Prologue

“I died when I turned 18. I died!”

The words echoed in the dimly lit room; she spoke normally, but it seemed like a whisper fighting against the oppressive silence that surrounded Karnstein Castle. Mircalla of Karnstein, her voice filled with pain, spoke into the empty room, her words carried into the world and vanished by the cold air that crept through the old stone walls.

In November 1680, in the middle of the coldest night of autumn, Mircalla was born, the fifth and last child of Count Leopold and Lady Seraphina of Karnstein. Her birth was a day of sadness, for her mother died during her birth, leaving behind a grieving husband and a newborn daughter destined for a life of solitude.

Count Leopold, a man of stern demeanour and a cold heart, turned his gaze away from his youngest child, consumed by grief and resentment over the loss of his beloved wife. From the first second, he saw his wife in Mircalla, and it broke his heart again and again.

Instead, he showered Mircalla’s older siblings with attention, especially her older brothers Thaddeus, Octavian, and Lucian, while Mircalla wandered the halls of the castle alone and learned to cope on her own.

Her only consolation was her older sister, Ophelia, who helped raise her, but Ophelia’s marriage to a British prince drove her to faraway lands. Mircalla, left behind in Styria’s huge, abandoned castle, or schloss, found herself helpless in a sea of loneliness. Her only companions were the mute servants, who took care of her every need but rarely wore a smile.

Surrounded by the oppressive darkness of the Styrian Forest, Mircalla longed for company, for a soul mate with whom she could share her days and nights. Just someone to talk to, someone to listen to her. But the castle walls remained impenetrable, and the forest whispered secrets she could not decipher.

As her 18th birthday approached, a glimmer of hope that had been thought dead ignited in Mircalla’s heart. Perhaps the masked ball held in her honour would put an end to her loneliness. Perhaps amongst the masked revellers she would find the friend she so desperately sought, or perhaps she would even find her soul mate. The night of her 18th birthday was her night of unlimited possibilities, or so she thought.

She did not know that her fate was already sealed and that the shadows lurking in the corners of the castle had no good in store for her.

“I died when I turned 18, didn’t I?”