Hundreds of years ago, there was a magnificent Castle proudly standing in the West of Praya. However, now, on its place between the mountains, only ugly ruins remain. One day, a terrible massacre occurred there - and since then, even robbers did not show up in that place, since it smelled of blood and cruelty.
Before the terrible incident happened, and the Castle was still full of life, it was ruled by a powerful yet crazy Lord. His wife, a Heroine of the past, died in the claws of merciless Touched, and left her husband a daughter who looked exactly like her. The Lord was awfully afraid of losing the only child to her adventurous moods inherited from her mother, so, in order to keep her safe, he kept her locked up in the Castle. However, little Kamilla was not an easy child to tame. She had always made her father go crazy because of her by trying to escape every day. The whole Castle knew that the Lord started to abuse his daughter so that she stopped disobeying him. He cursed her with his words, raised her hand on her and punished her severely. With time, this anger had also begun to interfere with Castle servants' lives.
Kamilla made a choice to calm down for the well-being of innocent people and occupied her time with reading books - at least, this way she could learn more about the outside world and not get harmed. Her dad was happy of that and changed his behavior for the best. Everything went well until Kamilla hit the marriageable age. She did not like any of the men her father chose for her. Freedom was all she ever wanted. And being married would not have helped her - her father insisted that she and her husband must stay inside the Castle walls. Kamilla wanted to see the outside world, travel the unknown roads and slay dangerous beasts - she wanted to become the woman her mother was.
Nothing was changing until a barely alive traveller had put his feet on the doorstep of the Castle one day. He was dying of an unknown non-contagious disease. This young man had become Kamilla’s first friend who was not born inside the Castle. The traveller told her about the lands he saw in his journeys and voyages, lands occupied with dokhts, adornians or even Touched only. Kamilla felt so bad about her imprisonment that she was almost ready to end her own life.
In order to cheer his friend up, the traveller suggested Kamilla to explore the Castle itself - he believed that there were many hidden rooms in it. His idea worked and the woman shared some amazing time with him: they made kind fun of Castle’s servants, made their way to the highest balconies and one day, they eventually found an underground passage in the basement of an abandoned tower. Kamilla was very excited she could have used it to escape her father’s tyranny and the Castle which became a real prison for her. Seems like it was a joke of Fate - they found an old prison in the passage, and there was nothing more. Old tableware and bones - that’s all the adventurers found in there, until they got close to the last cell. A weird noise was coming from there - if like a bone was hitting a bone.
There, in the darkest corner of the abandoned prison, an old and almost dried up vampire was trying to survive by biting a rat’s tail. He was so fragile and weak that he almost couldn’t move. He smiled creepily at his guests - because he knew that if they wanted any assistance from him, they would have to give up something truly important to them.
Kamilla saw a chance to escape the Castle in this vampire, and her friend believed that vampirism could be the only thing left in the world which could heal him. But the price was high: eternal service or a fresh heart, ripped from a human’s body. Kamilla valued freedom more than anything, so she couldn’t accept the first option, and the second one made her scared. She was not a killer. It was hard for her to convince her friend to leave this cursed place, and the vampire was only laughing as they were running away. “You will come back to me, fools!” - he cried.
Days passed by, a week after another, and Kamilla couldn’t find the courage to murder a person. But her friend couldn’t wait no more. Death was craving for him. He told Kamilla he was going to see the vampire, and after a few hours, since that time passed, she became worried and ran to the abandoned prison to see if he was alright. Eventually, he was not. He was lying before the iron rods of the vampire’s cell in agony. His body could not handle the transformation and he died on Kamilla’s hands. In terror, the woman sat back from the corpse and cried. While she was trying to pull herself together, the vampire pulled the heart out of young man’s chest and gave it a taste. Human blood tasted better than ever to him.
Kamilla turned white as a bone from fear. She saw with her very own eyes, how the elder vampire regained his strength and youthful appearance in a moment. Now he could had easily killed her, but he did not. He liked this funny yet beautiful lady and wanted to see her suffer more, and after that, he wanted to travel a while with her. He gave her only one evening to bring him one more heart. After that he was going to leave the Castle once and for all.
Kamilla ran away from the prison. She did not know what to do. Her father saw her, pale as milk, her cheeks covered with tears, and laughed at her. He said that a true Lady must not shed even a single tear in her life and that she looks disgusting to him now. This was the last straw. Kamilla could not assassinate her own father, still, so she managed to ask her guardian to follow her to the vampire’s cell. There, next to it, she hit him in the neck using a sharp crest. This was her first murder and she wasn’t able to forget it.
The vampire clapped his hands and laughed his heart out. Kamilla was looking at him with all the hope that was left in her. The ancient being turned her into vampire and ordered her to feed with her guardian’s heart. Even paler, than before, Kamilla followed the order of her maker. There were no tears on her cheeks this time. The taste of blood and flesh granted her amazing powers. The vampire promised to teach her how to use her new abilities, and this was the only reason she followed him in the end. Vampires turned into bats and left the Castle.
For many years Kamilla travelled alongside the ancient vampire. One day, she understood she learned all she could from him and left him. The time she spent with such an arrogant and evil creature turned who into a similar type of monster. She killed without even blinking an eye, fast and precisely, she played with her victims, rarely letting them free after she had her fun. But there was one thing left which reminded her of her previous miserable life - the Castle she grew in.
Kamilla had already forgotten the kind servants who always tried to cheer her up. There was nothing but hate to her father left inside her heart. She made herself a carpet from blood on her path to the parent she detested so much. When Kamilla reached the Lord, she ripped his heart from his chest, threw it on the floor and smashed it with with a heel of her shoe. That was the moment she finally felt free.
