Florence, 1492
Aleksandr walked the marble halls of the Medici palace as if he owned it — because, in truth, he did. Not with deeds or titles, but with the fragile cords of fear and desire that bound mortal ambition to the necks of monsters.
The courtiers bowed as he passed. They knew him only as Signore Alexander di Norvegia, a foreign patron whose coffers never emptied, whose eyes were colder than any dagger. They called him a prince of merchants. A northern lord in exile. A devil in human skin.
All were true enough.
The Ættar had grown bold under his hand. By now, they numbered in the hundreds — witches, human familiars, fledgling vampires he'd shaped carefully before releasing them to feed his network across the continent. His symbol — a coiling serpent swallowing its tail — appeared in the secret corners of brothels, monasteries, and palazzos alike.
Tonight, the serpent curled around Florence's throat.
Aleksandr found Rebekah in the palazzo's walled garden — a blooming labyrinth under the soft lantern glow. She sat on the stone edge of a fountain, trailing her fingertips through the water. A mortal painter — young, trembling — knelt before her, sketching frantically by candlelight.
"Sit still, sweet lady," he begged.
Rebekah's smile was soft and cruel all at once. "Then draw me faster."
She saw Aleksandr long before he spoke. "Brother. Come to drag me away from my fun?"
Aleksandr's boots crunched the gravel path. "I need a word."
Rebekah sighed and rose, leaving the mortal to his half-finished masterpiece. She caught Aleksandr's arm as they walked deeper into the maze. "What is it now? Have the witches in Venice broken our truce again?"
"No." He paused by an ancient olive tree. The marble statue at its roots was half-swallowed by ivy — a goddess with her mouth open in eternal lament. "It's Mystic Falls."
Rebekah blinked. "That swamp? You still care for that place?"
"It's more than a swamp." Aleksandr traced a rune into the bark. "A convergence. A vein of ley lines as old as any in the Old World. There's power there — and people who remember."
"Remember us?" Her voice was sharp.
Aleksandr met her eyes. "Enough to know we're not gone. A witch's line survived the purges. They dream of us — the family who were wolves once, then devils."
She shivered, pressing closer to him. "Do we go back?"
"Not yet." He brushed her hair behind her ear. "But we will. One day, when the blood calls us home."
The catacombs beneath Florence
Finn lurked in the tunnels like a ghost — his hunger a thin wisp of a thing, never fully sated. He watched Aleksandr's lieutenants file into the candlelit chamber, each wearing the serpent sigil on rings or amulets. Men and women both, mortal and immortal. Some had been children when Aleksandr saved them from plagues and pogroms. Now they would kill or die for him without a breath of hesitation.
"Do you ever regret this?" Finn asked when they were alone.
Aleksandr sat on a stone throne carved with runes that glowed faintly with his Stigma's mark. "What is there to regret?"
"That you make us gods among cattle — yet we live like shadows." Finn's voice cracked. "Esther would weep to see us now."
Aleksandr's eyes flared red. "Esther is ash. And Father is nothing but a ghost gnawing at our heels. We endure."
Finn laughed — a broken sound. "And when you have all the crowns? When the world bows to your serpent — then what?"
Aleksandr rose. His shadow swallowed the flickering candles. "Then we build more. We shape the world until there is no corner where we are not sovereign."
Finn turned away. "There will be a reckoning. One day."
Aleksandr said nothing — because he knew it was true. But when that day came, he would stand ready.
1503
Kol leaned against the mossy altar, smirking. "So we're not to kill him yet?"
Aleksandr's lips twitched. "No, Kol. Leonardo da Vinci is far too useful alive."
Rebekah perched on the broken baptismal font, bare feet dangling. "He's mortal, Aleks. They all die eventually."
Aleksandr reached down, his thumb brushing a spot of ink off her chin. "Not if he becomes one of us."
Kol barked a laugh. "You'd make da Vinci a vampire? The man who dreams of flying machines and underwater suits?"
Aleksandr's eyes gleamed with the Stigma's crimson script. "Imagine what he could build for us if he had eternity."
Rebekah tilted her head, studying him with that sharp, knowing look only she ever dared. "Or he might fear you, run to the witches, and tell the world what you are."
Aleksandr didn't flinch. "Then he dies. Simple."
Kol tossed him a dagger, its silver blade glinting in the moonlight. "What about the Mystic Falls witches you sent me to find? I heard whispers of a new bloodline — a girl born under a comet."
Aleksandr caught the dagger midair, twirling it idly. "She will be the key. When the time is right, we will bind her to us — as the witches of old once bound our mother."
Kol whistled low. "You really are rewriting the world one rune at a time, big brother."
Aleksandr's smile was a blade in the dark. "I am. And when I am done — we will be unchallenged. Forever."
Florence burned, as all cities eventually did.
Aleksandr and his siblings slipped into the shadows when the Medici fell, taking gold and secrets with them. The Ættar did not vanish — it merely changed skins, like a serpent shedding old scales.
They moved through the centuries like ghosts in royal courts: a whisper in the ear of the Spanish king, a hidden hand guiding the merchant guilds of Amsterdam, a letter sealed with wax that dictated the rise of an English duke.
Each time, Aleksandr's power deepened. Each time, the Alpha Stigma tasted a new flavor of magic — dark rites from the Inquisitors' hidden circles, druidic rituals stolen from the isles, cabalistic texts from exiled scholars.
And always, the name Mystic Falls lingered at the edge of his mind. A reminder that one day, the blood would pull them home.
Norway, 1603
Klaus knelt in the snow, breath steaming in ragged gasps. Aleksandr stood over him, one hand pressed to his brother's chest — runes blazing bright as the Stigma unwound Esther's ancient curse.
"You're certain?" Aleksandr murmured.
Klaus's eyes snapped open — gold and red warring in his gaze. "Unleash me."
Aleksandr pressed harder. "Once this is done, you will never be mortal again. Never just a vampire. You will be the monster he feared."
Klaus bared his teeth — fangs dripping. "Then let me be a monster."
Aleksandr's lips curved into something like a blessing. "So be it."
The forest shook with Klaus's roar as the wolf inside him woke — a sound that echoed across centuries.
And above it all, unseen by any but the eldest Mikaelson, the runes of the Alpha Stigma shimmered like a crown of crimson flame.
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