Sigurd Erikson dragged the dead wolf across the stone floor by its hind legs. It was the largest beast in Dracula's menagerie, but a beast still had to breathe to win a crown. This one had drowned in a frozen river two nights ago. Sigurd wanted it back. He wanted it fiercer than any monster ever bred. Then Dracula would name him master of the Hall of Monsters, and his Nordic Clan would finally outrank the rest. The hall rose around him in black stone. Bat-winged gargoyles hung from the arches. Orange light burned through tall windows and painted the floor gold. Sigurd laid the wolf beneath the biggest window and knelt beside it. Its fur was stiff. Its ribs did not move. "You cannot fix death with muscle," a voice said behind him. Sigurd turned. The Crimson Prințesă stood in the doorway. Dracula's daughter. The only blood bender alive. Her red gown dragged a veil three miles long behind her. He had begged her before to raise his wolves. Last time she nearly died doing it, and he still owed that debt to her father's crown. He hated needing her. He needed her anyway. "Then fix it with blood," Sigurd said. He spread his arms toward the beast. "Give me a monster no clan can match. Do that and Maria's name gets spoken with mine." She crossed the floor without hurry. Her nails traced the ruby set into her headdress. "The stone carries stored moonlight now," she said. "I no longer pay with my own life. But the moonlight burns fast, Sigurd. Waste it and it is gone." "Then don't waste it." Maria knelt. She pressed one hand to the wolf's chest and one to her ruby. The stone flared. Light ran down her arm and sank into the dead fur. The wolf's body jerked. Its legs kicked stone. Its eyes snapped open, and they burned brighter than any window in the hall. It did not rise like a trained beast. It rose like a storm. The wolf lunged, snapped the iron chain Sigurd had staked, and drove him flat on his back. Its jaws closed a breath from his throat. He laughed and shoved its skull sideways with both hands. "Fierce enough for you?" Maria stood and watched, calm. "It obeys nothing now. Not me. Not you. I filled it with fury and nothing else." Sigurd wrestled the beast off and stood, grinning through blood. He had his monster. The most savage creature ever to breathe in Walachia. But he saw the ruby on Maria's brow. Its glow had thinned to a dull ember. The moonlight was nearly spent, and the wolf would not take a leash. "So I have the greatest monster in history," he said, wiping his jaw. "And no way to control it." Maria turned toward the door. "That," she said, "is your problem now."