Prologue
Valtoria was born of fear and courage.
I grew up hearing that phrase as if it were an ancient prayer, repeated in the hallways of the Academy and in my grandfather’s solemn speeches. To many, it was just history. To me, it was destiny—a shadow that walked beside me long before I knew the meaning of inheritance.
They said that, among frozen mountains and dense forests, the first Van Helsing raised walls not only of stone, but of discipline.
I can imagine the sound of pickaxes hitting the rock, the smell of cold earth mixed with the sweat of hunters, and the biting wind that carried promises of hardship and protection.
I can almost see the calloused hands, covered in dust and dried blood, raising not just a fortress… but an ideal. A place where fear would not rule alone.
There, men and women swore to defend humanity against vampires, werewolves, and witches who devastated entire villages.
The oath wasn’t just words—it was spilled blood, it was the echo of screams on hunting nights, it was the weight of every body that didn’t return.
It was the silence after the battle.
The kind of silence that is never peace… only the absence of survivors.
For centuries, blood ran without rest.
Sometimes, when I listen to these stories, I can almost taste the metal in the air, as if the very land of Valtoria had been watered by pain and vengeance.
As if every step taken on that soil was over memories that were never truly buried.
Until, amidst the massacre, some creatures dared to ask for peace.
And that, in itself, already seemed impossible.
That was when the Treaty of Valtoria was born.
I imagine the room where it was signed: flickering candles, the smell of parchment and ink, the heavy silence before each signature.
But I also imagine the glances.
Distrust hidden behind diplomacy.
Hatred disguised as necessity.
Humans and supernaturals sitting side by side, trying to believe—or pretending to believe—that coexistence was possible.
Perhaps no one there truly believed it.
Perhaps they all knew that it wasn’t the end of the war… just an elegant pause.
Over time, vampires came to control the financial districts, werewolves took on military roles, witches preserved arcane traditions, elves mastered diplomacy and laws.
Valrantis transformed into a delicate balance between the ancient and the modern; between shadows and light.
Glass skyscrapers reflected gothic castles.
Drones flew over streets where ancestral symbols were still drawn by hand.
The future and the past coexisted… but never in complete harmony.
But peace… peace was never full.
It never is.
Hatred never disappeared—it just learned to wear a suit, sign decrees, and circulate in the corridors of parliament.
It learned to smile in public… and conspire in silence.
Discussions echoed like contained roars.
In the newspapers, headlines spoke of balance, but people’s eyes still carried fear.
Fear of what has already happened.
And, especially… of what might happen again.
And at the center of all this tension, there was always the prophecy.
The Prophecy of Ancestral Fury.
Whispered as a legend.
Studied as science.
Feared as truth.
Written on ancient parchments, reinterpreted by jurists and scientists over the centuries, it said that a Van Helsing heir would awaken forces capable of saving or destroying the kingdom.
A promise… or a threat.
It depends on who tells the story.
It depends on who has the most to lose.
For a long time, it was nothing more than a myth.
A useful story to maintain control.
Or fear.
Until, in the winter of 1999, I was born.
Snow covered Valrantis like a white mantle, and the Academy bells rang as if announcing not a child, but an omen.
As if time itself had stopped for a moment… just to listen.
I don’t remember that day, of course, but I grew up hearing every detail:
the cold that burned the skin,
the silence of the streets,
and the look on my grandfather’s face when he held me for the first time.
They say he took a few seconds to speak.
A rare thing.
He always said he felt fear at that moment.
Not of me…
but of what the world would do to me.
And perhaps… of what I would do to the world.
From my first breath, I wasn’t just Carolina.
I was the Van Helsing heir.
I was the prophecy.
I was the threat.
I was the hope.
And as I grew, every look, every word, every silence reminded me of that.
Servants who bowed their heads a little lower than usual.
Teachers who analyzed my every move as if it were a sign.
Politicians who smiled too much… or too little.
Little did they know—little did I know—that two decades later, the same bells that announced my birth would echo as a warning of betrayal.
That those who clamored for order would use my name as a political weapon.
That alliances would be broken because of me.
That my own blood would divide the kingdom.
I didn’t choose this destiny.
I never chose it.
But it chose me.
Like an invisible mark.
Like a promise that cannot be undone.
And, deep down, Valtoria always knew it.
It always knew the balance was too fragile to last.
That peace was just an interval.
From the first Van Helsing…
to the last breath of the walls that still echo my name.
And perhaps…
when those walls finally fall,
no one will be left to tell the difference
between salvation…
and destruction.
