SAGE

I knew the exact moment we entered the region of the vampires’ lair.

It was not marked by a wall or a sign or any visible boundary. It was just a particular shift in the air. A heaviness that settled into my lungs like damp ash.

The land stretched wide before us, roughly the circumference of a small town, yet it felt abandoned by life itself. The soil under our boots had turned a sickly gray, cracked and hardened like skin left too long in the sun.

Withered trees stood scattered across the terrain, their branches skeletal and twisted, clawing at the dimming sky as though they had once...