Chapter 94 – "The Resurrection Games"
The city of Tenebris had never truly slept, but tonight… it screamed awake.
Glass shattered in the High Halls. Columns cracked with age-old sigils that had never been meant to break. Every spell forged in silence was unraveling.
The seal that bound the old bloodlines had fractured.
And in its place, something older stirred.
---
Lucian and Kyrell moved through the streets like shadows reborn, cloaks billowing, hands often brushing. The bond wasn't just felt—it was seen.
Everywhere they passed, vampires halted mid-motion. Some bowed. Some knelt. Others simply wept.
"He's returned," they whispered. "The blood heir walks again."
Lucian didn't stop them. He didn't speak.
But Kyrell watched them all with a strange ache in his chest.
"I thought they feared you," he murmured, close to Lucian's ear.
"They do," Lucian answered. "But they also remember what it felt like to belong."
---
Meanwhile, beneath the Council chambers, Damien stood across from Silas.
"You were dead," Damien said again, trying to make sense of it. "Lucian killed you."
Silas only smiled. "Did he?"
With a flick of his fingers, the old vampire conjured a vision—Kyrell in Lucian's arms, neck marked, pulse sealed with the bond of blood and lust.
"I underestimated their desire. That won't happen again."
"And what do you want with me?" Damien asked, blade still drawn.
"You still want him," Silas said simply. "And you want Lucian destroyed."
Damien hesitated. "He's stronger now. Their bond—"
"Is exploitable," Silas cut in. "Love always is."
—
At the Sanctum's highest balcony, Lucian stood beside Kyrell, watching the darkness bleed into the sky like spilled ink.
"You feel it, don't you?" Lucian asked, his voice quieter now. "The shift."
Kyrell nodded. "What happens next?"
Lucian turned to face him fully, stepping close, pressing a hand to Kyrell's chest.
"What happens now… is war."
Kyrell leaned in. "Then you're not facing it alone."
Lucian's mouth brushed his—soft, slow, reverent.
"I never was," he whispered.
—
Far below them, a crack split the Council's ancient floor.
From it poured something that wasn't smoke.
It was memory. It was vengeance. It was the dead, waking.
Silas raised his arms to the night and smiled as the first of the Fallen began to crawl from the earth.
"Let the resurrection games begin."
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