Following Marcia's untimely burial, Cornelius turned to Mircalla with a delighted face.

"It worked!" he cried. "It really worked!"

"It did," she cooed back at him, reaching out to caress his face. Her cold fingers sent electricity down his face.

"What do we do now, my love?" he asked her, smitten.

"We make our escape from Karnstein," Mircalla responded lowly, a sultry smile on her red lips.

"Escape from Karnstein," Cornelius echoed, subdued. "Yes. As you wish, my love." then the happy couple fled the ruins of the chapel, leaving the blood of Marcia there to dry and harden and they slipped away into the night.

As it would be revealed, Mircalla's first death sent Cornelius over the edge. When he discovered what she was, though, and when she spread the lie that Magdalena's death would save her, Cornelius became invigorated again. He and the others searched fervently for Magdalena but even when Mircalla spilled her blood and revealed that she only been using them to give herself more power, Cornelius never swayed from his love for her. Instead, when she came to him in a dream with the intent of taunting him about his failures, he reveled in her return. So surprised was she by his smitten reception of her despite her deceit, that she took him back under her wing as an ally, knowing how precious he could be to her. From then on, he was her worker, obeying her every desire. All those months spent hunting for Mircalla were no more than a ruse.

Then, when Cornelius came to his friends with the whole "chapel and spellbook, put her to rest" plan, that had been another thing straight from Mircalla's own mouth. The spellbook and chants were useless, made up by Mircalla in the dead of night and then placed away in a secret corner of the library. That consecration and the burial had been no more than an elaborate show. Never once did any of that stuff work. It was merely another ruse to get the world to believe that Mircalla had finally been vanquished despite this being the opposite of the truth. In addition, Mircalla insinuating that Cornelius had brought her three surviving sisters to her in response to a command was both foreshadowing and a way to throw the sisters off guard and give Cornelius one last chance to prove himself as "a simple good guy". And, even though Cornelius had stabbed her, that had all been acted as well. Mircalla only pretended to die. Once it was over, however, Cornelius came to get her, retrieving her from her tomb, but he and Mircalla both knew that they would need a replacement body. That was where Marcia came into play. After slipping a poison into her drink, Cornelius was able to ambush Marcia easily and that led to now. The eldest Karnstein hadn't even suspected because of Cornelius' grandiose display in the chapel battle, pretending to betray Mircalla when instead he had been betraying the others the whole time. With Marcia taking Mircalla's place deep below ground, the pair was free to escape from Karnstein.

That night, under the cover of clouds, the pair fled the kingdom. They spent the rest of their lives together, traveling. Never once did either of them look back. Not even when Karnstein began to return to chaos and, ultimately, civil war, did either of them look back.

"Ferenc was a weak man," Mircalla shrugged when Cornelius approached her about the fact that her old kingdom was suffering a war. "If he had held any sense or strength, he wouldn't have failed his kingdom enough to stir up rebellion. He deserves whatever he gets and I hope he rots along with Mama and my other sisters!" the vampire added callously. Her words now were cruel, but Cornelius couldn't agree more, having never liked any of the other sisters anyway. Not even the ones he'd kept an alliance with for almost a year as they tried to "save" Mircalla. No, to Cornelius, Mircalla was the only good Karnstein and she was perfect the way she was. Everyone else had to go and he felt no regret over betraying them.

But even this could not last for, in time, Mircalla allowed her desire for blood and power to override her desire for Cornelius and she grew increasingly disdainful of him. The man she once adored with all her being became a mere plaything to scorn.

"Please, Mircalla!" he insisted. "Why won't you come to me anymore!?" Cornelius cried when he heard of another affair Mircalla had started.

"Because you do not please me anymore," she replied calmly. "You are far too old!" she claimed, but this wasn't that true. Cornelius was only in his mid 30s. It just seemed old because Mircalla hadn't aged a day since her transformation. She still looked 18. Cornelius continued to plead with his lover to return to him, but now that his usefulness had come to an end in the eyes of Mircalla, she disregarded him.

"Darling, darling!" she declared at last. "I do love you, but I believe you and I must part! We simply were not meant to be!" she cried. Then before Cornelius, her faithful goon and lover, could even open his mouth to beg again, she had vanished. She left him alone without a second look and he never saw her again. He was left heartbroken while she was off to see the world, free as a bird. She ran from country to country, exploring all of Europe at her own pace. Along the way, she dabbled deeper and deeper into the dark arts and befriended many more creatures just like her, equally powerful, selfish and cruel. At last, she was amongst her own kind! She would no longer be dragged down by petty mortals such as her family or Cornelius. They would all rot in the earth where they belonged while she would stay young and strong forever, ruling the world and getting to claim all of its wonders for herself as it should've always been!

The only time Mircalla ever looked back was about 25 years after her escape from Karnstein. The castle was literally falling apart, several stones crashing down the side of the old castle as she approached it. Nobody was left inside. Everyone was either dead or had moved elsewhere. Mother and sisters were all dead and Ferenc, it turned out, had died in the middle of his rebellion. The people were sick of him and being old and alone meant that he was a very easy target. Mircalla did think she found his head. It was only a skull at this point but it was still impaled upon a particularly wicked pole that stood just a few yards away from the crumbling castle's door. Once upon a time, those gates and doors had been formidable, now they were hanging open on their hinges with their master's head displayed like a decoration right behind them. Cornelius' kingdom wasn't faring much better, Hans having finally died of old age while all of his sons ran off to bigger and better places. The empty castle had been overtaken but the owners did not last long there before Ferenc's civil was reached them and tore them all down into ruin as well.

After taking that quick sojourn home, however, Mircalla left again and, this time, she did not return. Instead, she continued her vicious killing sprees as the creature of the night that she was, taking the time to finish picking off the rest of her bloodline which all came in the form of nieces and nephews around the world. It took awhile, but she did manage to kill every single one of them off and if any of them managed to grow old enough to have kids of their own, those kids did not last long at all. Not a single living being with Karnstein blood was left alive. Mircalla hadn't been joking when she said it was her goal to be the last and greatest living Karnstein. The rest were put under the ground to keep her parents and sisters company as they wasted away in their tombs.

Cornelius, meanwhile, fell to ruin. With Mircalla gone, his heart was broken. With his kingdom gone, his financial resources were broken. Cornelius had gone from a baron to a literal Nobody in seconds flat. He literally had nothing. He had no one and nowhere to go to and he had nothing to help him get there. He was cursed with that bitter, painful, lonely, broken existence for the rest of his life. But then at last, as he got older and older, Cornelius began to regret simply letting Mircalla go that night. A part of him still loved her even though she betrayed even him, but when he was nearing the end of his life, he began to fear and regret.

"I shouldn't have let her go! I should've have let her go! I shouldn't have let that monster loose!" he cursed himself as his voice cracked and creaked. "I should have tried to stop her or find her again! I was a fool for just letting her go!" he despaired.

He spent his last few years on earth attempting to undo all his work, pouring over novels, notes and spellbooks in attempt to find something that might put Mircalla to rest again. It was a role he hadn't played since boyhood, but it was what he was doing now and this time, he was doing it for real. At last, he found something. There was a way to stop Mircalla. All he had to do was kill her and then ruin her coffin so that not only would she be dead, but she would have no place to go to for safety if she did manage to survive or resurrect again. A vampire without a coffin was a king without a castle. A vampire without a coffin was nothing but a dead man waiting for the reaper to come. If Cornelius could just remember where her coffin was exactly, reach it, then kill her and it, the reign of terror would finally be over.

But that was easier said than done because while Cornelius was an old man, Mircalla was still only 18 years in body. It didn't matter that she returned to her coffin at a predictable time every morning, she was still no pushover and if anything, she was even harder to trick now than before because her years of life on Earth had given her all sorts of cunning and wisdom to evade those who would do her harm. That did not hinder Cornelius, however. Instead, he made the lonely trek back to the Karnstein chapel where it all started and, with a wood stake in hand and the morning sun at his back, he dug up the countess' coffin. Cornelius felt his heart begin to pound, though, when he opened the coffin's lid. It was sunrise and the coffin was empty.

"Yes, you are very right to be afraid of me, O Cornelius…" a feminine voice hissed from behind the old man. Cornelius turned around in pure terror and his eyes widened in horror to see Mircalla in all her vampiric glory staring down at him gloatingly. She still had not aged a day and even though it was clear that the morning light was causing her pain, it wasn't nearly enough to do more than make her uncomfortable. Her eyes were wide and red as she approached him slowly. His shaking arm raised a feeble wood stake that she scoffed at.

"Stay back, demon!" he whimpered, voice weak and throaty both from fear and age.

"Surely my love doesn't believe a splinter can kill a lion?" she asked, but Cornelius still took a brave step forward. Mircalla tossed her head back and gave a howling laugh that echoed off the ruins of her chapel. It was all that remained after the civil war that destroyed Karnstein in her absence, her father being publically beheaded before having that head carted around the kingdom. Nobody mourned him. Nobody would mourn Cornelius either. Not even the worms Mircalla tossed him to after draining his life blood away. He would never make another escape from Karnstein again.

But Mircalla wasn't done. Instead, she knew that Cornelius had come far too close to killing her. All of his notes, theories, and discoveries were correct. Instead, she needed a new plan… Using some dark magic of her own that a few of her friends had taught her over the decades, the young woman realized that there was one viable option to strengthen her such that this close call might never happen again. That one option stated that the blood of a family member would make her even stronger than she already was and would allow her the strength to survive an attack like this. It would make her more aware of it and would allow her to, possibly, survive if it succeeded.

In short, if Mircalla wanted to protect herself better, she needed to drink the blood of a Karnstein. But if they were all dead, who did she have? Oh, wait! There was actually one last Karnstein still floating around out there, a little girl. Mircalla had actually been in the middle of trying to hunt her down, even risking staying out a bit later than normal to find her. That was why Cornelius had opened the coffin only to find it empty. She was out late hunting and had come back in time to see him entering her tomb. Had she been in bed on time like normal, he surely would've won. It was only dumb luck and her own desire to kill her kin that kept her out late long enough to witness what Cornelius was going to do to her. That was why his attack unnerved her so much, even if she didn't show it. It was just far too close a call. Only luck had saved her.

Now it looked like luck was going to save her again. By the sun preventing her from killing her last relative, this little tidbit about drinking the blood of your kin still stood for her. Had she succeeded, she would've really been out of luck because that little girl was all Mircalla had left. Thanks to her luck, though, that child was still alive and Mircalla still had a chance. As this thought struck the vampire, she raced back to the place where she knew her relative to be, ignoring the sun's harsh glare. She peered in the window and heaved a sigh of relief. The child was totally fine. She would have to stay that way, too, if Mircalla wanted her plan to work…

So, for the next 15 years, Mircalla watched over her last surviving relative and kept her as safe as possible. The moment the woman had several children to carry on the Karnstein line, however, Mircalla attacked. The poor woman was diagnosed to have died in her sleep from some strange sickness, but Mircalla knew otherwise.

Then, her gaze was set upon the four children and the cycle repeated itself. So now, Mircalla had something of a fountain of youth/strength in the form of these children. So long as at least one survived long enough to reproduce, Mircalla's terrifying legacy was safe. She took one last peek at the four little ones, only one of which was old enough to understand why mama hadn't woken up, then she darted back to the safety of her coffin. Ever since Cornelius, nobody had ever even found the old box and she was relived. It was time for her to sleep and she quite liked knowing that she would be able to rest without interruption or fear. So, as she lay down and shut her eyes and the coffin door, she was already dreaming.

She was dreaming of her own future and all the Hell she would raise as her legacy continued, her little fountain of strength secured. No matter how far she or her kin went, she would ensure that they would never truly escape from Karnstein and she would always find them in the end. She wasn't sure which of the four children she wanted to prey upon first, but she knew she would do it eventually and when the time came, she would come to them in the guise of a friend the same way she had once played Cornelius who had, in turn, played her sisters. Of course, she would need a new name in order to pull it off without suspicion. Her smile was sanguine as she thought of names that she might like. Some that crossed her sleepy mind were Millarca or Callamir or Callmira, or maybe even… Carmilla.

AN: If you're reading this, congrats for finishing my story! To recap, as you can see, it's a Carmilla prequel. Predominately, it was for the book. The basic plot is that Karnstein was a fearsome kingdom, headed by a retired general and his seven friendly daughters but as the years roll by, things change. Finally, vampires enter the picture and we see how evil Mircalla can really get and her lover, who is mentioned in the book, becomes her devoted servant and helps her lure her entire family to death. Then, once every last Karnstein has fallen, Mircalla and her lover escape and spend a good few years exploring the world before Mircalla turns her back even on him and leaves him to die alone while she goes on without him. In time, he tries to repent and kill Mircalla but she stops him just in time and finds a new way to prevent that from ever happening again. She just needs the blood of her surviving relatives so, through one of her nieces, this bloodline is propagated and her MO of befriending and then haunting her bloodline begins. Hope you liked it!