House of Blood

The avalanche didn’t just collapse the crevasse—it swallowed it whole.

When Vespera finally cleaved through the hundred-foot wall of glacial ice, her dark battle scythe vibrating with terrifying, frantic energy, she found only a smoldering, frozen tomb.

The floor was scorched black. Smoldering ash and melted slush were scattered with the charred, unrecognizable remains of Sec branch enforcers and abyssal beasts.

And in the center lay a small, blood-soaked piece of black obsidian silk, torn and singing at the edges.

"VALERIAN!"

Caelum slammed his fists into the ice floor, the shockwave shattering the surrounding shelf. His breathing was ragged, his eyes wide in disbelief as he searched the snowbanks with his bare hands.

"He was down here! His blood... his blood heat is everywhere!"

Rook knelt in the slush, picking up the scorched fabric of the blindfold. The old butler’s hands trembled violently, his face drained of all color.

Vespera stood frozen in the center of the pit.

Her scythe slipped from her grip, clattering against the ice.

She stared at the black cloth in Rook’s hands, the suffocating pressure of her Stage 4 Death-Mistress Domain collapsing inward, leaving her pale, breathless, and utterly hollow.

"No..." she whispered, her voice barely audible over the arctic wind.

"No, no, no..."

"Lady Vespera..." Alexis’s voice crackled through a communication crystal in Rook’s pocket, sounding strained and distant.

"Report. Did you locate the Young Master? Imperial scrying mages are approaching the northern gate—"

"He’s gone," Rook choked out, forcing the words through his tight throat.

"The crevasse collapsed. The abyssal heat detonated the lower cavern. There is... there is no life signature remaining."

A heavy, agonizing silence fell over the communication line.

Above them, the sky turned pitch-black as the main seal at the Frost-Grave Rift buckled, sending a massive shockwave of abyssal mana roaring across the valley.

Garren’s ritual was entering its final phase.

"We fall back," Vespera commanded, her voice dropping into an eerily quiet, dead tone.

She picked up her scythe, her red eyes completely devoid of light.

"We seal the border, we slaughter every Sec branch traitor in the province, and then... we tear Garren apart."

Ripples Across the Continent

Within forty-eight hours, the news of the seventh child’s death erupted across the Empire like a wildfire.

In the high courts of the Imperial Capital, nobles shrugged it off as an inevitable tragedy—a fragile, blind dud who should have never stepped into the northern snows.

But in the private chambers of the palace, Princess Solene stared at the white luminescent jade seal sitting on her desk, her knuckles white.

"He’s not dead," Solene said coldly to her imperial guard, her voice cutting through the quiet room.

"He predicted my movements on loose paving stones. He doesn’t die in a ditch."

In the eastern border territories, Lady Lyra Medeis stood on her balcony, staring at the small, motionless scrying stone in her palm.

The silver runes on her throat flared with sharp, volatile light.

"Trash," she whispered furiously, her teeth clenching.

"You promised to bring me proof. You don’t get to die before I carve a tracking rune onto your heart."

And deep within the grand sanctum of the Sanguis Ancestral Domain, the Patriarch—Valerian’s father— sat upon a high throne of carved dragon-bone.

A messenger bowed low, shivering under the suffocating, oceanic aura radiating from the clan head.

"My Lord... the northern vanguard reports... the Seventh Young Master was lost in the crevasse collapse," the messenger reported, his voice shaking.

"They found only his scorched blindfold and blood-soaked ashes."

The Patriarch remained silent for a long, heavy minute.

His golden-crimson eyes slowly opened, piercing through the dim hall.

He did not shed a tear, nor did he rage.

He simply stared at the northern horizon through the massive stained-glass windows.

"The seventh child’s core was weak," the Patriarch spoke, his voice booming like distant thunder, suppressing the dark grief lingering in his chest.

"If he died in the snow, he was unfit for the Sanguis name. But send two shadows to the Frost-Grave Rift... bring me his bones, or bring me the heads of those who claim he is dead."

The Deep Caverns

Three miles north, deep within the hidden subterranean tunnels of the Frost-Tooth territory.

The air smelled of burning pine resin, pungent medicinal herbs, and fresh animal fat.

I was drowning in a sea of red and black.

Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass.

My left lung was punctured, my collarbone shattered, and my dragon core—overclocked beyond its physical limits—was backfiring, sending waves of uncontrollable, searing fever pulsing through my blood vessels.

" CRITICAL WARNING: VESSEL COLLAPSE NEAR "

" DRAGON CORE: HYPER-MUTATED RECOVERY ENGAGED "

" REGISTRATION: PATIENT CRITICAL "

’Hold on, kid... don’t you dare die on me now,’ Wren’s voice whimpered, her shadowy spirit form wrapped tightly around my bruised heart, desperately channeling her ancient origin energy to keep my internal organs from completely failing.

’They found us... the barbarians found us...’

"Is he going to live, Shaman?"

Kaelen’s voice broke through the ringing in my ears.

She was standing beside a massive stone slab, her shoulder bound in fresh furs, her yellow eyes filled with intense, frantic worry as she watched two older Orc-Blood elders press hot, rune-carved stones against my chest.

"His bones are pulverized, Daughter," a towering, broad-shouldered barbarian answered in a low rumble.

It was Chief Borka.

His face was scarred from decades of battle, his broad chest crisscrossed with jagged wounds from his escape from Garren’s enforcers.

"Any normal human child would have died ten times over from injuries like this," Borka growled, leaning over the slab to inspect my pale face.

"His blood is boiling the water in our bandages. He carries the mark of the Prim Sanguis... yet he saved your life in the crevasse."

"He didn’t just save me, Father," Kaelen said fiercely, pointing at my right arm, which was wrapped in thick, herb-soaked leather.

"He killed an abyssal fiend with his bare hands while his body was already broken! He fought like a warrior of the sacred snows!"

Borka remained silent for a long moment, looking down at my small, battered frame.

He reached out with a heavy, callous hand, touching the fresh, black leather blindfold his shamans had tied securely over my eyes to protect my unstable, glowing dragon core.

"He is no ordinary noble brat," Borka declared, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the chieftain’s hall.

"He bled on our snows fighting the rot-creatures. By the laws of the Frost-Tooth... his blood is bound to ours."

He turned to the tribal shamans.

"Use the Great Bear Marrow. Pour the ancient blood-salve into his wounds. If the heavens brought this dragon-child to our valley... we will build him back stronger than steel."

For three weeks, the world existed only as fragments of pain, fever dreams, and the bitter taste of crushed northern roots poured down my throat.

On the twenty-fourth morning, the fever finally broke.

I opened my eyes—or rather, my crimson perception flared back to life behind the dark, soft leather blindfold the barbarian shamans had fashioned for me.

Even fully covered, my Sovereign’s Guilt Eyes hummed with a quiet, refined power beneath the cloth, mapping out every stone, bone, and soul thread in the room.

"He wakes!" a young barbarian warrior yelled, dropping a wooden water bucket in shock.

I tried to sit up, a sharp groan escaping my lips as my chest tightened.

My left arm was bound tightly to my torso in thick leather splints, and my skin was covered in dark, spiraling tattoos painted with herbal blood-salve.

"Easy, dragon-boy," a voice called out.

Kaelen stepped out from behind a heavy fur curtain, carrying a steaming wooden bowl of dark meat broth.

She walked over to the stone bed, setting the bowl on a wooden stool beside me, her golden eyes locking onto my blindfolded face.

"Where..." I rasped, my voice dry and cracked like dust.

"Where am I?"

"The Deep Caverns of the Frost-Tooth," Kaelen replied, sitting on the edge of the bench.

"My father’s scouts dragged you out of the crevasse rubble right before the blizzard hit. Your clan thinks you’re dead, Valerian. They pulled their vanguard back to the southern gates."

I closed my blindfolded eyes, taking a slow, quiet breath.

Dead.

To the Prim family, to Garren, to the Imperial Court, and to my father, Valerian Prim Sanguis was buried under a hundred feet of avalanche ice.

’It’s a clean slate, kid,’ Wren whispered, her phantom form fluttering happily inside my core, her energy fully recovered.

’Garren thinks his biggest headache is gone. Your siblings are going to go on an absolute rampage in the south... which leaves us free to hunt in the north.’

"And Garren?" I asked, opening my eyes behind the leather blindfold, suppressing the crimson glow of my irises.

"The rift?"

Kaelen’s expression darkened.

"The grey monster couldn’t break the main seal completely. My father and the surviving northern tribes united to push his enforcers back into the jagged peaks. But he’s still up there, building a fortress in the dead zones, waiting for the winter solstice to finish his ritual."

She looked at me, her posture straightening with fierce, unshakeable respect.

"You’re going to be stuck here for a long time, Sanguis. Your bones need months to heal properly. But my father said as long as you’re in our hall... you eat our meat, you drink our medicine, and you learn to fight like a warrior of the wastes."

I reached up with my right hand, feeling the rough, sturdy leather blindfold bound firmly across my face.

The delicate noble child playing political chess in the southern mansions was dead.

In his place stood a hound trapped in the frozen north, waiting for his bones to mend and his teeth to grow sharp.

"Tell your father," I said softly, a dark, dangerous smile touching my lips, "I’m ready to learn."

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