Beneath the world, where no star nor god could gaze, the Sect gathered.
Seven shadows stood before the altar — one from each bloodline, veiled and silent. Their presence alone made the air tremble.
The stone chamber pulsed with a low hum, as if remembering the last time these rites had been spoken. Around them, the walls were alive with faint runes that drank the lamplight, their glow like the heartbeat of something vast and buried.
At the center stood the Preceptor, robed in black, face hidden behind an iron mask, its upper edges rising in jagged points like a mourning crown, hiding the face but proclaiming command and grief all at once. In their hand gleamed Ossareth, the blade of bone that had unmade kings and consecrated empires.
"The prophecy turns," the Preceptor said, their voice ringing against the carved stone. "The Emperor of Destruction stirs. The human spark is lit. Soon, the night itself will burn."
No one moved.
"The First Vein must wake," the Preceptor continued. "Only Veyrath, who bore the origin of all blood, can devour the flame before it consumes us."
For he was not born of any line — the lines were born of him. Every gift that now runs divided through the seven rests, undivided, in his blood: command and shadow, flame and silence, flesh and mind and stone. The fragments remember their source; the whole still sleeps.
A murmur rippled through the gathered. Some lowered their heads in reverence; others stiffened in fear.
To wake the First Vein was to rouse a presence that had shaped ages — a shadow that had once bent kingdoms and armies alike to his will, whose edicts had been law even over death itself. He had reshaped continents with a single command, reduced cities to ash with unspoken wrath, and stirred oceans with hunger alone. His slumber was deliberate — a withdrawal from a world he had mastered — yet centuries later, the mere thought of his stirring sent shivers through every living spine in the realm.
The Preceptor extended the Ossareth.
Each of the seven stepped forward, one by one.
The Royal Bloodline — the Will of Command.
Their gaze could bend the living and the dead alike, enthralling even their own kind. Their drop fell heavy, carrying the weight of dominion.
The Vermilion Line — the Flesh of Beasts.
Their kin could shift form, wear fur or talon, and speak the language of hunger itself — a tongue of instinct and predation understood by all who sense the primal pulse of blood and fear. Their blood shimmered with feral heat.
The Umbral Line — the Cloak of Shadows.
Born from those who walked between worlds, unseen and unbound by light. Their blood darkened the stone as it touched.
The Ethereal Line — the Breath of Minds.
Masters of suggestion and perception, they move through thoughts like wind through reeds. Seers, dreamwalkers, and liars of exquisite grace, their influence is subtle yet relentless—shaping desires, planting doubt, and bending choices without touch or notice. Their blood hissed faintly, restless.
The Crimson Line — the Flame Within.
Their hearts still beat with the memory of mortality, giving them strength, passion, and ruinous wrath. Their blood smoked when it fell.
The Obsidian Line — the Flesh of Stone.
Enduring, ancient, near indestructible. Sentinels of the old cities, carved from the bones of mountains. Their blood fell slow and thick.
The Ashen Line — the Blood of Silence.
Said to be the first turned and the last forgiven; their gift was death itself, the stilling of breath and soul. Their blood spread like a shadow, swallowing light.
Seven droplets gleamed like rubies against the altar. The mark, the seal, the signature of their consent.
"Thus the bloodlines are bound," the Preceptor intoned. "And now — let the Offering be made."
From the shadows at the edge of the hall, the sacrifices were led in. Two dozen souls — mortals, prisoners, and those whose loyalty had faltered. Their eyes were wide, silver chains binding their wrists. The air grew heavy, thick with the smell of fear and incense.
The runes in the floor began to glow, tracing rivers of light around the captives' feet.
The Preceptor raised the blade high.
"Flesh for the one who sleeps," the Preceptor cried. "Blood for the one who remembers. Let our terror be our tithe to Veyrath, the First."
The chamber erupted in a low, resonant hum — a vibration, as if earth itself was drawing breath. The first throat was cut, and the blood flowed down the carved channels, joining the seven signatures at the altar's heart.
When the last voice fell silent, the glow sank into the stone. The air stilled, but the stillness was not peace — it was waiting.
Far beneath, deeper than the dead, something stirred.
A single heartbeat echoed through the rock — vast, ancient, slow.
The Preceptor bowed their head.
"He dreams," they whispered. "The first crack has been etched in the seal."
And the others knelt — not in triumph, but in dread.
Somewhere far below, the sleeper dreamed of blood.
And far above, the city breathed beneath an uneasy sky.
Clouds thickened over the palace, winds gathering with a restless edge. Lightning split the horizon, illuminating streets slick with rain and the distant towers of the royal keep. The air itself felt charged — tight around those within, as if electricity ran along stone and bone alike.
Inside the solar, where the storm cast restless shadows against the walls, Eva's back arched against the smooth surface of the breakfast table. Sunlight fractured by clouds mingled with flashes of lightning, painting her in gold and silver. Lucarion leaned over her, his silver hair catching the fractured light. His mouth trailed along her neck, the third marking bite pressing into the curve of her throat.
The venom resurrected the memory of the past minutes — every shiver, every gasp, every flicker of warmth that had passed between them returning, magnified, unending. It folded time, made the now and the just-before indistinguishable, until sensation itself became the only truth.
With a single motion, Lucarion had swept his arm across the table, the shatter of falling glass breaking the trance of stillness. He lifted her effortlessly, setting her upon the cleared surface as though the act itself were part of the ritual. Their mouths met — a kiss that silenced even the storm outside.
He gathered her hair to one side, fingers brushing the nape of her neck. Then his mouth found the exposed skin — gentle at first, then hungrier. Then another, lower. Each kiss lingered, as if he were learning the shape of her pulse through his lips alone. She felt his breath before the touch, warmth chasing the cool air it left behind.
His mouth wandered down, tracing the hollow between her collarbones, over the faint rise of her breath, across the curve of her stomach where heat and coolness wove together in shivering waves. The rhythm deepened. The world narrowed — to lips, to breath, to heartbeat.
When he knelt, the air itself changed. He looked up through the veil of his hair, eyes dark with hunger and something perilously close to reverence — as if asking and claiming in the same gaze. His hands steadied her hips, and his mouth followed the line of the tender skin within her thighs — tasting, teeth teasing, pausing — losing himself in the pulse that beat there until he drowned, and her world spun.
A sudden crack of thunder shook the windows, louder this time, echoing through the solar. His mouth pressed against the sensitive curve of her neck, warm and demanding, tethering her to the moment even as the storm outside mirrored the chaos within.
Then the venom blurred the boundary of time once more — what she felt now folded seamlessly into what she had felt before, looping through her nerves like a remembered storm.
He had turned her with a motion both tender and unrelenting. His mouth ascended the length of her spine, slow and deliberate, each kiss a spark beneath the rough drag of stubble that scattered tremors through her breath.
His hands followed the trail his mouth left behind — large, deliberate, reverent. They climbed from her hips to the sweep of her ribs, gliding forward, tracing the curve that led to the rhythm of her breathing. Her breath rose to meet his palms.
One hand slid higher, around her throat — not to restrain, but to hold. His arm crossed her chest, the inside of his wrist pressed above her heart. His thumb found the hollow where her heartbeat trembled; his fingers steadied it, anchoring her against him as he set the rhythm.
Outside, the storm pressed against the windows — flashes of light, thunder rolling low and distant, answering the pulse that bound them. The world narrowed once more — to the quiet spell they had become.
With each taste of her blood, Lucarion felt the surge. Strength built within him — exquisite, volatile — the energy thrumming around them like lightning waiting to strike. His grip sometimes tightened without thought, her small winces betraying his unmeasured force before he eased.
Eva gasped beneath him, senses overflowing — reliving the past, feeling each mark as if it were new. Her hands clutched his shoulders, fingers clawing when pleasure blurred into ache. And still, she welcomed it — every spark of pain, every tremor of closeness — letting the storm outside echo the one within her.
Above, lightning split the clouds again, and in its brief brilliance, the world seemed both small and immense — the palace, the city, and the quiet streets beneath, all caught in a pulse of electricity.
Moans and soft gasps mingled with the distant rumble of thunder. Beneath it all, far below, something vast stirred. A heartbeat like stone splitting, threading through the city's veins, threading the palace foundations, threading every tower and alley — a resonance no wind nor lightning could mask.
Lucarion paused mid-motion, sensing it, though he could not name what it was. The hunger, the bond, the venom — all thrummed within him, unbidden and consuming. A possessive thought surged forward: She is mine. All of her.
He lifted his head, eyes blazing, blood still glistening on his lips. Lightning split the clouds; in its flash, amethyst caught amber — heat and surrender held them both suspended between danger and desire. Without hesitation, he pressed the other side of her neck to his fangs — the double marking, an assertion of closeness, of possession, a visible echo of the power now thrumming between them.
The storm outside mirrored the chaos inside: every crack of lightning, every pulse of thunder, seemed to answer the rhythm of their joined hearts and sharpened fangs.
And then — something shifted.
The air thickened, luminous, alive. The taste of ozone bled into the room; the storm bent around her breath. Beneath Lucarion's hand, her pulse quickened — not from fear, not even from pleasure, but from something becoming. Light flickered beneath her skin, faint and gold, running through her veins like threads of molten glass.
Her gasp broke against his shoulder. The world shuddered with her, as though the storm itself had taken a new breath through her lungs.
Lucarion froze — the energy burning against his touch, neither mortal nor familiar. Her blood no longer merely answered his; it sang.
Outside, lightning struck so close the windows shook in their frames.
And in that flash — brief, blinding — the world seemed to pause around her, as though time itself bent to watch.
Above and below, the storms converged — one of blood, one of flesh, one of lightning — and in their center, something woke.