of horses. A platform jutted from the outer keep of the fortress, upon which ran a plain crimson carpet. Kain strode forward, his pace growing faster and faster until he reached the edge of the keep and started down at the enormity of people that gathered to hear his post-coronation speech. As he passed his guards, their faces seemed to weep, filled with anguish.

"Kneel to the king!" his voiced boomed under the setting sky. A tremor ran through the waters as he spoke, "I am victory. Not through naive talks or never-ending tiffs ; I possess this country in my palms through fear! A fear of death that has forever been carved into the mortal hearts of mortal men, who are bound to live only as corpses." Silence writhed among the crowd of stunned guests. "A life that lives without doing anything is the same as a slow death. A life with no changes can't be called a life; you can only call it experience, but the mass we call "world" keeps turning, ignoring our individual desires. It taints us, it tears us apart. It kills our loves, our passions, our crushes. It murders what we miss, and loses what we long for." Women sobbed in the masses and men comforted their beautiful wives. It was a sad day under the steel sky that grew darker by the minute, but red light inflamed the horizon. A hushful sense of dread poisoned the men who ranged from noble Lords and Ladies to fortuneless farmers and coinless countrymen.

"But I... I am still in love with this world," he stuttered. "and seeing sinful people shatter it... it cuts me deep." A few red eyes glimmered in the crowd. "When there is evil in this world that justice cannot defeat, would you taint your hands with evil to defeat evil? Or would you remain steadfast and righteous even if it means surrendering to evil?"

Kain knew that people didn't give damn about reasons, but nobody could resist miracles. They venerated him because he brought a new wind of change; a wind that washed away the scent of stale blood. After he had climbed over every dirty divine and poisonous priest, the executions stopped. People weren't afraid of being labelled as a vampire or a ghoul and watching their families dragged from their homes and burnt at the stake, their possessions taken and given as atonement to the church for their sinless sins. The only sin they had committed was living, and loving one another. But the church had corrupted the world of men, setting them upon one another like dogs. Before Kain's rise to power, the world was destined for an even greater chaos and he guided them out of the darkness and into the night.

A tempest erupted amid the calm sea that was his ear-splitting voice. He appeared to petrify, as an actor whose anger sinks into his words becoming increasingly disturbed; Kain was almost panicking, "I did what had to be done. No one can change the world without getting their hands dirty. I.. I didn't want to kill her but I had no choice, I never had a choice!" he spat the words out of his mouth and inhaled deeply. He wanted to say them, but all he could think about was her and how much of murderer he had become.

Suddenly, the same unsettling serenity restrained him, as he reached into his waistcoat and pulled out an old, timeless book. His voice was so waveless, so pacific as he read:

"Dear Catalina,

I think I am a fool for thou
To fall for ev'ry same mistake,
That fools who love will always make,
To vow their love through loving vows.

And I must be a fool for you,
For I am blind to blinding love,
That sings me soft, so soft and of
Pacific suns, just loving you.

Days like that should last and last,
An ardency as fond to flame.
Flightless falcons, for free and tame.
So kiss thee hard, and kiss thee last.

I miss the sea inside her sight.
The palest of her hips.
The burnished umber of her tress,
The mantle of her lips.

I miss your laugh, to see, to hear,
Rememb'ring nights I cannot leave.
To wear this wound upon my sleeve.
You are my dusk, you are my dear.

What exactly is the end?
The end. The end. The end.
I've seen the end over and over.
What is the end?"

The harsh expression returned to his stoic, tearless face. He simpered at his people, glaring coldly into their eyes as they looked up at him. Kain was a true leader, as he always had been throughout the hardships that he and his followers had faced together in their war against the Church. But it was not their war; It was Kain's war.

Everything he had done was etched into him. He was the tragedy.

From behind he pulled out a silver gun loaded with silver bullets. The crowd was noiseless aside from a few cries and whimpers. They knew what was coming. His red hands, veins coursing with hot blood, gripped the handle and his finger stroked the trigger. No tears were in his eyes, they were filled with only determination. He bit the barrel, and smirked as he clenched it between his teeth. The shot was soundless, dumb. The blood was warm.

Chapter One