Lucian Vortelan stood with his arms behind his back, gaze fixed coldly on the boy bound at the center of the glowing ritual circle.
"In order to awaken the Varnak blood," he began, voice echoing through the stone chamber, "a candidate must survive vampire venom. Simple enough in theory, but… we couldn't exactly parade children across Europe back to Romania without raising questions. So we found a faster method."
Caelum didn't respond. Shackled and weakened by blood loss, he could only meet Lucian's words with seething silence.
Lucian stepped slowly around the runes, pausing directly across from Caelum. "We took them," he said, "and dropped them near feral vampire nests. Deep forests. Isolated ruins. Forbidden places."
"If they awakened the blood," Lucian continued, "we came for them. If not… they died. Or turned." He shrugged. "Either way, they served a purpose."
Caelum's throat burned as he rasped, "What about their families?"
Lucian tilted his head, an imitation of sympathy on his face. "We couldn't have them raising alarms, could we?"
Caelum's breath caught.
Lucian sighed, almost theatrically. "Even with all that effort… in over three hundred years, the number of awakened Varnak Seeds is pathetically small. And even fewer survive extraction. Sometimes, not worth the trouble."
His crimson eyes gleamed as he gazed at Caelum—hungry, calculating. "Not until you."
With a flourish of his cloak, Lucian stepped into a second spell formation opposite Caelum's. The runes glowed blood-red.
"It's better if you don't resist," Lucian said softly. "It'll be over soon."
…
St. Mungo's Hospital, London
"Absolutely not," Amelia Bones snapped. "He's only a child!"
"I'm not saying we abandon him!" Moody growled back. "But you're barely recovered—if we lose you too, we lose one of the few people who still have a chance of understanding this."
Amelia, arm still bandaged and fury in her eyes, looked ready to strike someone.
The door creaked open.
"Perhaps," said a calm, familiar voice, "I might be of help."
Dumbledore stepped inside, robes whispering over the floor. Behind him stood Vesper, pale but resolute, her hands clenched at her sides.
"I believe," Dumbledore continued, "it is time we stop pretending this is an ordinary case."
…
Back at the Ritual Chamber
The air had grown heavy, suffocating. Blood rose in thin streams from Caelum's body, drawn by the ritual's pull. The droplets hovered in a crimson spiral.
Lucian's incantations thundered through the walls. The ground trembled.
Caelum's pulse hammered. The sigils flared from gold to blood-red, their rhythm turning frantic. Magic tore through him, raw and relentless—every breath felt like fire. He could feel the ritual reaching its end, the pull tightening around his core until holding it became agony.
The spiral above him shuddered, collapsing inward.
And then—everything stopped.
The light died. The air went still.
Silence.
He opened his eyes to find himself not in the chamber, but standing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest.
Moonlight filtered through skeletal branches. The trees were silent. Still. Familiar.
He knew this place.
And ahead of him… a child knelt, bleeding into the forest floor.
Himself.
Five years old.
The memory had returned.
He took a shaky step forward.
Another presence stirred. Caelum turned his head slowly.
A man stood beside him.
Pale-skinned. Golden eyes. Regal robes draped over a frame that exuded no magic—and yet the pressure in the air was immense.
The man did not look at him.
"Hello, Caelum," he said quietly.
Caelum's heart pounded. He stepped beside the stranger, both of them gazing at the child crumpled on the ground.
"You're from the House of Varnak," Caelum said. "I saw you in the image from the Bloodstone… guarded by Gura Umbrei."
"I am," the man replied. "Or more precisely… what remains of him. An echo. A remnant of the last Patriarch, Aurelian Varnak—awakened by the ritual currently destroying your body."
Caelum clenched his fists. "They call me a Varnak Seed."
"You are."
"Then I deserve the full truth."
The spirit nodded, expression heavy with centuries of memory.
"The House of Varnak," he began, "was an ancient bloodline of hybrid sorcerers—masters of blood magic and fire. Not the elemental kind you learn at school, but the Varnak Flame—born of soul, bound by legacy.
"We walked a narrow path between light and darkness. Vampires, they were not our enemies but our vassals. Our allies in shadow. And for that… the world feared us."
Caelum listened silently as the spirit went on.
"In our final days, a coalition of Europe's most powerful wizarding houses moved to end us. They branded our practices heresy. Feared what we might become. And so they came for us."
"And Lucian Vortelan—the man standing across from your real body right now—is the heir to the house that once knelt to ours in fealty."
"They were our vassals," the Patriarch said, voice tightening. "Trusted. Bound to us by blood. But in fear of their own extinction, they betrayed us. Gave up our secrets. Opened our gates."
Caelum's chest burned.
"I saw it coming," the Patriarch continued. "We all did. And so… we chose sacrifice over erasure. A Grand Ritual. A spell, bound not to time—but to fate."
He raised his hand, and the forest shimmered.
Visions bloomed in the trees—elders gathered in a circle, blood streaming into the earth, flames licking the sky.
"We cast our legacy forward through time—into the unborn. Into the children fate would call forth. Born of no magical line, but carrying the spark. First-generation sorcerers—without anchor to any wizardkind, but chosen by destiny."
Aurelian's voice echoed, low and resonant.
"That is the first condition we set."
The vision shifted—figures screaming beneath a blood moon, cursed fangs sinking into flesh, magic lashing out in desperate instinct.
"You should already guess the other condition."
Caelum's breath caught.
"Survived vampiric turning."
Aurelian inclined his head.
"To awaken the fire fully, one must endure death without succumbing to it. Bloodshed was not merely tradition—it was crucible."
The images twisted—roots coiling with runes, blood sinking into stone, fire lines etching themselves through ancient soil.
"The ritual was woven into the very earth—buried deep in time and place, designed to remain dormant. No one could simply study it or detect it. Not even those who tried to abuse it."
"Only when the conditions were met would the inheritance stir—rising and drawn into the one deemed worthy. The fire would answer, and the legacy would choose."
Caelum stood silent, breath shallow.
"Varnak Seeds," Caelum whispered.
The Patriarch turned to him now, fully, his gaze piercing. "You are one of them. Our legacy. Our last flame."