MTL - Aztec Eternals - Chapter 4 city-state

...[Inside an underground basement]“You are going to die for nothing, hahahaha,” the old man's voice thundered through the room, sending chills down my spine.Step.With a swift and ruthless motion, he lunged forward, his sword slicing through the air and slashing my throat, crimson droplets staining the darkness.“We'll see,” I whispered defiantly, my final words escaping as a mere breath against the impending darkness.Slowly, inexorably, my consciousness slipped away, and I descended into a deep, unfathomable slumber.“Huh!?” My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself seated in a bustling tavern, the air thick with laughter and the clinking of glasses.In front of me stood a captivating lady, her beauty juxtaposed with an angry furrow upon her brow, threatening to shatter the harmony of the jovial scene.“Don't follow me around!” Her words pierced the air like shards of ice, the intensity of her emotions palpable as she cast a resentful glare in my direction, before swiftly departing from the tavern....Am I trapped within the confines of a game? The fragments of my shattered common sense scattered before me, leaving me to question the very fabric of my reality.

Driven by his need for revenge, Lazarus, the Lore’s most ruthless vampire, plots to seize the throne of Wilyra and rule it along with his betrothed, the fae goddess Maeve who thrives in a borrowed body.

Lazarus has a perfect plan—until he finds Emmalyn, a young mortal who is the daughter of the rebel leader of blood vassals in his kingdom and an integral part of his plan. He captures the young girl to cast her soul out for Maeve.

Emmalyn yearns for a better life to escape from her stepmother and an indifferent father. She never imagined that they would sell her to the royals to save her brother’s life.

But there’s only one problem. Emmalyn tempts Lazarus beyond reason. As the time to cast her soul out draws closer, he must choose between his lust for the throne or his irresistible mortal.

Will Lazarus succumb to lust for power and crown? Or will he risk it all to have a future with her?

Bestselling author Elias Vayne has spent years writing stories to escape the horrors of his past. As a child, he was the sole survivor of a massacre that wiped out his entire orphanage. He doesn’t remember how he survived—only that when the slaughter ended, he was the only one left standing.His latest work, The Arcane Academy Chronicles, takes place in Veylin Academy, a prestigious school of magic and combat. But one night, after finishing the final chapter, Elias wakes up inside his own book—not as the hero, not as the villain, but as an extra. Worse, he’s been reborn as Kael, the very same orphan who survived a similar massacre in the story.But something is wrong. The academy isn’t as he wrote it. Characters are acting off-script, unknown forces are rewriting events, and the mystery surrounding Kael’s survival mirrors the one in Elias’s real life. The more he tries to regain control of the narrative, the more he realizes this world may not be his creation at all.