Berlin, 1943
The city was a carcass of fire and stone, bombs pounding the streets to ash as soldiers bled for flags they would not live to salute. In the tunnels beneath Berlin, however, the real war was waged in shadows — witches in Nazi uniforms whispering incantations, runic tattoos glowing beneath crisp armbands.
Aleksandr Mikaelson strode past them all, boots echoing against stone. He wore no uniform, no insignia — only his long black coat and the smolder of the Alpha Stigma in his eyes.
A witch named Gerhardt knelt before him, trembling. "Mein Fürst. The artifact — the grimoire — it's in the bunker. Guarded."
Aleksandr's gaze flicked toward the heavy iron door down the hall. "Who else knows?"
"Only the High Occult Division, but—" Gerhardt's voice broke as Aleksandr pressed two fingers to his temple. The Stigma flared, and the witch screamed as his mind was burned clean.
Aleksandr dropped the corpse at his feet, stepping over it. "Good boy."
Inside the bunker, ancient pages — scavenged from the Vatican, the lost grimoires of Druids, even scraps from the Five's hunter's lore — lay bound in iron chains.
Aleksandr picked up the first page. The runes on his left eye flared in sympathy, absorbing the words. He didn't need these books — but every piece of magic fed the serpent.
Outside, the world devoured itself in fire. And he smiled.
Paris, 1945
In the attic of a crumbling château, Rebekah pressed her back to the wall, dagger in hand. She'd felt his eyes — the Stigma — scratching at the edges of her mind for months now.
A mortal lover slept in the bed, oblivious to the storm beyond the walls. Rebekah's heart hurt just looking at him — another Emil, another dream Aleksandr would shatter.
"Come out, Rebekah."
His voice slid through the walls, silk and poison. Aleksandr stepped into the moonlight filtering through the attic window — his boots immaculate despite the mud of the war-torn countryside.
"I don't want to run anymore, Aleksandr," she whispered. "I won't."
He tilted his head, runes flickering. "Then stay."
She laughed bitterly. "Stay? So you can kill him too?"
Aleksandr's eyes drifted to the sleeping man. "I don't need to kill him. He'll die in two months when the Red Army takes this village. I'm here to offer you more than ashes."
Rebekah hurled the dagger — it hit his shoulder, but the Stigma flared, burning the silver blade to dust. Aleksandr stepped closer, voice a serpent's lullaby.
"Come home, Rebekah."
Her eyes filled with tears — then hardened like diamond. "I'd rather die."
He could have forced her. Could have pressed his hand to her brow and made her forget everything. But his hand fell to his side.
Aleksandr turned away, the attic door creaking on its hinges. "Run, then. When you tire of the graves, you'll find your way back to me."
And in the dark, Rebekah's tears fell onto the sleeping mortal's chest.
By the 1950s, Aleksandr's organization was no longer a secret cult. It was a hydra: legitimate businesses, hidden arms deals, black market magic. The Council's vampire hunters called it The Coiled Serpent — an insult Aleksandr wore like a crown.
In Cairo, his agents smuggled stolen grimoires out of the desert tombs. In Hong Kong, witches called him The Pale Dragon who always paid his debts in blood. In America, he whispered in the ears of newly minted Council members, sowing distrust among the old bloodlines.
Only one thing truly eluded him: Kol's whereabouts.
Kol's letters came sporadically — always unsigned, always spelled with layered illusions to slip past the Stigma. Each one a taunt. A reminder that Aleksandr wasn't the only serpent left in the garden.
Mystic Falls — 1960
Back in the sleepy town where it all began, the next doppelgänger was born. Aleksandr watched from the shadows — an ageless figure leaning against an oak tree at the edge of the Gilbert property.
A baby's cry rose from the house. Isobel Gilbert's birth. A single thread that would lead to Elena decades later.
Rebekah's voice drifted behind him. "Why this family again?"
Aleksandr didn't turn to look at her — her hair pinned up, her dress the soft yellow of springtime. She'd come to him at last, weary and threadbare from running.
He spoke to the baby's cries in the distance. "Nature loves her loops. The Petrova line always finds a way to suffer for our sins."
Rebekah scoffed, though her eyes softened when she saw the child through the window. "If you cared for her, you'd let her live a normal life."
Aleksandr finally turned. "I don't care for her. I care for us. And I will not let our family be undone by witches, wolves, or time itself."
Rebekah stepped close, close enough to smell the old parchment and blood clinging to him like perfume. "And when she dies — what then? What do you have left?"
Aleksandr's Stigma eye flared, the runes spinning like the ouroboros.
"Another loop," he said simply.
1975
Brother,
London is quite lovely this time of year. I do hope your hounds find my breadcrumbs entertaining — though they'll never catch me. I heard about the Petrova girl. Another innocent soul to wind around your neck like a noose.
Do you ever think about the day you die? Not by stake. Not by witch's hex. But by your own coils squeezing too tight?
One day, the serpent will devour itself, and all that will remain is the tail twitching in the dirt.
Cheers,
Your favorite snake.
Aleksandr burned the letter to cinders in the hearth of his New York penthouse — the Stigma runes in his eye flickering like dying embers.
One day.
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