Snow swallowed the road somewhere beyond the Frost Marches.
The mountains loomed ahead — colossal, jagged silhouettes that scraped the underbelly of the moon. The air thinned with every mile, until each breath came out as a ghost. Wind tore at the edges of Selric's cloak, filling the valleys with a hollow moan that sounded almost human.
He had not seen another soul in three days.Only the tracks of wolves.
Each night, the hum grew louder.
It pulsed beneath, the sound of the storm, buried in the bones of the mountain. Sometimes he felt it through his feet, other times behind his eyes — a vibration, low and constant, like the heartbeat of something buried alive.
Selric tried not to think about it. He failed.
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By dusk, he found the valley.
It wasn't marked on any map — a narrow pass between two cliffs, the snow here frozen into strange, glassy shapes like the remnants of an ancient song turned to ice.
The hum resonated strongest here.
He tethered his horse at the ridge and climbed the last stretch on foot, boots crunching through the crusted snow. The world was silent except for the faint echo of the wind.
When he reached the top, the ground opened before him — a basin of stone and frost, wide as a cathedral.
And at its center, half-buried in ice, stood the ruins.
An ancient temple.
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Selric descended carefully, one hand trailing along the stone for balance. The carvings were faint but deliberate — circular patterns that spiraled inward, intersecting lines of script in a language that no longer belonged to the living.
He brushed away snow from a column and saw it: a sigil carved in deep relief, the mark of the First Covenant — a blood pact between vampire and werewolf sealed before the fall of the old kingdoms.
He stepped back slowly. "Impossible," he whispered.
Nocturne's scholars claimed the First Covenant was a myth — a story used to frighten fledgling vampires into obedience. Yet here it was, carved in stone older than his lineage.
He felt the hum again, stronger now, pulling him toward the heart of the temple.
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The entrance was narrow, hidden beneath a curtain of ice. He drew his dagger and cut through it, slipping into the darkness beyond.
The temperature dropped immediately. His breath fogged and froze in the air.
Inside, the temple opened into a vast chamber.
Icicles hung like spears from the ceiling, reflecting the pale light that filtered through cracks in the rock. The walls shimmered faintly with veins of crystal — the same red hue as the moonlight of Nocturne, only muted, restrained, waiting.
Selric's boots crunched over frost-covered tiles etched with sigils. Every step echoed too loudly.
It felt less like a ruin and more like a tomb.
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At the far end of the chamber stood an altar.
It was made of black stone, cracked but still intact, and half-buried beneath a mound of frozen dust. The hum vibrated from beneath it, steady as a heartbeat.
Selric approached, his gloved hand brushing away frost. The surface of the altar shimmered faintly — not reflection, but depth, as though the stone remembered the hands that had shaped it.
He leaned closer.
There, beneath a layer of translucent ice, something glowed.
A shard.
Roughly the size of a dagger's hilt, buried deep within the altar's core. It pulsed with faint red light — not steady, but rhythmic, answering his presence.
Selric's breath hitched.
He reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the surface of the ice. The hum grew louder, filling the chamber.
It wasn't sounding anymore. It was a voice.
Not words — not yet — but intention. Recognition.
He stumbled back, sword half-drawn. The echo lingered, crawling beneath his skin.
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The light flared once, then dimmed.
He stared at the shard through the frost, heart pounding. The hunger inside him stirred in response — not for blood, but for something older, stranger, sweeter.
The shard called to him the way the moon called to the tide.
He sheathed his sword slowly, forcing his hands to steady. "You've been waiting a long time, haven't you?" he murmured.
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It listened.
Selric exhaled. His breath crystallized in the air. He looked around — at the carvings, the sigils, the impossible symmetry of the place.
Everything pointed toward this altar.
This was no tomb.This was a sanctum.
And the shard was its heart.
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He spent the next hour exploring the chamber. He found broken relics buried in the ice — pieces of armor unlike any craft he knew, rusted chains that once held something, someone. In one corner lay the remnants of a mural: two figures standing beneath a blood-red moon, their shadows merging into one.
Vampire and werewolf, bound by pact.
In the mural's center, between them, the same shard gleamed — painted not as a weapon, but as a key.
Selric traced the symbol with gloved fingers, lips tightening. "So that's what you are."
He looked back toward the altar. The shard's glow had softened, almost calm, like a beast waiting to be tamed.
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Outside, the storm intensified. Wind howled through the temple's cracked roof, scattering snow into ghostly spirals.
Selric sat by the altar, his cloak drawn close, listening to the hum.
For the first time in years, he felt something close to peace.Not comfort — but clarity.
The hunger inside him dulled. The ache that had haunted him since exile ebbed, replaced by the steady rhythm of the shard's pulse.
He could almost believe it wasn't a curse.
Almost.
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Hours passed.
He must have dozed. When he opened his eyes, the chamber had changed.
The light was brighter — a faint, ethereal glow emanating from the shard, painting the walls in shifting hues of red and silver.
And the hum was no longer alone.
Other tones joined it — high, delicate, uncertain, like a choir tuning its first note after centuries of silence.
He rose slowly.
The air shimmered. The ice around the altar cracked, threads of light seeping from the fractures.
He could hear them now.Voices.
Whispers layered atop each other, too faint to understand, too human to ignore.
They weren't speaking to him. They were remembering him.
"...Varian's son...""...the bloodline returns...""...balance undone..."
The sound swelled, filling the chamber, until the air itself vibrated with song — mournful, ancient, beautiful.
Selric staggered back, eyes wide. "What are you?"
The answer came not in language, but sensation — warmth spreading through the cold, an image forming in his mind's eye: a world before war, before hunger, when vampire and wolf had shared one heart.
Then the light snapped out.
Silence crashed back, heavy and absolute.
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Selric stood alone again, chest heaving.The shard's glow faded to a faint pulse.
But he knew, beyond doubt, that he had awakened something.
He didn't know if it was a memory or a warning.Only that the world had started listening again.
He tightened his cloak and turned toward the entrance.
Snow fell through the cracks, whispering across the floor.
Outside, the storm screamed like a living thing.Somewhere far below, a wolf howled back.
Selric paused at the threshold and glanced once more at the altar.
The shard pulsed once — slow, deliberate.
A heartbeat answering his own.
Then he stepped into the snow and began the long descent, the hum following him like a second shadow.