The Crimson Prințesă knelt over a dead wolf and forced blood back into its veins. She was Dracula's daughter, princess of Walachia, and the first vampire to bend blood at will. Now that gift was killing her. She meant to master it fully, to become the shield that guarded every vampire and witch alive. But each time she reached into a corpse, the magic reached back. It fed on her own life force. The dead wolf's heart twitched. Then the cold crawled up her arms, and her red eyes dimmed. She let the wolf drop. Her hands shook. On the last casting she had reanimated two beasts for a Nordic lord and woke three days later on the stone floor. She could not keep paying for power with her own blood. So she came to the one person who understood death better than anyone. Her mother found her before she could call. The Mother swept into the chamber, her white wedding veil dragging far behind her through the corridor. She was queen of the Strigoi Vii witches, mistress of necromancy, the woman who had raised the dead for centuries. She looked at the wolf, then at her daughter's grey skin. "You are draining yourself into them," the Mother said. "You pour life into dead things and take none back." "Then teach me to stop," the Crimson Prințesă said. "I raise the dead with the moon's power. Not my own." The Mother touched the gold headdress on her daughter's brow, the ruby chains swaying against her cheek. "You have worn this how long?" "Since Father gave it to me." "It holds five hundred years of stored moonlight. You have been spending it and your blood at once." The Mother's voice stayed flat. "Stop feeding the spell with yourself. Feed it with the stone." The Crimson Prințesă turned back to the wolf. She closed her eyes and pulled, not from her veins this time, but from the ruby pendants at her temples. Warmth ran down through her fingers. The wolf's blood answered. Its legs jerked. Its chest rose. It stood, snarling, eyes bright with fury. And she felt nothing drain from her. Her hands were steady. Her sight held clear and sharp. "It works," she breathed. The Mother did not smile. She watched the ruby chains, now dull and clouded where they had glowed. "You drew a year's worth in a breath," she said. "The stone will not last long at that rate. Spend it, and you have nothing but your own blood again." The Crimson Prințesă stared at the darkened jewels. She had traded one danger for a clock. The headdress was already draining fast, and when it ran dry, her life force was the only fuel left. To become the protector she wanted to be, she would need far more moonlight than these stones could ever hold.