Night fell over the Southern Reaches like a mercy, darkness shrouding what daylight would have cruelly illuminated. Within the crumbling walls of what had once been the grandest citadel in vampire society, Archduke Orlov paced the empty hall of his ancestral throne room. Moonlight filtered through broken windows, catching on the tarnished remnants of gold leaf that still clung to the vaulted ceiling. Cold wind whistled through vacant corridors where hundreds of servants had once attended his every need.

  "Traitors," he muttered, his voice echoing in the emptiness. "Ungrateful parasites."

  Five centuries of rule had been reduced to this—a single decaying castle that still bore his family crest, though the stone was now cracked and weathered. Orlov himself seemed to mirror his surroundings. Once imposing in his aristocratic splendor, he now moved with the jerky motions of the desperately hungry. What remained of his ceremonial robes hung in tattered shreds from his emaciated frame. The once-rich fabric was now stiff with decades of grime, dust, and stained with evidence of his recent feeding—the telltale rusty brown of animal blood that no vampire of standing would ever permit upon their person. Cobwebs clung to his shoulders, and the hem of his robe left trails in the thick dust coating the floor, suggesting he'd worn the same filthy garments for years, perhaps decades.

  Animal blood.

  He paused at a spot on the wall where a great mirror had once hung, now just a lighter rectangur patch on the faded wallpaper, the mirror itself sold decades ago for a week's worth of blood. He leaned close to a shard of broken gss wedged in a crack in the wall—the only reflective surface remaining in the entire citadel. What it revealed was horrifying enough. His aristocratic features had sharpened to skeletal proportions, skin stretched taut over prominent cheekbones, yered with the grime of centuries. His once-immacute hair was a matted, filthy nest that hadn't been washed or combed in decades. Yellow-brown stains marked his chin and neck from countless messy animal feedings, and long, twisted fingernails curled from his unwashed hands like talons. But it was his eyes—those eyes that had once commanded the terror and respect of thousands—that revealed his true deterioration. They constantly darted about with the wild, unfocused quality of a creature long lost to coherent thought, occasionally fixing on things that weren't there.

  "Still Archduke," he whispered to his fractured reflection in the gss shard, running a bckened, twisted fingernail along the jagged edge. He giggled suddenly, a high-pitched sound that echoed eerily through the empty hall, before snapping back to seriousness. "Still Archduke. Always Archduke," he muttered, having one of the lucid moments that occasionally pierced through his madness.

  The title had become both mantra and lifeline. In the two centuries since his territory had colpsed, Orlov had lost everything except the ancient designation bestowed upon him in the early days after the Evolution. That single word—Archduke—was all that separated him from final, irreversible disgrace.

  He turned at a sound that did not belong in his empty domain—the purr of an engine. Not horses' hooves on stone, but the smooth, continuous hum of modern machinery. Orlov moved to the cracked window and looked down at the overgrown courtyard below, his face contorting in disgust.

  A sleek bck vehicle with darkened windows had come to a stop at the foot of the grand staircase. Its polished surface reflected the moonlight obscenely, technology made manifest in a pce that had rejected it for centuries. The very presence of such a modern conveyance in his ancestral courtyard felt like deliberate provocation.

  "Lucius," he spat the name like a curse, though he knew the Archduke would never soil himself by visiting personally. "Always sending his minions to do his dirty work."

  The vehicle's door opened with pneumatic precision. A figure emerged—tall, impeccably dressed in the modern style that blended traditional vampire formality with subtle contemporary elements. Orlov recognized the uniform immediately. The Messenger Corps of the Council of Archdukes, established during the Second Crimson Games over two centuries ago.

  Orlov retreated from the window, his mind racing. He had received no communication from the outside world in decades. The periodic blood deliveries he had once relied upon had ceased when he could no longer pay for them. What could possibly warrant direct contact now, after so many years of isotion?

  The great doors of his throne room—doors that had once required six human servants to open—creaked on rusted hinges as the messenger pushed them aside with one hand. The vampire's entrance was perfectly calcuted: formal enough to acknowledge Orlov's technical rank, yet subtly diminished to reflect his fallen status.

  "Archduke Orlov," the messenger began, executing a bow precisely one degree shallower than protocol demanded for an Archduke in good standing. "I bear an official communication from the Council of Archdukes."

  Orlov drew himself up, summoning every ounce of dignity his starved frame could muster. "Proceed."

  The messenger approached with measured steps, removing a sealed document from within his formal coat. The parchment was cream-colored and thick, bearing the unified seal of all four remaining Archdukes. Orlov's hands trembled slightly as he accepted it, though he tried to disguise the motion as impatience.

  "You may withdraw," he commanded, as though he still had a court in attendance.

  The messenger remained impassive. "I am instructed to await verbal confirmation of your understanding of the contents, Archduke."

  Irritation fshed across Orlov's gaunt features, but he turned away to break the seal. The parchment unfolded with a weight that seemed to transcend its physical form. His eyes moved rapidly across the elegant script, widening as he absorbed the document's contents.

  By unanimous decree of the Council of Archdukes, you are hereby summoned to appear before the full Council in three nights' time to address grave concerns regarding your capacity to uphold the dignity and responsibilities of your title.

  Specific charges include: Failure to maintain territorial sovereignty, abandonment of noble subjects, dereliction of blood resource management, inability to uphold aristocratic standards of appearance and conduct, and consumption of animal blood in contravention of your own published edicts on vampire dignity.

  You are required to present yourself before the Council to demonstrate your continued worthiness to bear the title of Archduke. Failure to appear will result in judgment in absentia.

  The document trembled in his hands. The nguage was formal, diplomatic even, but the threat was unmistakable. They meant to strip him of his title—the st vestige of his former glory, his final asset in a world that had moved forward without him.

  "This is..." he began, struggling to maintain composure, "this is outrageous. By what right does the Council presume to evaluate an Archduke appointed at the Evolution itself?"

  The messenger's expression remained neutral, though a slight flicker of disgust crossed his features as he caught the full stench of Orlov's unwashed body and filthy garments. He took an almost imperceptible step backward before replying, "By the right established in the Ancient Charter of Governance, Article Seven, Section Three: 'An Archduke who fails to maintain the fundamental standards of the position may be evaluated by unanimous consent of his peers.' Your own signature appears on that very document, Archduke Orlov."

  A cold realization washed over him. The provision had been his idea—a mechanism to remove any Archduke who showed progressive leanings or sympathy toward humans. He had intended it as a safeguard against ideological contamination, never imagining it would one day be wielded against him.

  "And how am I expected to travel to this... tribunal?" Orlov demanded, gesturing to the window where the modern vehicle waited. "You know well I reject such technological abominations."

  "Provision has been made for your traditional preferences, Archduke," the messenger replied with practiced smoothness. "A carriage of suitable design will arrive shortly to convey you to the Council chambers in neutral territory. The Council anticipated your objection and has ensured you can maintain your principles during transit."

  The calcuted nature of the arrangement struck Orlov like a physical blow. They had eliminated every possible excuse for non-compliance. The same rigid adherence to tradition that he had always championed was now being used to ensure he could not escape judgment.

  "I require time to prepare," he said, his voice hollow.

  "Three nights have been allotted for your preparation, as specified in the summons," the messenger responded. "The carriage will arrive on the third night at dusk. I am instructed to inform you that you will be received with all courtesies due your current station."

  Current station. The qualifier hung in the air between them, pregnant with implication. Not historical rank or traditional status, but his present, diminished reality.

  The messenger bowed again—precisely the same inadequate degree as before—and turned to leave.

  "Wait," Orlov called, a note of desperation creeping into his voice despite his efforts. "What evidence do they cim to have of these... allegations?"

  The messenger paused at the doorway. "I am not privy to the specific evidence, Archduke. However, I believe the Council has been collecting documentation for some considerable time. Decades, perhaps centuries."

  With that parting revetion, the messenger departed, leaving Orlov alone in his vast, empty throne room, the summons still clutched in his trembling hand.

  He moved to the broken window once more, watching as the modern vehicle departed, its engine humming with revolting efficiency. The sound faded, leaving only the wind's mournful keening through the abandoned corridors of his citadel.

  Panic rose within him like a tide. For two hundred years, he had clung to his title as a drowning man might clutch at flotsam. It was all that remained of his former glory—the single thread that still connected him to the vampire aristocracy he had once dominated. Without it, he would be nothing. Worse than nothing—a common vampire, one who had fallen from the greatest heights to the lowest depths.

  The irony was not lost on him. He who had judged so many others as unworthy, who had stripped titles and nds from nobles for the slightest infractions against traditional values, now faced judgment by those same standards. The very criteria he had used to condemn others would now determine his fate.

  As the night deepened around him, Archduke Orlov—st of the traditional faction, once ruler of territories the size of nations—fell to his knees among the dust and debris of his fallen court. For the first time in centuries, he felt the cold grip of terror seizing his heart.

  He was about to be judged by his own standards. And by those merciless criteria, he had already failed.