Expectations are treacherous things, particularly when one approaches a work like Immortalis, where the title alone conjures images of gothic vampires lurking in mist-shrouded castles, or perhaps tormented lovers locked in eternal, blood-soaked embrace. Traditional genre boundaries serve as comforting signposts, guiding the reader through predictable landscapes of horror, romance, or fantasy. Yet Immortalis rejects such cartography with a deliberate, sardonic cruelty, dragging its audience into a realm where those lines dissolve into something far more grotesque, far more precise, and infinitely more unsettling.
The world of Morrigan Deep, with its eternal dusk and stratified horrors, begins as familiar territory. Primus, the primal darkness, crafts Lilith and their progeny amidst stars and souls, birthing thesapiens and vampires in a void that echoes countless origin tales. Irkalla looms below as hellish bureaucracy, its circles enforcing contracts etched in the unyielding Rationum. One might anticipate a gothic epic here, replete with brooding immortals and mortal rebellions. But the ledger turns, and Theaten emerges, neither vampire nor mortal, but Immortalis, sundered into Vero and Evro, true self and primal beast. This fracture alone defies convention, for what romance blooms when the lover splits into civilised facade and feral hunger? What horror endures when the monster merges at will?
Nicolas DeSilva embodies this subversion most vividly, a figure who shatters every preconceived role. He is no brooding lord of the night, no seductive predator cloaked in velvet. Instead, he presides over Corax Asylum, a festering edifice of rusting scalpels, clanging clocks, and sewage sluicing from attic washrooms. His patients, thesapiens and vampires alike, are not victims of circumstance but deliberate exhibits in his theatre of petty cruelties. Straps and handcuffs adorn beds for nocturnal diversions, mirrors line corridors to amplify disorientation, and the hall of mirrors warps reality into labyrinthine nightmare. Nicolas declares insanity with the casual authority of a doctor licensed by Irkalla’s bargain, driving the sane to madness to justify their confinement. This is no mere horror of the undead; it is institutionalised sadism, where cure is the ultimate obscenity.
Romance fares no better under Immortalis‘ scrutiny. Theaten and his Evro Kane embody the Vero-Evro duality, noble refinement against primal savagery, yet their unions with tributes are feasts of calculated brutality. Calista, consort turned prisoner, endures marriage vows that bind her in torment, her tongue severed as final sacrament. Nicolas’s pursuits twist further into farce: a candlemaker impaled by her own rake, a milkmaid’s ribs savoured with Doloros wine. Even Allyra, the third Immoless, navigates a courtship of mesmerism and menace, her resistance met with whips and false freedoms. Love here is not tender glance or stolen kiss, but possession forged in blood and chain, where desire devours and dominance endures.
The satire cuts deepest, exposing the absurd machinery beneath the gore. The Pauci Electi, seven decrepit priests aboard the rotting Solis, breed Immolesses every century in futile ritual, their tomes riddled with obsolete lies. Irkalla’s King Behmor, short and silk-suited, governs hell with bureaucratic ennui, trading souls for silk suits. Contracts bind the damned in eternal paperwork, and the Ad Sex Speculum peers voyeuristically at fractured immortals. Nicolas himself is pinnacle parody: a self-proclaimed author, horologist, and fashionista, levitating in orange silk while his asylum festers. His Evro Webster tinkers with inhibitors and nerve harps, yet the pair bicker like vaudeville fools, their grand designs collapsing into farce.
Yet Immortalis transcends mere genre demolition, weaving its threads into a tapestry of inexorable systems. The Ledger inscribes fates with cold finality, Vero and Evro enforce dual natures, and bloodlines dictate dominion. Allyra’s ascent, devouring Lilith whole in serpentine fury, promises sovereignty, but at what cost? Nicolas’s gaze lingers, his alters multiply, and Corax’s walls close ever tighter. Traditional boundaries crumble not through shock alone, but through relentless precision: a world where horror eroticises, romance brutalises, and satire governs. To read Immortalis expecting solace in familiar forms is to court the very madness Nicolas dispenses so freely. Proceed if you dare, but abandon hope of tidy categories upon entry.
Immortalis Book One August 2026