The Blood of Vampire: Chapter 2 - The Taste of Ash and Iron
Jatex ran. He was a fugitive on instinct, driven by the cold, overwhelming command of his shattered Shadow-Blood Weave: Survival is paramount. Escape the source of shame.
He ran until the thin mountain air was replaced by the dense, metallic stench of the Northern industrial plains—the taste of Ash and Iron. He collapsed near a smoking, derelict foundry, the thick, acrid smoke momentarily masking his chaotic spiritual signature from the hunters he knew were coming.
The Thirst became overwhelming. It was no longer a tickle; it was a predatory intelligence clawing its way out of his chest, demanding energy, correction, life. The Sanguine Stain—the spiritual wound left by Aeliana's self-Siphon—was screaming, a permanent, agonizing vacuum in his soul.
He huddled in the shadow of a rusted boiler, fighting the inevitable. I can't become what she died to prevent.
But the Thirst had a will of its own. It was a cosmic predator, a fragment of The Sleeper's infinite hunger, and it was rooted in the agony of his loss.
His vision tunnelled. The world dissolved into vectors of heat and life. A lone foundry worker, exhausted and slow, walked across the yard fifty meters away. The man's spiritual signature was a small, warm candle flame in the dark.
The Thirst won.
With a soundless, terrifying rush, Jatex lunged. His body moved with an unnatural speed he hadn't known he possessed. He was on the worker in a second, his hand clamping down on the man's throat.
The Siphon was involuntary, uncontrolled, a brutal, horrifying violation. The man simply deflated, his life essence—his Aethyr—ripped out and swallowed by the screaming emptiness of the Sanguine Stain.
The instant the Thirst was satiated, Jatex recoiled. The power was immense, stabilizing his Weave, dulling the agony of the Stain. But the taste—the warm, metallic taste of stolen life—was utterly repulsive.
He stood over the empty husk, shaking uncontrollably, looking at his own hands, which were now stained with casual, horrifying destruction.
This is the curse she died for. This was the First Embrace.
Jatex was no longer just running from his family. He was running from the predator within. The taste of Ash and Iron was now inextricably linked to the taste of his own failure.