Chapter 11: Blood in the Dust
726 Words
Chapter 11: Blood in the Dust
Crimson flecks painted Vira’s face, arms, and the soil beneath her feet, yet the boy’s expression remained utterly untouched.
Aric Blackthorn simply stared at her, blank, motionless, a cold-eyed statue carved from defiance and quiet rage.
"Why?" Vira’s voice cracked through the stillness like a blade. "Why won’t you just break?!"
Her voice cracked the clearing like thunder, echoing with hysteria and disbelief. She raised both clawed hands to deliver a final, feral blow—one meant to end something deeper than pain.
"Mistress!"
Kael’s voice struck the air like a thrown dagger.
Vira froze, her talons suspended inches from Aric’s battered face. Her chest rose and fell in furious bursts. Her head whipped toward Kael, and her bloodshot eyes locked on his.
"He’s… a direct descendant of the Blackthorn bloodline."
Silence warped the world.
Aric might be a shattered shell of a prodigy, but that detail alone—his lineage—held terrifying gravity. Even she, wife of a Pulse, could not touch that bloodline without consequence. Not even the Pulses could kill him outright.
The fury drained from her hands.
She stepped back abruptly. Her breath rasped through clenched teeth. Blood dripped from her claws, staining the cracked stone beneath.
Aric didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. His eyes stayed locked on her. Watching. Recording. Judging.
She hated those eyes. Cold. Silent. Drenched in something unnameable.
She clicked her tongue in disgust.
"We’re leaving, Kael."
She turned.
Then rustling. Behind her.
She paused. Slowly turned.
Aric Blackthorn was rising.
Like a corpse clawing its way out of its grave, he stood—legs trembling, arms hanging broken, blood cascading down his frame. His gaze never left hers.
Every eye in the clearing latched onto him.
Not a single word.
He turned his back.
And limped toward the manor.
The message was clear. Screamed in silence:
**This is not over.**
Vira’s teeth gnashed as she watched him vanish behind ancient, bloodstained doors.
She didn’t get the last word.
He didn’t need it.
'Unevolved trash.'
She turned and vanished, fury coiled tight beneath her skin.
Two maids exhaled in tandem, collapsing onto their knees as if the tension had turned their bones to jelly.
"I thought she was going to skin him alive!" one gasped.
"We were next! I swear my soul already left my body!"
A sudden chill.
Both turned.
Seris stood silent. Watching the path Vira had walked.
Her eyes: ice.
"S-Seris?"
She said nothing. Just turned and drifted into the manor like a shadow melting into dusk.
The maids trembled anew.
Why was everyone in the Blackthorn clan terrifying?
...
Above, at the tallest balcony of the Blackthorn Sovereign’s Keep, a man stood.
The air was still. Unnaturally still. A vacuum of motion and noise.
Lucien Blackthorn. The Blood Sovereign.
Abyssal robes clung to him yet rippled against no wind. Time itself hesitated around him.
His smile was thin. Too thin. And his eyes—void of anything that could be called joy.
He looked out over the spires and crimson domes of Vitaemora. Saw everything.
Every scream. Every silent rebellion.
One manor.
One boy.
A breath.
"Corvin."
Soundless, the servant appeared behind him, kneeling so fast the motion blurred.
"My Sovereign."
Clad in deep crimson formalwear, Corvin bowed without rising, posture frozen in reverence.
Lucien didn’t look at him. Didn’t need to.
"Send him to the pits."
The words detonated in Corvin’s soul.
"A-as you wish, Sovereign."
Lucien left. No footsteps echoed. The stillness remained.
Corvin stayed kneeling long after he was gone, only rising once silence became unbearable.
He followed Lucien’s gaze.
Saw the boy—bloodied, limping, alone.
"Such a waste."
Aric had lost everything.
His father. His legacy. His evolution.
Lucien had once spoken of Aric’s father with rare pride. Darius Blackthorn—the strongest genius to ever carry their blood. A man who eclipsed all, even Lucien.
Until a Grade 4 darkness swallowed him.
Lucien had broken the earth in his grief.
And still, it had not been enough.
He had found the boy—buried. Breathing. Barely.
He had pulled Aric from the dead.
Now, he would send him to the pits.
The training ground of monsters.
The graveyard of heirs.
And the crucible from which legends rise or perish.
The Blood Sovereign had made his move.
Vitaemora would never be the same.
- Writer
