In a place of absolute darkness, Hael lay on cold, uneven stone, eyes closed, brow furrowed in pain.
The blackness was not merely the absence of light. It pressed against him—thick, suffocating, alive. It swallowed sound, swallowed hope.
"Mom!" The name tore from his throat as his eyes snapped open. "Dad! Sister!"
He jerked upright, heart hammering. Faces flashed before him—his mother's gentle smile, his father's steady gaze, his little sister reaching out with blood on her fingers. All gone in an instant.
Hael scrambled to his knees, hands clawing blindly at the air, then the ground. Rough rock scraped his palms. No warmth. No bodies. No familiar voices answering his cries.
"Mom… please…" His voice cracked, echoing strangely in the void.
He crawled forward, faster, fingers digging into cracks and dirt, searching for anything—fabric, skin, a hand to hold. Nothing. Only cold stone and endless dark.
The faces flashed again—his sister's terrified eyes as the blade fell, his father crumpling, his mother folding like broken porcelain.
A sob escaped him. Then another. He pounded the ground until his knuckles bled.
They were gone.
He was alone.
And the darkness offered no comfort—only silence.
Then the silence broke.
Crimson letters bloomed in the darkness behind his eyes—sharp, unfeeling, the only thing visible in the void.
[Host in critical condition.]
[Detection imminent.]
[Temporary autonomy required to preserve the heir.]
[Consent? Y/N]
Hael froze, breath ragged.
The words hung there, pulsing steadily, waiting.
He didn't understand. Host? Heir? What were these letters? A hallucination from blood loss? Some cruel trick of the mind as he died?
His heart hammered against his ribs. The pain in his side throbbed with every beat, reminding him he was still alive—for now.
Then memory crashed back.
Torchlight sweeping the hall below. Boots scraping stone. The leader's voice barking orders, cold and certain. Blades glinting as the assassins spread out, searching every shadow.
Searching for him.
They would find him. Cut him open like they had his sister. Like they had everyone.
He was only fourteen. Just a boy who had never held a real sword until tonight. A boy who had watched his entire family die in front of him, helpless, screaming inside while his body refused to move.
Fear flooded him now—raw, childish, overwhelming. His hands shook. Tears stung his eyes again.
The letters pulsed once more, patient, indifferent.
Far above, a faint glow flickered—torchlight creeping closer.
Hael swallowed hard.
He didn't want to die.
The words shimmered again. Hael stared at the words for a while. Then..
"Yes," he whispered into the dark, voice small and breaking.
And then the darkness returned—not the absence of light, but something alive, deliberate.
The world shifted.
Hael found himself watching… from outside himself.
His body opened its eyes below him on the beam. No fear in them. No pain. No grief. Just cold, empty purpose.
The face that had been twisted in terror moments ago was now blank, calm, as if carved from shadow.
His body rose—smooth, silent, without the tremble of wounds or exhaustion. It balanced perfectly on the narrow rafter, unafraid of the drop.
Hael screamed inside, but no sound reached his lips. He clawed at nothing, trapped behind his own eyes like a prisoner in glass.
The darkness heard his panic—and ignored it.
Shadows rose from the corners of the hall, coiling up like smoke, wrapping around his limbs, his torso, his face. They caressed rather than constricted, familiar, possessive.
Then the body stepped forward—into the dark.
And vanished.
Not fell. Not jumped.
Merged.
One moment it was there. The next, only rippling blackness remained, as if the night itself had swallowed him whole.
Below, an assassin's torch swept across the empty beam.
Nothing.
Hael's consciousness tumbled in the void, bodiless, voiceless.
The darkness carried him now.
***
The darkness released him soon.
One moment Hael was tumbling through endless void; the next, cold air slapped his face and solid ground met his knees with a jolt.
He gasped, control flooding back into his limbs like blood returning to a numb hand—painful, overwhelming. His body was his own again.
He collapsed forward, palms sinking into damp earth and fallen leaves. Moonlight filtered through a canopy of ancient oaks and twisted pines, painting the forest floor in silver and shadow.
He was in the Shadowvein Wilds—the vast, untamed woodland that bordered the western edge of Eldren like a living wall. Every child in the frontier kingdom grew up hearing tales of it: a place where light thinned, paths vanished, and those who entered too deep were never seen again. The Voss manor had stood only a few miles from its border, close enough that Hael had hunted its edges as a boy, but never dared venture far inside.
Now the wilds had swallowed him whole.
Night sounds returned—crickets, distant owl calls, the rustle of something large moving through underbrush. The air smelled of moss, pine resin, and wet soil. Far behind him, through miles of tangled trees, the faint orange glow of his burning home stained the horizon.
The assassins would never find him here.
But neither would anyone else.
Hael pushed himself up on shaking arms, leaves clinging to his bloodied clothes. Shadows lingered at the edges of his vision, curling like smoke when he blinked.
He was alive.
He was free. And he was utterly alone.
The forest was quiet, save for the soft rustle of leaves in the night breeze.
Hael knelt in the damp earth, hands buried in fallen pine needles, chest heaving as the last echoes of the takeover faded. The pain returned all at once—the ache in every muscle. But it was nothing compared to the hollow that opened inside him.
He stared at his trembling fingers.
It was the silence.
No voices calling him to dinner. No little sister laughing at some stupid joke. No father's steady footsteps in the hall. No mother humming as she mended clothes by the fire.
Nothing.
The truth crept in slowly, like cold water rising around his heart.
They were gone.
All of them.
He saw it again—his father crumpling, bolt in his throat. His mother folding, blood blooming across her dress. His sister—small, trusting—reaching for him as the blade came down.
Hael's breath hitched.
A sound escaped him—half sob, half choke. Then another. He pressed both hands to his mouth, trying to hold it in, but the dam cracked.
He curled forward, forehead against the cold ground, and broke.
Sobs tore out of him, raw and ugly, shaking his whole body. Tears soaked the dirt. He clawed at the earth as if he could dig his way back to them, back to before the doors burst open.
"Mom…" The word came out small, lost. "Dad… please… Lia…"
He whispered their names over and over, like a prayer, like a plea to something that might listen.
But the forest only rustled, indifferent.
The moon watched from above, cold and distant.
He cried until his throat was raw, until his eyes burned and his chest ached worse than any wound. Until there was nothing left but shuddering breaths and the weight of a world suddenly too large, too empty.
When the tears finally slowed, he stayed curled there, small against the roots of an ancient oak. The shadows around him shifted.
He didn't push them away.
He had nothing else.
The boy who had gone to dinner that night was dead with the rest of his family.
Something colder, quieter, was all that remained.
Suddenly words appeared in front of him—crimson letters hanging in the darkness of his vision, steady and unhurried.
[Autonomy relinquished.]
[Immediate threats neutralized.]
[The Heir is preserved.]