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."