The manor was no longer a battlefield but a quiet, living thing. Mehandi had spent a month restoring its magic, feeling the pulse of the ley lines beneath the floorboards and the whispers of the aether in the walls. The visible glow of his restorative magic was a constant reminder of his purpose, but the deeper he reached into the manor's core, the more he found traces of his brothers' corruption.
He was in the Volkov family archives, a massive, sealed library that hummed with a different kind of power—the power of history. His brothers had never been able to open it; their magic was too aggressive, too impatient. But Mehandi's magic, born of the earth and starlight, felt like a key in a lock. He reached out with his hand, and the heavy, oak doors unlocked with a soft click, swinging open to reveal a room that had not been disturbed in years.
Dust motes danced in a single shaft of light, illuminating rows of scrolls and leather-bound tomes. Mehandi was not looking for a spell, but for a family history, a record of the last days of his parents. He found his mother's personal journal, its pages brittle with age, and a separate, sealed document labeled "For the True Heir." His hand trembled as he broke the seal.
The document was a final testament from his father, written in a shaky, fading hand. It spoke of a slow, creeping illness that had settled over him and his wife, an ailment no family mage could diagnose. "The magic in our bodies is not fading," the words read, "it is being corrupted. Our auras are being poisoned." His father suspected treachery from within, a foul magical poison that was both untraceable and slow-acting. He wrote of his last days, of his fading strength, and a final, heartbreaking entry: "I fear our time is short, and I fear the children we leave our legacy to. They have already started to feast on our decay."
Mehandi's blood ran cold. The sickness he had been told killed his parents was a lie. The same slow-acting poison that had been used on him, disguised in a tonic, had been used on them. His brothers, Leo and Ivan, had not simply waited for their parents to die; they had orchestrated it. They had feasted on their parents' power while they were still alive.
The righteous anger that had fueled his return from the grave felt like a child's tantrum compared to the cold, murderous rage that now settled in his heart. It wasn't about reclaiming his birthright anymore. It wasn't about a simple act of vengeance for his own betrayal. This was about justice. This was a son avenging his murdered parents.
He looked at the open chasm in the library floor where he had found the document, a direct line to the manor's glowing core. He knelt, placing his hand on the pulsating light, and a promise was made, not to the manor, but to the earth itself. The Volkov name had been stained with greed and ambition, but now it was soaked in the blood of their parents. He would not just reclaim his family's legacy; he would cleanse it.
The brothers, in their flight, had underestimated him. They thought he was only after their title and wealth. They had no idea he was now a ghost with the vengeance of two souls. He would hunt them down, and for the first time, he would not be fighting for his birthright. He would be fighting for his parents' memory, and he would not stop until their murderers were brought to justice.