The ruined temple was quiet again.
Blaze sat on a cracked stone altar, blood still drying on his hands. His claws tapped faintly against the stone as he stared at them. They no longer looked entirely human. They never would again.
The taste lingered in his mouth. Holy blood—sweet and bitter both. It had burned like fire, tearing through him, but that very fire had forged something new. His flesh healed faster now. His senses stretched farther. Even his breath felt heavier, curling faint mist around his lips despite the dry night air.
Across the chamber, Kael paced like a caged wolf, excitement rolling off him in waves. "The boy knight was nothing. You crushed him, master. The rest will fall just the same."
Blaze didn't look up. His voice came low, steady. "That boy nearly burned me alive with a single prayer."
Kael snorted. "And yet you drained him dry."
"Yes." Blaze's gaze flickered to the shadows where the paladin had screamed, then back to his own hands. "But there are more. Stronger. If I charge into them as you wish, they'll pin me to the ground with their Light and leave my ashes for the wind."
Kael's lips curled, fangs flashing. "Then what do we do?"
Blaze rose. His crimson eyes glowed faintly in the gloom. "We stop hiding in graves."
---
The canyon had grown dangerous.
At first it had been quiet, forgotten, a ruin no one cared for. But the paladin patrols grew thicker each night. Blaze and Kael watched torches on the ridges above, horns calling across the cliffs, the sound of steel clattering far into the dark.
They were searching.
Wards had been carved into boulders along the paths—simple glyphs glowing faintly with holy light, meant to repel what lurked beneath. Blaze could feel them like knives scraping across his skin whenever he neared. The church would not rest until the "Nameless Vampire" was found.
Remaining here was suicide.
On the morning after his kill, Blaze stood at the canyon's edge with Kael beside him. The sun had just risen, its glow crawling across the rocks. It hurt to look at, pricking needles into his eyes, but he forced himself to hold the sight until tears of blood stung.
"Remember this place," Blaze murmured.
Kael tilted his head. "Why?"
Blaze's lips curved in something almost like a smile. "Because one day, I'll come back. And when I do, they'll build statues of me from these ruins—whether they want to or not."
He turned, cloak snapping in the canyon winds. "For now, we leave."
---
The borderlands sprawled outward, a patchwork of devastation.
Blaze and Kael moved at night, sleeping beneath trees or abandoned huts during the day. The land bore scars: burned villages with blackened rafters jutting like ribs, wagon tracks gouged deep into mud where refugees had fled, and corpses half-buried by the roadside, left to the crows.
Kael thrived in it. He crouched by bones, sniffing the air, grinning as though the world had already fallen to ruin.
"Humans kill humans," he muttered once, crouching over the wreck of a caravan. "They need no vampires. Look—" He gestured at the broken wheels, the bloodstains, the scattered crates. "Bandits. Soldiers. They butcher their own without fangs."
Blaze studied the tracks in silence. He could see it clearly—the ambush, the panic, the slaughter. The survivors dragged away as spoils. He felt no pity, only calculation.
"Then they will be easy prey," he said finally.
They passed mercenary bands on the roads, rough men in mismatched armor, swords at their hips, laughter sharp with cruelty. None noticed the two shadows watching from tree lines. Blaze held Kael back each time the spawn growled.
"Not yet," Blaze whispered. "We are not wolves chasing scraps. We are hawks waiting for the moment they look up."
Kael obeyed, though reluctantly.
---
By the sixth night, the border town came into view.
It was no jewel of civilization. It squatted against the edge of the hills, its walls little more than half-rotted timber, its gates sagging on broken hinges. Inside, lanterns glowed over crooked streets. Shouts echoed—fights, bargains, the clatter of tankards.
Even from the ridge, Blaze smelled it: sweat, ale, smoke, greed.
Kael wrinkled his nose. "Filth."
"Yes," Blaze agreed. His eyes swept the ramshackle sprawl, noting the guards at the gate too drunk to stand straight, the alleys where shadows pooled thick, the taverns bursting with mercenaries eager to sell their swords. "But useful filth."
Kael frowned. "We could kill them all."
"We could," Blaze allowed. "And tomorrow ten more caravans would arrive with ten more mercenaries. Killing one rat doesn't end the nest." He let the words hang before adding, "But if you own the nest…"
Understanding flickered across Kael's face. Hunger sharpened it into a grin.
---
They lingered on the ridge as the night deepened. Below, the town pulsed with crooked life—dice rolling, whores calling, merchants shouting their wares even at midnight. Above, the stars burned cold.
Blaze stood tall against the wind, cloak snapping, his red eyes reflecting the distant lanterns. The ring pulsed faintly against his finger, as if listening.
He spoke, not just to Kael, not just to himself, but to the cursed relic and whatever gods had once abandoned him.
"They called me useless. Cast me out. Laughed while the priests said the gods had no place for me."
His hands clenched, claws biting into his palms until blood welled. "But this world belongs not to gods. Not to kings. Not to those who kneel."
Kael watched silently, head bowed, as if before an altar.
Blaze's voice dropped, a whisper that carried like steel through the night. "I will never kneel again."
He lifted his head, eyes burning with conviction. "The world will kneel to me."
The wind surged, carrying the stench of the town upward. Blaze breathed it in like incense. Opportunity, corruption, weakness—all waiting to be claimed.
He stepped forward, down the slope toward the border town. Each stride was slow, deliberate, like a king descending to claim his throne.
Behind him, Kael followed, fangs bared in anticipation.
And above them, unseen, the stars dimmed behind a drift of shadow, as though even the heavens recoiled from what walked below.