Toward the Ember's Refuge
Kael, Selene, and the twins followed Varn along a winding path beyond the charred forest line, guided by moonlight filtered through drifting ash. They moved in silence, every footstep a whisper against scorched soil. The children rode a makeshift cart Varn had salvaged earlier, resting under furs. Kael, blade sheathed across his back, glanced sideways at Selene. She had not spoken much since the last campfire—her stare often distant, her fingers brushing the locket she wore like a shield.
They passed into a valley overrun with thornroot trees, their twisted forms rising like petrified agony. Varn halted before a collapsed stone arch.
"Beneath here," he muttered. "An old friend keeps a quiet fire. If she's still alive."
Kael tilted his head. "She an enemy of the Crimson Coil?"
"Of all chains," Varn said, pushing aside debris to reveal a narrow stairwell. "She was once Eternal."
The Unshackled Flame
They descended into a hidden network of caverns, damp with old heat and lit by flickering veins of emberstone. At the heart, they found Theryn.
Clad in tattered robes and bearing a long burn across her left eye, Theryn stood like a statue in front of a molten forge. Her presence radiated gravity—not of power, but pain endured.
"I felt something break the day he was born," she said without turning. "And now the boy with no origin walks into my shadow."
Kael stepped forward. "You knew?"
She turned then, gaze assessing. "I remember the old bloodlines. You are not one of them."
Selene narrowed her eyes. "Then what is he?"
Theryn ignored the question. She extended a hand toward the forge. "For now, you're shelterless. Come. Rest. Even devourers must sleep."
Echoes in Quiet Flame
Over two days, the group recuperated. The safe house beneath the forge was a relic from an older age, reinforced with old wards and hidden pathways. The twins, for once, played without fear. Selene helped Theryn prepare meals from dried beast meat and moss-bread. Kael remained silent, often meditating in a quiet corner near the forge.
Theryn approached him once, holding an old blade.
"Did you forge your own?"
Kael unsheathed his katana—black as the void, veined with flickers of red.
"I did. After I devoured a blacksmith's will."
Theryn nodded. "Good. You're not just feeding. You're shaping. That's what they'll fear."
She tapped the floor once. "The Coil is always listening. If they followed Varn's scent, they'll come soon."
Kael's gaze flicked to the children. "Let them."
It happened on the second night. Theryn was tending to a pulse node beneath the forge when alarms flared—a swarm of red-glow orbs shattered against the barrier runes.
"Tracking spores," Theryn growled. "They've found us."
Within minutes, the ceiling trembled. Dust rained. Then a shockwave cracked the upper level. The Crimson Coil had arrived.
Kael met Varn at the upper stair. "Take the children. The back tunnel. Now."
Varn protested, but Kael raised a hand. "You've done your part. Survive."
Selene stood beside him, blades drawn. "I'm not leaving."
A surge of heat erupted as the Crimson Coil broke through. At their center—a Master with threadlike spines erupting from his back. His eyes shimmered crimson. Bloodline awakened.
"You're the one who took the blacksmith," he sneered. "You think you're feared now? Wait 'til your bones dance in our kiln."
The Threads Unravel
Kael wasted no words.
He surged forward, blade clashing against the Master's spine-tendrils. Sparks flew. The Master weaved his threads like whips, tearing stone and steel alike. Selene darted to the side, lashing with twin daggers at the Coil enforcers. Kael parried three strikes at once, then ducked under a sweeping arc of bone-thread and retaliated—his katana cleaving two strands.
The Master roared, launching a volley of crimson barbs.
Kael invoked an absorbed kinetic burst, redirecting the volley into the wall. He slid under the Master, dragging his blade across the enemy's leg. The tendrils shot downward, pinning Kael against the stone, but he gritted his teeth and ignited a stolen flame ability—scorching the threads.
"You're not the only one with bloodlines," Kael hissed.
Theryn Unleashed
From the rear cavern, a second shockwave split the stone—Theryn burst through, her left hand ablaze with blue fire. She intercepted a Crimson Coil enforcer mid-leap, burning through his armor with a single touch.
The Master turned—just in time for Theryn to slam him into a wall with a burst of gravity.
"You come into my hearth," she said, stepping over corpses. "You leave in ash."
The Master laughed, even through blood. "The Coil always regrows. You burn one root—we send ten more."
Theryn's fire ignited into white. "Then I'll salt the earth."
But the Master triggered a failsafe—his body erupting in tendrils, lashing indiscriminately. The cavern began to collapse.
Kael lunged and drove his blade through the Master's chest. At the same time, his devourer's will reached deep—and absorbed everything: the bloodline, the last memories, the pain.
The Master's final words rasped: "Beneath the Shardvault… it begins."
Then silence.
As rubble fell, Theryn shielded them with a gravity ward.
But Kael stood still, his eyes flickering crimson and black—processing the new bloodline, and the secret buried in that dying whisper.