"🜏Where flesh ends, the soul begins."
(from the Manuscripts of Exile, hidden in the Ashen Library)
Three nights, one name.The fire does not choose its bearer…it devours them.One shall take form.One shall take shadow.One shall guard the gate that must never open.If the cycle is denied,time bends,the world withers…and the demon awakens."
The sanctuary was still.Not dead—merely suspended, as though even time itself held its breath.
Rasen slept within the restoration chamber, his body suspended in living crystals that pulsed to the rhythm of a heart not his own. He did not dream. He did not remember. He merely existed, trapped in that fragile threshold where life brushes against oblivion.
Aisha kept her vigil, as if her presence alone could anchor him to this side.
—"And if it's your daughter, Aisha? Come closer," murmured Varek from the entrance.
She was already holding her.Wrapped in sacred-threaded cloth, the infant breathed quietly—small, silent… vast in her frailty.
—"Your daughter," he repeated softly.Moon-blooded.Daughter of the white wolf…And of a curse that has yet to break.Because you live, Aisha.Last descendant of Luciano Kerens.
Aisha looked down at her. In those newborn eyes, she found a promise.
—"Arisha," she whispered.Because even in darkness… you were born of light.
The runes flickered at the sound of the name.Not as if they awakened.But as if they listened… to remember.
From a distance, Varek watched in silence.It was not jealousy that stirred in him.It was older. Sharper.A blade buried so deep, even he dared not touch it.
"I hope you never wake, Rasen… for your son's sake."
He turned away, and without another word, left the sanctuary.
Varek had sworn never to return to that place.But Arisha's birth changed something.If the cycle was beginning anew… he needed to know where it began.
The cave was calling.
For a heartbeat, he thought he heard his brother's laughter—when they were still children."Do you think Mother will come back?"
Varek closed his eyes. No.That echo was no longer laughter.It was a wound, carved deep into the stone.
The path descended like a spiral of living rock. Moisture wept from the walls, and every step carried him further from the present.This cave was drawn on no map.It was older than language.Older than fear.Older than the first name.
He crossed the crooked woods near the old river, where no birds sang.The entrance was a fissure in the stone.The air tasted of rust. Of old blood.
Every breath was a memory.Sealed by forgotten magic.
Only he could see it.Only he remembered what slept within.
—"So here lies my…"
The torches flared to life at his presence.The fire knew him.
And then he saw it.
At the edge of a circle of runes, a symbol had been burned into the rock:a long, coiled wolf devouring its own tail, endlessly turning upon itself.But its form was wrong—bone-born, fire-torn, dying into liquid shadow.At its center: a closed eye.And within that eye… a full moon, inverted.The wolf's fangs bit not only its tail—they brushed against a faintly drawn human heart.
The symbol burned.Varek reached out—and touched it.
🌑 The Vision
The cold came not from without… but from within.
At his touch, the world collapsed, and for an instant, Varek was neither flesh, nor shadow, nor will.He was only an echo, suspended in eternity.
A place with no ground. No time.
Before him stood a winged figure with hollow eyes, holding a broken scale. At its feet flickered three flames: one gold, one red, one white.
A voice that was not a voice spoke:"Three were born of a desire that should never have worn a face… and one shall drink the end of all."
The figure pointed to the white flame.It became a wolf—but it did not howl.It devoured itself.
Varek tried to move, but his body was made of ash.
"Your mother sang so the world would not die at birth.Your father cursed the song.And you… you chose—even before you knew what you were."
A shadow rose behind him.The white flame twisted into a ring of bone.And within it… a girl with violet eyes stared at him.
"She will choose what you feared."
Varek screamed without sound.But the symbol still burned beneath his palm.
And the waking world would not release him—until he understood what he had just seen.
The cycle was not a line.It was inheritance.It was blood.It was a choice… that never stopped repeating.
He returned to himself, his heart pounding like an ancient drum.Before him, the runes glowed—and at their center, the demon.
Velmior Rahz.A body warped by time.Beautiful as a lie.Hungry as a plague.
He could not move.He could not speak.He could only watch.
And in those eyes… the hunger for flesh still burned.
Varek approached, slow, each step a wound.
—"Velmior Rahz…Father.The Ouroboros…I always knew that in the end, we all return to the beginning."
"Because it was you who broke our mother.You… who planted the seed of the end in our veins."
Silence.
"You knew what she was.You knew her blood carried the sleeping wolf…And you wanted it for yourself.You made her believe desire was love.But you only wanted a vessel.A body.An eternal one.And you thought I would serve you."
"But you failed.Sanathiel chose to die a man.I chose to break the cycle.And your grandchildren…will never be yours."
The demon watched him, unmoving.The runes forbade even a blink.But his presence… was a soundless scream.
"Sanathiel feared you.I hated you.And yet…Here I am.Seeking answers in the mouth of the monster."
The air shifted.Varek narrowed his eyes.The walls trembled ever so slightly.
"Why us?Why carry within us the beginning… and the end?"
No answer came.Only a faint flicker in the runes—as if something long asleep wished to stir.
Varek clenched his fist until it bled.Then, he spoke the words Kerens had taught him…Words he had never fully understood as a child.
The Runes of Stone and Blood
Atra es'thel vuran.Sa'nar velh.The cycle sleeps where the fire burns without flame.The shadows obey where the blood denies its name.Velmior, without body.Velmior, without flesh.You are bound by the children who did not choose you.You are denied by the one who carries your voice.Here you remain.Between the whisper and the echo.Until the last of your names is forgotten.
He turned.His cloak dragged ashes.
"The children are safe.And you…you will remain here.As the monster you always were."
He stepped forward.
And then he heard it.
Not words… but a sweet venom that slithered through his blood.
*"My son…Did you think those eyes were yours?That those violet eyes were born to watch flowers and dawns?No.She is the key… and I am the door.
Every time you look at a soul, you see what I once saw—when I bent kings and broke gods.Every time you stop time in your sanctuary, you walk my empire… though you do not remember.And every time you heal your broken flesh, you rewrite my memory into your blood.
You are not an Ouroboros by chance.You are the ring that binds the cycle together.And I… I am the poison that runs through that eternal circle.
Without me, the cycle withers.Without you… it cannot close."*
*"I do not want your death, Varek.I want your freedom.That curse of remembering, of seeing beyond and never forgetting… I can strip it from you.I can give you silence.I can give you peace.
I do not seek your surrender…I seek your return."*
*"Because no matter how far you run, my son…Every time you close your eyes and meet the darkness—that darkness is me.And in your final breath… it will be my voice you hear.
Come home, Ouroboros.Devour with me."*
No words.No scream.Only a subtle tremor—as if the demon laughed.
Though he could not speak, Varek felt the message.Not in words.In the pulse of his blood.
"We will meet again… when she chooses."
As if the demonic blood… was only sleeping.
"The children are safe," he whispered again.But deep down, he knew:no child of this story would be born free.Each would have to choose—even if it meant breaking the world again.
Because the cycle does not die…it only sheds its skin.It only changes its name.
Varek did not answer.He could not.Because deep inside… he feared it too.
He knew that one day, Aisha would choose.And on that day…the cycle would burn again.