Chapter 1
The Echo in the Blood
Caelan Reyes never remembered his dreams.
But lately, something lingered. A sound just before waking — like a heartbeat echoing through stone, or a voice he didn't quite understand whispering in a language he'd never learned.
He stared at the ceiling of his dorm room, blinking into the haze of early morning. Dim light filtered through the half-closed blinds, striping his face in pale gold and dust. Another day. Another lecture. Another list of things that felt miles away from meaning.
He sat up slowly, running a hand through his dark hair, the remnants of sleep clinging to his limbs like fog. Something tugged at his ribs — a tightness, a hollowness, like something waiting just behind the curve of his breath.
You ever feel like you're just… waiting for something?
That was what he'd asked his roommate last week.
The guy had laughed and said, "Yeah. Like my coffee."
Caelan didn't laugh. Because he meant it.
He'd always felt like something about him didn't fit. He wasn't dramatic about it — it wasn't some orphaned tragedy complex — it was more like a quiet dissonance. Like a key pressed halfway down. A note held, but never played.
He reached for the silver pendant around his neck — plain, cold, and old. He didn't know where it came from. The orphanage said it was with him when he was found, swaddled in a weather-worn basket under the steps of St. Aurelia's.
No note. No name. Just the pendant. It had no markings. No clasp. He'd never been able to open it, or remove it. It simply… was.
And it pulsed sometimes. Not often. But in the last week? Every morning, just before waking, it felt warm.
He shook the thought and stood. Room 213 was already humming with muffled music from across the hall and the staccato sound of water running through old pipes. He pulled on a hoodie, slung his bag over one shoulder, and stepped outside.
The college was built like a patchwork — some old brick buildings from the 1800s, some glass-and-steel monstrosities. Trees were just starting to bleed orange. Autumn had teeth this year, and the wind cut sharper than it should have for September.
Caelan crossed the main quad, lost in thought, when he felt it again.
That... sensation.
Like being watched.
He turned sharply. No one. Just students on their phones, hurrying to class or sipping coffee.
But the hairs on the back of his neck stayed up.
And the wind — it wasn't blowing toward him. It was moving around him. Like parting.
He didn't mention it to anyone.
Dr. Kellner's class on Myth, Symbol, and Society was held in an old chapel-turned-lecture hall. Stained glass windows filtered daylight into multicolored patterns over cracked wood pews. Caelan took his usual seat in the back.
The class was mid-discussion on mythic bloodlines — divine kings, chosen ones, ancient houses — when something on the projector screen froze him.
"The Forgotten Heir — A recurring archetype in human folklore," the slide read. Beneath it, an image: a robed figure standing between two warring beasts, a crown suspended above their head by threads of light and shadow.
He swallowed.
The pendant pulsed.
He looked down. No one else seemed to notice anything — not the light from the glass, not the static hum in the air, not the low vibration under the floorboards.
Caelan looked up at the window.
In the far corner, a shadow moved.
Not outside.
Inside.
He blinked. It was gone.
After class, he sat under a tree near the sculpture garden, sketchbook open but untouched. He didn't draw. He just watched the sky — the clouds were wrong. Not stormy. Just wrong. Too low. Too slow. Like something massive moving behind them.
A girl from his mythology class stopped to say hi.
He didn't hear her.
His pulse was echoing again.
And then—
The world slowed.
Sound dulled.
He could hear footsteps. Boots. Not sneakers. Heavy. Echoing where they shouldn't echo — on grass.
He turned.
A man stood a few yards away, tall, draped in a charcoal coat, face in shadow. He said nothing. Just watched.
Caelan opened his mouth.
And the man was gone.
That night, Caelan sat at his desk, the silver pendant resting against his chest. He ran his fingers over it for the hundredth time, jaw tense.
Something was happening.
He could feel it.
He glanced at the window.
The moon was too large.
And it looked back.
Far from the campus, in the other realm, two kings stood in silence on opposite ends of the world.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "He's waking."
Raen's breath fogged in the air. "About damn time."
Neither knew his name.
Not yet.
But the blood had stirred.
And the Duskwither Prophecy had begun to breathe.