Tim Warner was the favorite, most trusted son of Ari Cottrell, and when everything in the familiar Virehnai world began to go all to hell in a handbasket, Ari was in the middle of contemplating stepping down, and allowing his child to run VarenCorp in his stead. Tim wasn’t merely Ari’s sired child - he was biologically related to him.

Not everyone was happy about the potential change in regime…and that’s putting it lightly.

Tim was under a shadow, and had been for centuries. He was something known as a zath’rein: a ghost. That was the Virehn word for when someone had been the subject of a tribunal - found guilty, sentenced to death…and for some reason…the death sentence wasn’t carried out.

Tim had earned his sentence, for sure. He never understood it, though. Really. He didn’t. His blood remembered a situation his brain never could. He would never have understood it, if not for a chance meeting with his sister Maddalena Varga after his father’s memorial service.

His sister told him a story he’d never heard before. The first part? He knew.

The horrible night at Focaria Rubra (Scarlet Hearth) in Zurich was the cause of all his problems. He went to a party. He knew that the humans’ alcohol was going to be spiked with one of his father’s alchemical concoctions: zar’quess. Virehnai could drink alcohol…and it didn’t have any effect. When you gave a human zar’quess, made from the spiny thornsap plant, it made them quite drunk quickly…but more important…it allowed whoever drank from them to feel the effects of the alcohol. It was one of his sire’s more popular alchemical concoctions.

This night? This party? Him, his Clan brother Hans, and his friend Gabriel Rochat…went batshit crazy, and killed/drained every human there, along with eight Virehn. Tim had no memory of it at all, but like they say, Virehn Zuth Akret. The blood always remembers, and his blood remembered committing murders his mind didn’t.

That was where his sister Maddie’s story came in….and centuries after the fact, filled in the blanks. “Our sister Corinna overheard Father and Hassan discussing that night at Focaria Rubra…” she began. She proceeded to tell him a story: he and Gabriel shared a human woman named Hannah. Hannah was the Virehnai equivalent of a ‘trojan horse.’ She was dosed with a treacherous medicinal, that his father had developed called Naq’thel Veyr**,** Obedience of the Void.” Maddie proceeded to tell him that any Virehn that Void was given to would be like a blank slate, and the human that served as the punchbowl -in this case, his favorite, Hannah - would die shortly after. After feeding from the dosed human, any Virehn given an order, they would carry out. Kill themself or another? Done. Turn someone? Fuck someone? Done, no questions asked. Unfortunately, once it wore off, whoever took Void wouldn’t remember what they did, but their blood would. The blood wouldn’t remember the potion, though…only feeding. Unfortunately for Tim, he was that person.

It came as a shock to Tim to learn that his father was the person who was the cause for centuries of grief. Still, he couldn’t understand why. He was Father’s favorite. WHY? Why would his father have used him in such a callous way?

Unfortunately, Maddie had an answer for that, too.

“Father had two problems, and you and Gabriel were his solutions. Father needed his plaything Renata dead, and he ordered Gabriel to kill her. She was a cousin of Vasilisa, if you remember. It’s hard to make a royal simply…disappear. Everyone there at that party saw her die along with all the others, and the whole affair was blamed on an overdose of Zar’Quess. It didn’t make her family happy in the least, but they never assumed an act of treachery. The other problem? Maddie’s words twisted in his heart like a hot knife.

Father thought you were too close to Elise. He was afraid that you would either declare your undying love for her, or end up accidentally forming a blood bond between you, so he ordered you to kill her. They weren’t testing a stronger version of Zar’quess. He and his partner Tash tested the Naq’thel Veyr, the Void, weeks before. This was it’s first actual use, and dosing the humans’ alcohol with Zar’quess at the party was merely a cover. He didn’t expect so many people to die. He realized after the fact that there was an unfortunate reaction between the two concoctions, that only served to increase its’ effect. He felt lucky that it didn’t outright kill you, or leave you witless. Everything that happened that night played in his favor, and none EVER suspected him of foul play against Renata or Elise, which he needed. Father used you and Gabe to do his dirty work, and tie up what he felt were loose ends that could unravel at any time.”

He HAD been in love with Elise Rochat. He had asked Father for permission to make a simple blood oath with her. Nothing so formal as Khestara Khar’virehn. His father had put him off, and accused him of weakness….and then drugged him to make him kill the love of his life.

It was a hell of a thing.