Kael slept poorly that night.
The shattered observatory offered little comfort—wind whispering through the cracks, the red moons spilling their cold light across the metallic floor. But it wasn't the cold that kept him from rest. It was the pulse. That ever-present thrum, like a second heart beating beneath his own.
He pressed a hand to his chest. The Vyr seal shimmered faintly beneath the skin, a slow-burning ember refusing to die.
What are you? he thought.
Sleep came eventually—slow, reluctant. And when it did, it brought something stranger than dreams.
He stood on a battlefield bathed in red sky.
The ground was cracked and blackened, still steaming from a war long ended. Mountains of broken armor lined the horizon, most bearing the twelve-fold sigil of the Bloodline Houses. But they were unmoving. Hollow.
A woman stood at the center, her white armor stained with blood. Her long, silver hair danced in the hot wind. A symbol glowed on her back—the same mark now etched into Kael's chest.
The Vyr seal.
She knelt, hands bound in glowing iron. Before her stood the twelve lords of the world, their faces masked and distant. A massive tribunal platform loomed behind them, runes carved deep into its stone.
"You stand accused," one of them intoned, "of crimes against the blood. Manipulating the sacred Code. Reshaping forbidden veins. Claiming dominion over what was never yours."
The woman did not flinch. Her eyes blazed like stars behind her pale lashes. "We didn't claim it. We were chosen. You fear what you don't understand."
The masked figures conferred in silence.
Then, without ceremony, one stepped forward. "You will be unmade."
Runes flared around the woman, chains tightening. She looked up—past her captors, past the sky. Right at Kael.
Her lips parted.
"Wake up."
Kael gasped, bolting upright. His skin was drenched in sweat, breath ragged. The seal on his chest pulsed violently, and for a moment he felt as if his body weren't his own. A flicker of her strength remained in his limbs. Her fury.
Duran was already beside him, clutching a glowing device. "Another memory flare?"
Kael nodded. "She was Vyr. Executed. I saw her."
Duran looked grim. "Blood memories. The stronger your awakening, the more your blood connects to the echoes of those who came before. The Vyr didn't just pass on genes… they passed on experience."
Kael's hands trembled. "She knew I was watching. She spoke to me."
"That's not possible," Duran said. "Memories aren't sentient."
"Then what was it?" Kael demanded.
Duran hesitated. "…Sometimes, the First Vein doesn't just echo. It responds. Especially to Vyr-blooded hosts."
Kael stood, the vision still haunting him. "She wasn't afraid. Even when they executed her."
"She wouldn't be," Duran said. "If she was Vyr, she likely believed death wasn't the end—just another strand in the Code."
Kael moved to the broken window. The city was distant now, smoke curling in the air, but still visible. "Why were they hunted down? Was it because of what they could do—or what they might become?"
Duran joined him. "Both. The Vyr bloodline was the only one not born from one of the Twelve Cores. They were something else. Something the world couldn't control."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then it's no wonder they were erased."
Duran's gaze was sharp. "And yet, one remains."
Later that night, Kael couldn't sleep again. He sat in the lower levels of the observatory, staring into a pool of old, dried blood Duran kept preserved for analysis. It shimmered oddly now, reacting to him, swirling without wind or motion.
He dipped a finger into it.
Pain flared—sharp, cold, electric. And then—
A flash. A blade drawn in silence. A man kneeling before the woman in white armor. "We are yours, until the moons fall."
Kael yanked his hand back.
Breathless. Shaking. But alive.
The blood remembered.
Not just facts. Loyalty. Love. Death.
Kael looked down at his palm. The dried blood crackled and hissed, forming her face—just for a second. Then gone.
He whispered into the dark, "Who were you?"
And somewhere, in the ruined systems beneath the city, the First Vein pulsed once more.