A Crown of Ice and Bone

Spring, 1242. The Mongol horde has turned east as suddenly as it came, and half of Hungary lies dead behind it. In the ruins of Buda-Pest, a Prince of the Damned holds court over ashes. He rules in the name of a sire whom no living Cainite has heard speak in a hundred years. The elders who let the kingdom fall have lost all credit. The lords of the mountains are coming down to reclaim the plain. The throne of Peter stands empty, and no one in Christendom can say with authority what is holy and what must burn. Into that silence come allies offering gold, faith and salvation. Each is sincere, each is necessary, and each carries a price that will not be named until it is collected. You are the Prince’s instruments: too young to matter, too useful to spare. Every choice you make will rebuild something and cost something that cannot be bought back. By the summer of 1243 the kingdom will turn west, east, or into the dark between them. What you build will decide which way, and whether anyone remembers that it was you.