Ashen found the boy in a silent chamber lined with silver-framed portraits and decaying luxury. Velvet curtains were drawn to keep out the sunlight, but even so, the scent of old blood and crushed herbs lingered in the air.
The heir of House Tahlon lay twisted in his sheets, coughing bile into a silk cloth.
He was dying.
And yet, Ashen saw it—not death, not yet. Something stronger clung to the boy's soul. Not hope.
Desperation.
The physicians came and went. Holy men tried prayers. Alchemists bled him. None dared say the truth aloud, but Ashen could see it clearly in their faces:
Tahlon would not survive winter.
Unless…
Ashen waited until the third night.
Corren had dozed off in the chapel ruins beneath the tower, muttering drunkenly about divine lungs and celestial breath. The guards above had grown lazy. No one watched the boy anymore. Why bother? He was already half-dead.
Ashen slipped into the manor unseen.
He stood at the edge of the bed.
Tahlon stirred. Eyes opened. One green, one milky.
"You… are you real?" he whispered hoarsely.
Ashen did not speak. He simply knelt and opened his hand.
In his palm lay a single black tooth, etched with cursed sigils—the remnant of a dead Apostle from centuries ahead. He had hidden it in the Codex's spine.
It pulsed faintly with corrupted divinity.
"I dreamed of you," Tahlon croaked. "Of a man with eyes like soot. You stood at the gates of my tomb."
Ashen said quietly, "Then wake."
And placed the tooth between the boy's ribs.
The reaction was immediate.
Tahlon arched, screaming—but not in pain. It was fear and bliss, tangled together. Echoes burst from the relic, seeping into the cracks of his dying spirit.
Ashen whispered a forgotten rite—neither prayer nor curse, but something older.
The shadows writhed.
The room dimmed.
And the heir of House Tahlon was reborn.
He collapsed, gasping, but no longer bleeding.
The sigils on the tooth melted into his chest like ink in water.
"I… I can breathe," Tahlon whispered. "The pain… it's gone."
Ashen stood.
"I've stolen you back from death. That is your first debt."
The boy blinked, trembling.
"Who are you?"
Ashen turned, walking toward the window. His voice was cold, quiet.
"No one."
"But one day," he added, "when they ask how the kingdom burned… tell them a slave lit the match."
🔸 You have infected a Noble Soul with Heretical Divinity.
🔹 Tahlon's Fate Bound: "Heir of Ruin"
🔹 + Followers: +1 (Bound) – Tahlon, Puppet Prince
🔹 + Echo Rank: Still D
🔹 + Corruption: 8.7%
🔹 + Divine Infamy: 3 (Still Obscure)
🔹 Divine Awareness Risk: Moderate (Suppressed by Fading Domain)
The next morning, the city awoke to bells ringing in the keep.
Tahlon had risen.
He walked among his people. Pale. Frail. But alive.
They called it a miracle.
Ashen, standing behind him in servant's robes, bowed low.
No one knew the truth.
But already, whispers began to spread.
A miracle. A boy reborn.
And in the silence between prayers, Ashen fed.
That night, he returned to the tower and found Corren waiting.
The old priest was sober for once, holding the Prayer Codex in both hands like a corpse.
"You touched the heir."
Ashen said nothing.
Corren's voice dropped. "You think I don't see it? You're shaping things. You're bending the divine."
"I'm correcting it."
"You'll bring the Watchers."
"Not yet," Ashen said. "Not here."
Corren laughed bitterly.
"You'll use that boy like you used all of us before, won't you?"
Ashen paused.
Then: "Yes."
And left.
Far above, in the shimmering skies between realms, a fragment of Serathiel stirred.
The Light had not spoken in centuries.
But now, something moved.
A tiny fracture. A faint itch. Like rot in a pearl.
And from the heavens, a soft voice murmured:
"Something has returned…"