About the Book
Deep within the labyrinthine heart of the 17th century, where forests cloak sprawling estates and superstition clings to every shadow, stands the Horvath mansion. It is a chilling monument to an age of ghosts and forgotten lore, its weather-beaten stone façade, adorned with silent gargoyles and crumbling spires, rising eerily from an isolated, mist-shrouded land. Just beyond the mansion's wrought-iron gates, a venerable, moss-laden cemetery lie, its crooked gravestones whispering tales of centuries past, an omnipresent reminder of mortality's cold embrace. Within these formidable, yet increasingly desolate walls, resides Countess Elizaveta of Horvath, a siren of unrivaled, almost supernatural beauty, whose porcelain skin and raven hair are legendary throughout high society. She commands not only wealth and status but a captivating allure, known particularly for her infamous, mystical parties.
Time, a relentless river, flows on, carrying Elizaveta deeper into her isolated world until the very night she encounters Tivadar. He is a creature of profound, unsettling allure, an immortal being whose bizarre transformations from raven to man leave her utterly spellbound. One moment, he would be a sleek, midnight bird taking flight from her window, and the next, he would coalesce into human form beside her, his eyes holding the wisdom of forgotten ages. Elizaveta, who had always commanded admiration, finds herself completely and irrevocably besotted, falling into a deep, consuming passion that eclipses all reason. She loves him with an intensity that defies mortal understanding, yet this very love becomes her torment. It is this burgeoning despair, this terrifying awareness of her fleeting mortality, that makes her vulnerable.
An old woman, Draconia, a spectral figure with eyes that hold the glint of forgotten knowledge and predatory hunger, makes her insidious way into the mansion. She appears during Elizaveta's darkest hour, promising not just preservation, but apotheosis. Draconia swears she possesses the ancient, forbidden knowledge of blood rituals - the ones that can not only arrest the relentless march of time but reverse it, granting the Countess eternal youth and the immortality she so desperately craves to match her beloved Tivadar.
Under the old woman's insidious influence, Elizaveta slowly succumbs to a lucid dark spell. Ensnared, the Countess begins to proceed with increasingly dreadful ceremonies within the mansion's hidden chambers. These are not mere incantations, but forbidden rites demanding unspeakable sacrifices, a grotesque inversion of life, each act staining her soul a deeper shade of black. Hoping to achieve her sacred, yet utterly corrupt desires - to forever bind herself to Tivadar in an ageless embrace - the Countess commits a series of petrifying crimes. Her once-beautiful hands, driven by Draconia's dark puppetry and her own escalating madness, become instruments of unspeakable horror.
Each transgression, each unspeakable act, solidifies her descent into profound depravity, weaving a macabre vision of human cruelty that would echo through the annals of history. For centuries to come, her name would be a chilling whisper, synonymous with the vilest of human evils, an evil reference etched into the very stones of the Horvath mansion and the shadowed lands surrounding it.
This haunting tale is inspired greatly by the life story of Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, a Hungarian noblewoman from the infamous Báthory family, who became an alleged serial killer and one of history's most notorious figures.
Different, daring, and an absolute masterpiece...
