🜏Narrator: Varek
"The purest promises are not broken by screams… they break in silence."—Luciano Kerens
The night in Esperanza del Ciervo was not cold because of the wind.It was cold because of what I left behind.Because of what I could never carry with me.
Luciano Kerens had been cursed never to return to that village.Moira, his only friend, had sown runic stones along the road to keep creatures like him from touching it again.And so it was I who carried Sanathiel there.
He was barely five years old.And he already looked like a body with no future.Fragile, legs too weak to bear his weight, breathing as if each breath had to be borrowed.
I stood by the fogged window.The glass held the shape of my breath.I didn't want to go in.Not yet.
—"You'll be safer here, Sanathiel," I whispered.
I opened the door in silence.The smell of old wood struck me.I walked to his bed. His blonde hair spilled across the pillow like a final thread of innocence.I knelt. Touched his forehead.His eyelids quivered.My tears brushed his skin.
"If you wake… you will hate me. And if you don't… perhaps I will hate myself.Sleep… and forget, Sanathiel," I murmured.
I closed my eyes. The runes etched into my palm burned.My violet pupils—those damned gems—lit up.The moon withdrew from his blood.The fangs hid.The Nevri wolf stopped beating within him.
Only a child was left breathing.A child who would no longer remember half his life.
I closed the door and left my shadow upon him.Outside, Luciano was waiting.
—"You did what you had to," he said.—"No," I replied. "I did what I swore… and broke it with the same breath."
Years passed, and his name changed: Rodrigo.He was adopted by a couple who could not have children.He learned to walk, clumsy and slow.But his body did not follow the rhythm of other children: he did not grow the same, did not fall ill the same.
Luciano watched him from afar, unable to enter.So did I.
At five, Noah begged for him.And Luciano granted clemency.That night, Sanathiel's golden eyes awoke.The dagger of destiny grazed his skin, and telekinesis bloomed in his hands as if it had always been waiting.
At six, the pack found him.Wild wolves—cursed.They adopted him as one of their own.He did not speak. Only mimicked gestures.Two of those wolves broke the laws, drank his blood, and deformed:no longer beasts, no longer men—both, cursed to follow him.
He believed they had saved him.In truth, they had claimed him.
Time carried him to a monastery.There, prayers hid the trade and abuse of children.Sanathiel did not transform.He did not howl.He simply walked the halls… and the silences filled with screams.
By dawn, they were all dead.And he was taller.
He was seven when Doctor Fallian claimed him.His father-in-law was part of a newborn organization: The Community of Thirteen.They used his blood to heal the sick… and thus the legend of the Nevri was born.
—"Leave him here," Luciano said. "He will live as a human until he awakens."—"And if he awakens sooner?" I asked.
His gaze—laden with black thorns writhing beneath his skin—did not blink.Those thorns breathed. They sought to escape.
—"Then… the cycle will choose whom to devour first."
I saw the marks creep up his neck, releasing a dark vapor that was not air… but specters.
—"The children of that demon do not inherit his shadow," he whispered. "They multiply it. Where they tread, ruin is born.That is why I prepare you. Not to follow him… but to lock him away."
He handed me a blackened iron key.—"When I fall, the Community of Thirteen will be your burden.Not its power… its curse."
And as his voice trembled, he said something I never forgot:—"Not all my children are lost… but not all will return to me."
Verenice appeared then.Black wavy hair. Eyes like storm-laden skies.A scientist who played at being a mother.She registered Sanathiel as her adoptive son, under her surname: Ruanda.
And me…Luciano made me heir.His legitimate son before the Council.The Community of Thirteen awaited me with its network of specters and laboratories.
I watched him grow from a distance.Saw how his laughter became borrowed.How the wolves followed him like shadows.How he met Risas.And Archangel.I never dared to approach him.
Because every step toward him was an echo:Sariel still watched me from the ashes.
One night, Verenice took him to the great hall.The spectral stones burned like lamps of blood.The elders of the Thirteen watched him with fear… and hunger.
—"This child," Luciano declared, "will be the key."
I stood outside.On the threshold where oaths splinter.
Before I vanished, I touched the frozen earth.I whispered to the stars:—"No matter how many years pass.No matter how many names you bear: Sanathiel, Rodrigo, Stefan…I will remember.And when the moon stains itself again…I will be the first to bleed."
And beneath the roots where Sariel had withered… something still pulsed.Not dead.Not alive.Just… waiting.
Because promises are not broken.They rot.And sometimes, they bloom again—with teeth.
I, instead, was taken to my new fate:that boarding school where I met Aisha,where, for the first time, I chose to look away…not knowing that this choice would also mark him.
Because every step I took away from Sanathiel was a pact still unbroken.
"I chose to erase you. I chose to leave you.But the cycle never forgets.And when it awakens—whether in your flesh or in your shadow—I will be there.If you hate me, let your hatred find me.If you seek me… let it be to decidewhether I will die with you, or for you.Because I have never known how to save you… without losing myself.And though she—Aisha—pretends she does not belong to me,every silence of hers only drags me deeper:It is not love.It is the wound that will not stop bleeding."