Chapter 24: The Bloodline Keep
The wind carried no birdsong, no whisper of life—only the hollow echo of history.
Bloodline Keep loomed ahead like the skeleton of a god. Its towers had long since fallen, its gates twisted into grotesque shapes by time and war. Yet something within it still breathed—a pulse, faint but alive.
Kairo and Kaelen stood at the base of the ancient stairs, the air thick with the scent of rust and forgotten magic. The fog that cloaked the valley hung motionless here, as though afraid to enter.
Kaelen exhaled slowly. “I thought it would be… bigger.”
Kairo glanced at him, the silver glow beneath his eyes flickering. “It’s not the walls that matter. It’s what sleeps inside them.”
As they ascended, runes carved into the stone flickered to life, one by one, like old
