Amelia Stormbringer sat comfortably on her bed, reading a book. She was at peace, a long, well-deserved peace, and it had come in such strange circumstances that it was still hard for her to imagine. If someone would have told her five years ago that she would end up in this place, on the path she now walked, she never would have believed them. She had always been a fighter—she had been a mercenary since the age of eighteen—but fighting and murder were two different things.

Amelia was twenty-seven years old. She was tiny—just under 5’2” tall. Although Vallanil said she was a raving beauty, she had always thought of herself as cute. But she could work with cute. She had red hair that she had always kept short because long hair could be used as a handhold by the enemy. She usually wore black and red, whether it was her armor or clothing, although she rarely wore dresses. She wasn’t fond of most jewelry, with a couple of notable exceptions, one of them being earrings. She loved them and always wore them, and she had over a hundred pairs in her collection. Her eyes had once been blue, but they were red now. Only a magical ring kept them from glowing red all the time and giving up her nature.

Amelia was a vampire.

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