Rain clawed at the observatory roof like it wanted inside.
Kael sat by Duran's scroll-table, the soft glow of crimson glyphs casting long shadows. He wasn't supposed to be here—not touching that drawer—but Duran was out gathering reagents, and the itch to know more had grown unbearable.
He pulled the drawer open.
Dust rose like breath from a sleeping corpse.
Inside were brittle scrolls wrapped in leather straps marked with red seals. One looked newer than the others—sealed with the Vyr insignia burned into wax.
Kael's fingers hovered. Then touched.
The seal cracked with a hiss like a dying whisper.
The scroll unfurled.
It wasn't writing. It was a map.
Drawn in what looked like dried blood.
The ink shimmered faintly, like veins beneath skin. Ancient landmarks pulsed dimly across the parchment: The Spine of Arinor, Hollow Wastes, City of Glass…
But Kael's eyes locked onto one name burned darker than the rest:
Red Hollow.
Beside it, a sigil he hadn't seen before—a crown made of bones, encircled by a serpent eating its own tail.
The blood in Kael's body reacted.
A quiet thrum started in his chest. Slow. Measured. Like footsteps approaching.
Duran burst through the observatory door moments later, soaked to the bone.
Kael stood, scroll in hand.
"You knew," Kael said.
Duran's eyes darkened. "Where did you find that?"
"You hid it."
"For a reason."
"Red Hollow," Kael said. "What is it?"
Duran took the scroll slowly, his fingers trembling.
"That place is where the last Vyr queen fell," he said.
Kael blinked. "Queen?"
"They never tell the truth in the archives," Duran muttered. "They say the Vyr were wiped out because they were unstable. Violent. Mad."
He looked Kael dead in the eye.
"But the truth is… the Vyr were too powerful. They didn't bend to the Blood Thrones. They remembered what the world was before the Dominion rose."
"And the queen?"
"She was the last of the Purebloods. She held a relic called the Crimson Heart. With it, she could alter bloodlines—rewrite the very nature of power."
Kael's throat felt dry.
"What happened to her?"
"She was betrayed. Trapped in Red Hollow during the Night of Ash. They say her blood still stains the stones there. It never dried."
Kael felt the pull deep in his bones.
He looked at the map again.
"Then that's where I'm going."
Duran paled. "No. You're not ready."
Kael met his eyes. "I wasn't ready for the slums. I wasn't ready for the System. But I survived."
"Red Hollow isn't a place. It's a warning," Duran snapped. "Every bloodline fears it. Even the warlords won't go near it. The last time someone went searching for it, they came back… not themselves."
Kael was quiet for a long time.
Then he said, "Maybe I've never been myself to begin with."
The Blood System stirred in his mind.
"The blood remembers the path."
"Go where the silence screams loudest."
He looked up at the rain.
And whispered, "Red Hollow."
***********
The observatory felt heavier that morning. The storm had passed, but the sky was still bruised, streaked with veins of red cloud like torn muscle across a dying god's face.
Duran stood by the rusted gears of the telescope, turning something small in his fingers.
Kael watched him quietly. There was something final about the silence between them.
Then Duran spoke.
"You're really going to Red Hollow."
Kael didn't answer. He didn't need to. The Blood System had already whispered its pull into every cell in his body. The name echoed in his bones now, louder than his own heartbeat.
Duran sighed, then extended his hand.
Resting in his palm was a jagged black shard wrapped in crimson threads. A faint, pulsing glow beat at its center—like a second heart.
"What is it?" Kael asked.
"A bloodstone compass," Duran said. "Attuned to your lineage. It'll guide you—not just to Red Hollow, but to everything you've forgotten."
Kael took it carefully. The moment his fingers brushed it, the threads unwound and the stone flickered bright, pointing slightly southeast, toward the dead forests.
"It's alive," Kael whispered.
"No," Duran said. "You are. That's why it works."
Duran moved to the map table. He rolled up the old Vyr scroll, tied it shut, and handed it to Kael.
"I know what you're thinking," he said. "That this is your destiny. That you're meant to finish what the queen started. Maybe that's true. Maybe not. But either way…"
He looked Kael in the eyes.
"Don't become the weapon they want you to be."
Kael's grip tightened around the scroll. The memory of the child he saved—the slaver's blood on his hands—flashed in his mind. That voice of the System still echoed: You are not a god yet.
"How do you fight what's in your blood?" Kael asked quietly.
"You don't fight it," Duran said. "You guide it. You remember that blood is just memory, not fate."
There was a sound outside—low and distant. A rumble. Not thunder.
Engines.
Kael stepped toward the window. From the distant ridge, he could see dark shapes swarming into the ruins: bloodline enforcers in crimson armor, prowling warhounds with glowing eyes.
"They've found us," he said.
Duran cursed under his breath. "Too soon."
Kael turned to him. "You have to leave."
Duran shook his head. "I won't make it out. But you can."
"I'm not leaving you behind."
"You must."
He pulled something else from under his coat—a needle-thin shard of blood crystal.
"Take this too. If the compass breaks, crush this into your skin. It will burn like hell, but it will call the System directly. It will show you what you really are."
Outside, footsteps began echoing through the stone corridors.
Duran looked at Kael one last time. "You're waking something up, Kael. Every time you consume, the Old Blood stirs. The ones who buried it are watching. And the ones who worshipped it are beginning to move."
Kael looked down at the compass. It pulsed faster now. Urgently. Like a countdown.
"Then I'll find the truth before they find me."
Duran smiled faintly. "That's what the queen said. Just before she vanished."
Kael moved to the back exit. Just as he reached the broken tunnel door, Duran called out.
"Kael."
He turned.
Duran's voice cracked.
"I'm sorry for hiding the map. I didn't want you to end up like the others."
"I won't," Kael said.
"How do you know?"
Kael glanced at the bloodstone, then back at the old man who'd saved his life.
"Because I made a promise," he said. "To myself. To survive. To become something more."
Duran nodded. "Then go. Before they tear this place down."
Kael ran into the tunnel, the compass pulsing with bloodlight in his hand.
Behind him, the observatory roared with explosions.
The last thing he heard before the dust swallowed everything was Duran's voice—chanting a spell in the old tongue.
And the System, whispering softly:
"The first bond has been broken."
"Now the Red Road begins."