Aldric took a taxi home.
He didn't walk—walking meant patterns, patterns created predictability, and predictability got people killed. Especially when a black car had been watching him all day.
He stepped in quietly, shoulders loosening the moment the door shut behind him.
His home was small, humble… but it was alive.
His mother hummed softly in the living room, legs curled beneath a blanket. Her face looked healthier than it had in years—still pale, still fragile, but finally living instead of breaking. The medicine he bought was slowly repairing her from the inside.
His father sat in a reclining chair, one leg still supported by a brace. The man wasn't fully mobile yet, but he looked stronger—color returning to his skin, life returning to his eyes.
"Welcome home, Aldric," his father said quietly.
Aldric smiled.
"Glad to be home."
Then two small shapes barreled toward him.
His younger siblings—
Rian, age 10, with sharp eyes and a mop of unruly curls.
And Mira, age 12, always bright, always wearing a bookbag even when she didn't need one.
They were both carrying the new school bags he'd bought for them—navy blue for Rian, forest green for Mira—with the crest of their school stitched neatly in the corner:
Ravencrest Middle Institute.
"Look!" Mira spun, showing the embroidered patch. "It even has my name!"
Aldric smiled, ruffling her hair.
"You two like them?"
"Yes!" they both shouted.
He helped them with their homework for an hour—math equations, reading assignments, a short essay about early civilizations for Mira. He corrected her grammar gently, guided Rian through his fractions, all while keeping an ear out for any unfamiliar footsteps outside.
Everything was normal.
Too normal.
That was the part that worried him.
When his family settled for the night, Aldric retreated to his room. He closed the door, locked it, and sat at his desk.
The air felt different here.
Quieter.
Older.
Like something waiting for him.
He hadn't done this in years—not since before law school.
But tonight, something gnawed at him.
Leora's whispered Old Norse.
Her terror.
Her trembling hands holding that juice carton as if it were a lifeline.
The black car watching.
The coded message meant only for him.
Aldric reached for the notebook where he wrote linguistic notes, ancient translations, and fragments of forgotten history. His fingers traced the worn pages as muscle memory awoke inside him.
He knew 31,000 languages—living, dead, forgotten, forbidden.
Old Norse was one of the easier ones.
He closed his eyes and recalled Leora's voice—soft, shaking, careful.
"Blóð. Skyggðar eldar. Engin mannleg nærvera…"
He whispered it again to himself.
Letting each syllable fall into place.
Then he translated:
"Blood.
Shadowed flames.
No human presence."
At first glance it looked like poetic nonsense.
A warning with missing pieces.
But Aldric felt his pulse tighten.
He'd heard this before.
He rose from his chair, knelt beside his bed, and reached far beneath it until his fingers touched a wooden box.
He pulled it out slowly.
Inside was a book—heavy, leather-bound, wrapped in cloth as if even touching it bare was dangerous.
He unwrapped it.
"The Aethern Codex."
A book banned everywhere.
A book believed to have existed before written history.
A book that scholars claimed was myth—until Aldric found the only surviving copy during his childhood travels with a linguist mentor.
Aldric opened it carefully.
The pages smelled like dust and time.
Like graves.
He flipped through until he reached a chapter he hadn't touched since he was twelve years old.
Chapter IX:
"The Night That Preceded Mankind."
There, written in jagged runes older than Old Norse, older than Proto-Germanic, older than human civilization, was the exact phrase Leora whispered:
"Blood. Shadowed flames. No human presence."
Aldric placed both hands on the desk, leaning forward.
His eyes scanned the passage beneath the phrase.
And as he read, the blood drained from his face.
Because he realized—
Leora didn't give him a cryptic warning.
She didn't tell him what she saw.
She didn't describe corruption.
She described a ritual.
A ritual so ancient that even the Codex only hinted at it.
A ritual performed in silence, in darkness, leaving no trace of human presence—not because no humans were there…
…but because humans were never meant to witness it.
His breath tightened.
It meant she didn't just see a crime.
She saw something older than law, older than government, older than the five unknowns, older than even the one they served.
Something that played with humans like pieces.
Something that left blood and shadowed flames in its wake.
Aldric turned the page.
His eyes locked on a symbol at the bottom—a circle within a circle within a circle.
The same one on the law school's building.
The same one on the envelopes of money.
The same one stamped on his fate.
His heart slammed once against his ribs.
Then again.
This wasn't corruption.
This wasn't politics.
This wasn't a conspiracy.
It was something older.
Something that had waited for centuries.
And somehow—
Leora saw it.
Aldric lowered the book slowly.
The room felt colder.
If she saw this… then she's in far more danger than she realizes.
He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his thumb over the symbol burned into the page.
"What did you get yourself involved in…?" he whispered, but the question was for himself too.
The Codex seemed to stare back at him.
A silent reminder:
Some truths are not meant for mankind.
And Aldric Benedict was stepping into one of them.
He closed the book—but the phrase continued echoing through his skull like a warning bell:
Blood.
Shadowed flames.
No human presence.
He knew exactly what it meant now.
And he also knew—
someone else knew that he knew.