Episode 2:FIRST BLOOD
725 Words
Episode 2: **First Blood**
Two years passed since the night Kalen Dravik claimed his first blood.
The name “Blackan” carried weight now — whispered by travelers, spat by merchants, feared by soldiers. Wherever Kalen went, doors slammed shut. People lowered their heads and prayed he would pass without noticing them.
It suited him.
Or so he told himself.
Mavora had trained him ruthlessly after that first kill. Swordplay, mind games, dark magic — she taught him to master them all. He learned to smile without kindness, to bow without humility, to command without mercy.
But a part of him — a part he buried deep — never forgot the feel of the elder’s blood on his hands.
Tonight was a test.
Not from Mavora — no, this one came from the **Blackan Order** itself.
A secret cabal that ruled from behind velvet curtains and iron thrones, the Blackan had called for Kalen to "prove his worth beyond the blade."
He was to infiltrate **the House of Maevryn**, an ancient, noble family known for resisting Blackan influence, and **destroy it from within**.
Not through force. Through corruption.
*"A true Blackan,"* Mavora had whispered as she tightened the black cloak around his shoulders, *"knows how to rot a tree from the inside, not merely chop it down."*
And so Kalen found himself at the edge of a grand masquerade, under the gleam of a harvest moon, clad in black and silver, his face hidden by an intricate mask.
The House of Maevryn was hosting a tournament — combat, wit, magic — to celebrate their legacy. Nobles, warriors, magicians, and spies from across the land had gathered under their roof.
Among them, Kalen’s targets.
And among them... others who would change his path forever.
Kalen moved through the crowd like a phantom.
He caught whispers of strategy, ambition, betrayal. Nobles laughing over wine, knights boasting of battles won. He watched them all — calculating, silent.
That’s when he saw **her**.
Standing at the marble staircase, in a gown the color of blood, was a woman who did not belong.
Her beauty was crafted, deliberate: golden hair woven with tiny diamonds, a smirk painted carefully across red lips, green eyes that never stopped moving — always watching, always suspicious.
**Vera Moonfall.**
A name Kalen had heard in dark corners: spy, witch, gold-digger. A woman who had traded alliances like coins, who knew secrets that could fell kings.
And she was watching him.
Their eyes locked across the hall.
For a moment, neither moved. Predators, both of them, circling without swords.
Then Vera smiled — a small, sharp thing — and turned away, vanishing into the crowd like mist.
Kalen's lips curled into a shadow of a grin.
**The game had begun.**
Farther into the hall, the tournament was starting.
Young warriors stood ready: proud, eager, stupid. But two stood apart from the rest.
**Silas Ventor**, the genius.
Barely seventeen, Silas was lithe and sharp-eyed, with the body of an athlete and the mind of a scholar. He wielded his twin daggers with the grace of a poet. Every movement he made was deliberate, polite — but behind his formal bows and careful smiles, a fierce mind calculated everything.
And beside him — laughing quietly as he adjusted his jacket — was **Cassian Vale**.
Cassian, too, was a teenage boy, but where Silas was blade-thin and reserved, Cassian was golden-skinned and charismatic. Girls whispered about his smile; boys envied his effortless charm. Yet beneath the easy grin, there was an unexpected kindness, a rare warmth that seemed at odds with the coldness of the noble houses.
Kalen’s gaze lingered on them a moment longer than he meant to.
Not because they were threats. Not because they mattered to his mission.
But because something about them stirred a strange, buried feeling inside him. **A memory of who he might have been, in another life.**
The horn blew.
The first round of the tournament began.
Kalen turned away, his black cloak swirling. He had work to do: identify the weak points of the House of Maevryn, turn them against each other, sow chaos.
But as he disappeared into the velvet shadows, he felt it — the first faint c***k in the armor he had spent years building.
Something was changing.
He just didn't know it yet.
**[End of Episode 2]**
- Writer
