Night weighed heavy over Caer Vallis, a city of marble towers and shadowed alleys. The nobles called it the jewel of the realm. For Killian Vael, it was a coffin he hadn't climbed out of yet.
He kept to the edges of the streets, cloak drawn tight, every step careful not to echo. It had been nearly ten years since his parents were slaughtered — butchered like cattle for their blood, sold and bottled by nobles who knew what the Vael line was worth. He'd survived only because he had been too young, too small, and too fast to catch.
But survival had never been the same as living.
Tonight, he'd decided it wasn't enough to run. Tonight, he'd decided to take.
House Averre's manor glittered like a palace of white stone and golden glass. Behind its carved gates, torches lit a courtyard where silk-draped nobles sipped wine and boasted of their conquests. Their laughter carried like knives in the cold air.
Killian slipped through the servants' entrance, the stink of spiced meats and burning tallow hiding his scent. He wasn't here to be seen. He wasn't here to survive. He was here for blood.
The Averres kept ledgers, meticulous and cruel — names of those purchased, families harvested, rare lines broken down into prices. Killian had heard whispers of it from a drunken guard in a tavern months ago. A ledger was worth more than revenge. It was proof. It was power.
But power was never left unguarded.
The ballroom was an ocean of silk and candlelight. Dozens of nobles drank beneath banners heavy with Averre's crest: a hound with its jaws around a stag's throat.
At the far end, Lord Averre himself sat upon a chair too ornate to be called anything but a throne. His silver hair gleamed like a crown, his eyes sharp and hungry. Beside him, servants hovered with trays of wine, but Killian noticed what the goblets contained was thicker, darker.
Blood.
Some of the nobles sipped it openly, red smears at the corners of their mouths as though it were no more scandalous than cherry wine. The smell hit Killian like a blade through his chest — copper, sweet, familiar. He tasted memory: his mother's voice cut short, his father's lifeless eyes staring up from polished stone.
His hands shook. His throat burned. But he forced himself still. Rage had to be a weapon, not a leash.
He crept along the edge of the hall, close enough to catch fragments of conversation.
"…Vael stock," one noble said, tapping a jeweled finger against his goblet. "I thought it gone, yet Averre assures me there are whispers. One survivor, maybe two."
Killian froze.
Averre chuckled, the sound deep and cruel. "If there are survivors, they'll come to me. Rare blood always seeks its own fate."
The crowd laughed. Killian's jaw clenched until his teeth ached. He turned to move toward the servant stair, toward the ledgers rumored to be kept in the vault below. But one careless breath gave him away.
A guard's head snapped toward him.
"You," the man barked, hand falling to his blade.
The room hushed. Dozens of eyes fixed on Killian. For the first time in ten years, his blood wasn't a secret.
Killian bolted for the stairs, but steel rang behind him, and two guards blocked the passage. He spun, heart slamming against his ribs.
Averre rose slowly from his chair, his smile spreading like a crack in stone.
"Ah. The lost Vael."
The words sank into Killian like claws.
Something in him snapped. His chest burned, veins tightening, as though fire itself ran through them. The shadows in the room stirred — not around Averre, not around the guards, but around him.
At first, he thought the torches were guttering out. But then the shadows twisted, lifting, curling into tendrils that lashed like whips.
Gasps filled the hall. A goblet dropped and shattered.
Killian didn't understand it — he didn't command it — but the shadows obeyed. And when they struck, they did so with hunger.
The first guard lunged. A tendril speared through his chest, lifting him screaming into the air before hurling him across the hall. Another guard fell next, his blade snapping in half as shadows coiled tight around his throat until it broke with a sharp crack.
The ballroom erupted into panic. Nobles shrieked, their fine shoes slipping on spilled blood and wine. Some fled for the doors; others cowered behind tables.
Averre did not move. He watched Killian with fascination, his lips curling.
"I wondered how long it would take for your blood to show itself."
Killian staggered back, breath ragged, shadows writhing around him like a cloak. He wanted to stop, but the magic wanted more. His rage was its feast, and it was still hungry.
"Seize him!" Averre roared.
More guards surged forward. Killian's vision blurred red, his heart hammering faster and faster until he couldn't tell if it was his pulse or the vault of shadows in his chest.
The tendrils lashed out in a frenzy, tearing steel, rending flesh. Screams filled the air. The hall became a charnel house in seconds.
When silence fell, the floor was littered with bodies. Blood soaked the marble, reflecting the last sputtering candles.
Only Averre remained standing, his smile broader than ever.
"Good," he whispered. "Very good."
Killian staggered, horrified at what he'd done — and yet exhilarated. The shadows whispered still, urging him to strike again, to end Averre where he stood.
But before he could move, the manor doors burst inward.
Dozens of armored men stormed the hall, their armor black, their sigils not of House Averre but of the city guard — and behind them, cloaked figures whose eyes glowed faintly red in the dark.
Killian's stomach dropped. They weren't here to protect Averre. They were here for him.
The shadows surged again, waiting for his call.
He had one breath to choose — fight, or run.
And then the world plunged into fire.