The wind howled low across the Outskirts, carrying dust, grief, and memory. The fire crackled in the center of the caravan's makeshift camp, casting flickering shadows that danced like specters on the cracked earth.
Kael sat slightly apart from the others, his back against a stone, the bloodstone compass pulsing faintly beneath his tunic. But it wasn't the compass that stirred him tonight.
It was his Blood Core.
It throbbed like a second heart. And then, without warning, it opened.
Kael's eyes glazed over. The fire turned crimson in his vision, and then,
He stood in a different time. Not Kael, but someone else. Someone ancient.
He was kneeling in a vast cathedral of bone and gold. Above him towered obsidian statues of the Vyr Kings, blood flowing from their eyes like eternal tears.
A voice thundered:
"Name your sacrifice, and be reborn."
The figure raised a dagger, his own name carved along the blade's edge. He plunged it into his chest without hesitation.
Blood sprayed across the altar, and the Heart at the center of the cathedral began to beat.
Kael gasped as the vision snapped back. His hand clutched his chest, his Core burning with hunger.
"Another vision?" Sorella asked, sitting beside him. She held a piece of dried root in her hand but hadn't eaten it.
Kael nodded, voice hoarse. "They're getting stronger."
An old man, Tarren, the grizzled elder who had survived three warbands and a fever that killed dozens, shifted closer. His breath smelled of firewood and decay.
"You saw the altar, didn't you?" he asked quietly.
Kael looked at him sharply.
Tarren nodded. "You're not the first the Blood calls to. And you won't be the last."
Sorella leaned in. "You know what it means, don't you?"
Tarren's eyes glinted with a mix of awe and fear. "The Crimson Heart was shattered after the Vyr fell. Pieces of it… shards… were scattered throughout Red Hollow, hidden in trials, rituals, tombs no sane man would enter."
"Why?" Kael asked.
"Because together, they make you a god. And a monster."
Later that night, Kael wandered from the firelight, hand pressed against a tree, chest heaving.
Inside him, the Blood Core pulsed louder. Not just pain—craving.
He clenched his fists. Visions of sacrifice danced before his eyes. He saw Ralek's face. Sorella's. The outcasts'.
Blood strengthens blood, the whisper said.
Kill. Feed. Ascend.
"No," Kael hissed, shaking.
The bloodstone compass flickered with violent crimson for a moment, then faded back to a steady glow, as if helping him steady himself.
Kael fell to his knees. Sweat poured from him like rain.
He was afraid. Not of death, not of the warlords who hunted him.
He was afraid of what he could become.
Back at the fire, Tarren watched him from afar.
"He fights it," Sorella said softly.
"For now," Tarren murmured. "But no one walks the path of the Crimson Heart unchanged. The Old World sees to that."
And far in the distance, something stirred, drawn to Kael's awakening.
************
The path narrowed into a jagged pass between rust-colored cliffs. Wind whipped through the rocks like screams. Kael walked at the front of the caravan, every muscle tensed.
The compass hung silent at his chest.
Too silent.
Sorella's voice echoed from the back, "Something's wrong. The wind's… too still."
Then—
An arrow hissed. It buried itself in the side of the wagon, inches from Tarren's head.
"Down!" Kael shouted, drawing his blade just as the pass erupted in chaos.
Figures leapt from the cliffs, bandits cloaked in red and black, their faces smeared with blood runes. Behind them came the unmistakable flash of silver helms:
Bloodhunters.
Steel clashed. Screams rang out. The caravan splintered into pockets of desperate defense.
Kael surged forward, and time slowed.
His Blood Core pulsed, and suddenly, Kael saw it.
A bandit lunged at him from the right, but Kael had already stepped aside, blade flashing. Another came from behind, a flick of the wrist, steel through throat.
Not instinct. Memory.
Kael wasn't fighting. He was recalling, the way the Vyr had once moved in war.
Their knowledge now his.
He ducked, parried, spun, cutting through enemies with terrifying precision.
But then he saw the boy.
Barely older than fifteen, charging him with a trembling spear and terror in his eyes.
Blood strengthens blood, the whisper returned.
Kael hesitated.
The spear nicked his arm. He turned, slammed the hilt of his blade into the boy's temple. Not a kill.
But the Blood Core hungered for it.
The ambush left two caravan members dead. Another, a healer named Merida , was wounded badly.
Kael stood at the edge of the broken path, staring down at the blood on his hands. The wind howled through the pass behind him.
"You saved us," Tarren said, limping up. "Without you, we'd be ash."
Kael didn't answer.
Sorella approached, her eyes sharp. "You didn't kill that boy."
Kael finally looked up. "I almost did. Wanted to. It would've made me stronger."
"Then why not?"
He turned back to the jagged rocks. "Because I'm not ready to become what the Blood System wants me to be."
That night, the camp was quiet. No songs. No firelight.
Kael walked alone along the path of bodies—his kills from the day still bleeding into the dust.
Every face blurred into one another.
And yet, one voice echoed clear:
"Kill. Feed. Ascend."
Kael touched the compass. It was glowing again, but dimmer than before. Almost… disappointed.
He looked to the stars beyond the peaks. A storm was coming.
They were nearing the Gate of Bone & Blood.
But first, they had to survive themselves.
Kael whispered to the wind, "If I must become a monster to protect them… I'll decide what kind."
And the Blood Core stirred, not in hunger, but in recognition.
***********
The morning after the ambush dawned in red.
Dust clung to the caravan like old ash. The dead had been buried. The wounded moaned softly under makeshift bandages. But Kael wasn't among them.
He was crouched beside a dying bandit who hadn't perished with the rest.
The man's breaths were ragged, blood pooling beneath him. One hand clutched a bone talisman—blackened, carved with spiraling runes.
Kael tried to pry it free. The man's eyes snapped open, wild with fever.
"You can't—touch it bare."
Kael froze. "What is it?"
The bandit wheezed a laugh. "You don't know? Then the Gate will eat you alive."
He coughed blood, then shoved the talisman into Kael's hand.
"Bone remembers," he whispered. "It remembers what the blood forgets."
Then he went still.
As Kael held the talisman, his Blood Core surged.
The world went dark—and something ancient pulled him under.
He stood in a memory not his own.
Twin moons hung low in a violet sky, and below them, a great host of warriors screamed in terror as Vyr-spawn descended. Serpentine limbs. Bladed tongues. Flesh that writhed and shimmered like liquid nightmares.
At the heart of the carnage stood a crimson figure, armored in bone and wrapped in fire—a Vyr general, roaring defiance as he was consumed.
Kael clutched his skull and screamed.
The vision shattered.
He stumbled back to camp, pale and shaking.
Sorella saw his state and ran to him. "What happened?"
Kael opened his hand. The talisman glowed faintly, pulsing in sync with the bloodstone compass.
"It's guiding us," he said. "To something old… something buried."
Tarren frowned. "You sure that's a good idea?"
"No," Kael said. "But it's the only path forward."
He looked to the horizon.
Beyond the hills, the sky darkened unnaturally—as if the land itself were holding its breath.
As they moved, the road twisted with bones—some small as birds, others massive and broken as siege towers.
The compass beat harder the closer they got.
And in the distance, etched into the cliffs like a scar in time, the Gate of Bone & Blood awaited.
Two massive rib-like arches, fused with old stone and iron, towered into the sky.
The caravan stopped.
No birds. No wind. Just silence.
Kael stepped forward. The talisman and compass both pulsed together—then stopped. Dead still.
He turned to his companions. "Beyond this gate… nothing will be the same."
Tarren murmured, "Was it ever?"
Kael smiled faintly. "Not really."
He walked toward the Gate.
And it opened on its own.
As Kael crossed the threshold, the bone underfoot whispered in a language older than fear.
And somewhere, deep beneath the Gate, something stirred.