Alaric Ghastwraith
the Shadowvein Count
Named for the old king who bled out on his own throne and whose ghost still casts a shadow in the great hall, and for the red tide that stains the marble steps no matter how many times they are scrubbed.
You can step into any shadow that has ever held a dying breath and emerge from another such shadow across the world — but each crossing costs you a year from the far end of your memory, and you never know which year until it is gone.
- Familiar
- A death's-head hawkmoth named Requiem
- Bloodline
- House Duskfall
You pour a glass of wine every evening at sundown, though you haven't drunk it in three centuries. You let it breathe, then you watch it turn to vinegar by dawn. It is the only ritual you have left that does not require a corpse. You came by the name Ghastwraith after a mistake — a merchant who saw you walk through a wall and screamed until his heart gave out. The name stuck, and you kept the wall. It is still there, with a handprint in the plaster.