CHAPTER3:THORNBOUND OATHS
5000 Words
THORNBOUND OATHS
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Chapter One: The Edge of Silence
The safehouse had grown too quiet.
Selene sat by the window, staring at the jagged skyline of what remained of New Vienna. Moonlight filtered through broken blinds, casting pale bars across her face. Somewhere beneath the fractured horizon, Darian’s influence twisted the underworld into something half-alive, half-forgotten.
And Lucien was gone.
She clutched the letter he’d left behind, the words engraved in her memory even after she'd burned the original. It wasn't just a goodbye—it was a confession, a warning, and a plea. It haunted her more than any nightmare.
> If I become him—kill me.
If I don’t come back—don’t follow me.
I would rather be your memory than your monster.
She rose.
The time for waiting was over.
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Chapter Two: The Thorn Witch
The Hollow District was darker than before. As if Darian’s ritual had left a bruise on the city’s spirit. Selene moved like a shadow, silent and steady, following whispers through alleyways and ruins.
She found the Thorn Witch again—this time not in hiding, but seated beneath the roots of a dead tree that had once grown through a cathedral ceiling.
The woman didn’t speak immediately. Her blindfold had been replaced by a crown of vines. Her robes bled petals that turned black the moment they touched the ground.
> Selene: “He’s gone.”
> Thorn Witch: “Not gone. Offered.”
> Selene: “To what?”
> Thorn Witch: “To the one who mourns. The first king. The father of silence.”
Selene stepped closer.
> Selene: “Then take me to him.”
The Thorn Witch finally smiled, a small curving of lips like a cut healing backward.
> Thorn Witch: “You already walk the path. But to reach him, you must go deeper than Darian ever dared. Beyond blood. Beyond fire. Into the echo.”
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Chapter Three: Black Echo
The place was real.
Buried beneath the northern frost, Black Echo was not so much a Warden facility as a graveyard of f*******n knowledge. Every experiment the Wardens had sealed, every cursed relic, every failed hybrid project—locked away in ice and silence.
Selene breached the gates with Ysara’s sigil and an oath signed in fire. The surviving Wardens still loyal to her gave her passage—but not support.
> “You’re going alone,” they told her. “If what they say is true, nothing from here on out will obey law or reason.”
She descended seven levels below the permafrost, each floor colder, quieter, and more unreal.
She passed:
Preserved vampire hearts beating without bodies.
A mirror that showed her smiling—though she wasn’t.
A cell labeled Project Mourning. Empty.
But the thing that chilled her most was the sound—a soft, ceaseless weeping, like a child mourning a dream it had not yet dreamt.
At the lowest floor, she found a door marked with her bloodline crest—Velcaris—sealed in thorned iron.
It opened at her touch.
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Chapter Four: The Memory That Wasn't Hers
Inside, she found no monster.
Just a man.
Tall. Pale. Bound by roots that pulsed like veins across the walls. His eyes were sewn shut. His chest bore a crown of scars shaped like a sun shattered by thorns.
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
But he remembered.
And through the air, Selene was pulled into a vision:
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She was a child, running through ruins older than time. Her mother stood at the altar, arms raised to the sky, pleading for the fire to pass to the next generation.
The flame answered.
It did not choose her mother.
It chose Selene.
She burned for three days. Didn’t cry once.
---
The vision broke.
She staggered.
> Selene: “What... was that?”
> Voice (not his lips, but his blood): “Your truth.”
He was the Mourning King.
And he had known her before she was born.
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Chapter Five: The God of Grief
The Mourning King did not open his mouth when he spoke. His words moved like breath across Selene’s skin, curling into her mind like vines around bone.
> Mourning King (within): “You are the last daughter of the fire. The flame that fled. The guilt that survived.”
> Selene: “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
> Mourning King: “No one ever does. We are born with grief braided into our names. Some wear it. Some become it.”
The roots around him pulsed. His flesh glimmered like moonlight on broken stone. He looked like a corpse, but Selene felt his power bleeding through the air—steady, rhythmic, old.
> Selene: “Why is Lucien drawn to you?”
> Mourning King: “He carries the scar of the Seed. It stirs his mourning. And mourning feeds me.”
Selene stepped closer, every instinct screaming to run.
> Selene: “Then what do you want from me?”
The Mourning King tilted his head slightly. Blood wept from the stitches sealing his eyes.
> Mourning King: “You are my fire. My final memory. My undoing.”
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Chapter Six: Bloodlines and Blackened Crowns
Selene staggered back from the cell. The floor felt like it slanted under her boots, as if the entire prison tilted toward the king like a ship caught in a whirlpool.
She felt dizzy.
He was not just an ancient vampire. He was something else entirely—a grief god, or perhaps grief itself given form.
And Lucien…
> “He mourns too much,” she whispered aloud.
Ysara had warned her.
> “The more you love him, the more you will lose him. Not because he is weak… but because he is bound to sorrow.”
Selene climbed to the upper levels of Black Echo again, her thoughts spinning.
A warded chamber waited for her on the fourth floor. Inside: a map of the Thorns.
It showed ancient lines of blood magic—ley paths buried beneath the cities. The Mourning King had once used them as veins to feed his children: the first vampires.
Now, they pulsed again. Someone had reopened the network.
She pressed her hand against the map.
> Darian.
He wasn’t trying to awaken the King. Not fully.
He was trying to become him.
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Chapter Seven: Ash Letters
Selene returned to the surface, wind lashing against her face. Snow blew across the plains like broken glass.
A raven waited for her.
It bore a scroll in its claws. Blood-sealed, bound in wax shaped like a weeping rose.
She opened it.
> “Come to the Bleeding Spire.”
“Come alone.”
“He’s here. But not for long.”
—Darian
Lucien had been spotted.
Alive.
But bound.
Selene didn’t hesitate.
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Chapter Eight: The Bleeding Spire
The Bleeding Spire was not on any map. It rose like a shard of black glass from the Forgotten Hollows—surrounded by crimson mist and thorn-choked earth.
Selene stepped through the final gate alone, armed with Ysara’s wards, her mother’s blade, and a sliver of silver fire in her blood.
Darian met her at the base of the Spire.
He wore red again. But this time, it was old—ritual red, stitched with bone thread and weeping ash.
Lucien hung suspended from the arch behind him—chained in midair, thorns woven into his arms, eyes shut tight.
> Selene (cold): “What have you done to him?”
> Darian: “Nothing he didn’t welcome.”
> Selene: “You’re lying.”
> Darian: “He came to me, sister. Broken. Lost. Wanting peace.”
> Selene: “And you offered him oblivion.”
> Darian: “I offered him a throne.”
She raised her blade.
Darian raised his hand.
> Darian: “If you kill me now, the King awakens. He wants my death. He feeds on sacrifice. Do you want that blood on your hands?”
Selene hesitated.
Just long enough.
Behind Darian, Lucien stirred.
And whispered her name.
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Chapter Nine: Thorns Between Us
> “Selene…”
The name fell from Lucien’s lips like a breath in winter—frail, fading, but real. It shattered her hesitation.
She lunged.
Darian barely sidestepped the blade. His robe tore, revealing crimson runes branded into his skin. As he moved, the chains suspending Lucien groaned and tightened.
> Darian: “I wouldn’t, sister. The bindings are... temperamental.”
> Selene (through gritted teeth): “You speak of family, but you twist it like wire.”
He walked in a slow circle around her, hands clasped behind his back like a professor admiring his work.
> Darian: “Do you know what happens when a Thornbound link is severed by violence? The soul snaps backward—into the nearest source of grief. And grief... devours.”
Selene’s heart pounded.
> “If I kill him, Lucien dies too.”
That’s what he was implying.
She kept her blade steady.
> Selene: “Then let him go. I came for him. Not for your games.”
> Darian: “But this is the game. He chose sorrow, Selene. I merely gave it form.”
Lucien stirred again. His eyes opened, bleary gold catching the light. His voice was weak but sharp.
> Lucien: “He’s... lying…”
> Selene: “Then break the spell. Come back to me.”
Lucien grimaced. The vines around him pulsed, like they were feeding on his indecision.
> Lucien: “I don’t know if I can.”
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Chapter Ten: The Hollow Bargain
Darian gestured, and the thorns began to lower Lucien slowly—like a crucifix descending into earth. Blood dripped from his wrists, forming runes in the floor.
> Darian: “You want to save him? You’ll need to give the King something greater than pain. Something sacred.”
Selene narrowed her eyes.
> Selene: “Like what?”
Darian stopped walking. His smile faded.
> Darian: “Your flame.”
A chill swept through the spire.
> Darian: “Let me take it. Willingly. Let me bind it to the Mourning King. In exchange, Lucien walks free.”
> Selene (flat): “So you can use it to crown yourself?”
> Darian: “No. So I can crown him.”
She understood then.
This wasn’t about power. Not for Darian.
It was about devotion. Worship. Love twisted into faith.
He didn’t want to rule alone. He wanted to belong to something greater.
> Darian (soft): “We were never meant to carry this alone. The King understands us. He is every orphaned feeling. Every scream buried in silence. Every bond broken too soon.”
Selene looked to Lucien, whose eyes—though dim—still burned with his will.
> Lucien (straining): “Don’t... listen. You’re stronger than him. You always were.”
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Chapter Eleven: Flamebind
Selene stepped into the center of the circle.
The flames in her blood flickered. The Velcaris legacy pulsed beneath her skin.
> “I won’t give him the flame,” she thought. “But I can give him something else…”
She dropped her blade.
Darian smiled in triumph.
> Selene: “I’ll give him my grief.”
She bit her palm and let the blood fall—not onto the runes, but into the sigil she had carved herself in secret, the one Ysara had taught her.
A binding, yes. But a trap as well.
A mirror.
> “Let him see what I carry.”
The blood hissed. The runes inverted.
Suddenly, Darian cried out.
The spire groaned.
The Mourning King stirred in the deep, and through the magical conduit, he tasted Selene’s sorrow:
Her mother’s final scream.
Lucien’s tortured stillness.
The burning of her own humanity.
The silence of trust betrayed.
It was not devotion.
It was raw. Fierce. Grieving.
> The King recoiled.
Darian stumbled, eyes wide.
> Darian: “What did you—”
> Selene (calm): “I showed him what grief looks like when it fights back.”
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Chapter Twelve: Ash Reforged
The spire began to collapse.
Lucien fell. Selene rushed to catch him, cutting through the last of the vines with a blade drawn from her own blood-fire. As she pulled him free, Darian vanished into the smoke—slipping into some pocket of reality only the Thornbound could walk.
Lucien coughed, then whispered:
> Lucien: “You didn’t give it to him...”
> Selene: “I’d rather burn than bow.”
He smiled. It was faint, but real.
---
They emerged from the Bleeding Spire as the sun broke through the clouds for the first time in days.
Selene looked back once.
The Spire was gone.
But the feeling—the pull of something ancient and mourning—still lingered in her bones.
Chapter Thirteen: Threads of the Flame
The sun was a ghost, half-alive behind gray skies. But its light still touched Lucien’s face like a promise.
He lay against Selene’s lap as she stitched a wound across his collarbone. They’d taken refuge in an abandoned sanctuary—one of the old Warden temples buried under ash and moss.
The silence between them wasn’t awkward.
It was heavy.
Comfortable.
Painful.
> Lucien (quiet): “You risked everything.”
> Selene (focused): “You’re everything.”
> Lucien: “That’s dangerous.”
> Selene: “So is silence.”
She tightened the thread. He hissed, then chuckled.
> Lucien: “You always were the cruel one.”
She paused.
> Selene: “Lucien… I saw something. In the Spire. In Darian. I think he’s only the beginning.”
Lucien sat up, pale but steady.
> Lucien: “You think the King is still waking.”
> Selene: “I think the King was never fully asleep. And we just lit the match near his grave.”
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Chapter Fourteen: The Thornbound Creed
The Thorn Witch returned at twilight, stepping from the trees like smoke finding its shape.
She carried with her a scroll made of flayed parchment and a goblet carved from a vampire’s rib.
> Thorn Witch: “He moves now. The King. Between dream and skin. We have time, but not much.”
Selene stood.
> Selene: “What do you mean, he moves?”
> Thorn Witch: “Darian has become his vessel in part. The seed planted in Lucien tried to bloom—but your flame stopped it. Now he needs something deeper.”
> Lucien (rasping): “A god can’t be born twice.”
> Thorn Witch: “But it can reclaim its limbs.”
She unfurled the scroll. It bore the names of vampires thought long dead—ancient progenitors, scattered across the continents. Their blood was original. Unbroken.
And each had vanished recently.
> Selene (reading): “He’s gathering them. Reassembling himself.”
> Thorn Witch: “Yes. And once the King has all his blood… he will burn this world with its own sorrow.”
Selene touched her pendant. It pulsed faintly.
> Selene: “Then we find them first.”
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Chapter Fifteen: A Promise Made of Fire
That night, Selene and Lucien stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ruins of the Bleeding Spire. The forest had begun to regrow, but the trees were twisted—thorned and black-veined.
> Lucien: “If I falter again—”
> Selene (interrupting): “You won’t.”
> Lucien: “But if I do. You know what you have to do.”
> Selene (soft): “I’ll kill the King. Not you.”
He looked at her. The golden eyes she’d once feared now felt like home.
> Lucien: “You say that now.”
> Selene: “And I’ll say it every time.”
She took his hand.
They didn’t kiss.
They stood.
Together.
The stars burned quietly above them. For once, the silence felt more like rest than foreboding.
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Chapter Sixteen: The Map of Bones
At dawn, the Thorn Witch presented them with their next move.
> Thorn Witch: “The first limb is in the Mire of Virellos. Beneath the drowned chapel of Saint Kor.”
> Lucien (nodding): “I’ve been there. It's cursed ground.”
> Selene: “Then we’ll uncurse it.”
They mounted black steeds born of shadow and ember—gifts from the old Warden vaults—and rode into the east.
The journey would be long.
And if Darian found the others first…
Selene didn’t finish the thought.
She only gripped her blade tighter.
And whispered a vow, soft and sharp:
> “He does not rise.
I don’t care what it costs me.”
Chapter Seventeen: The Mire of Virellos
The marsh stretched like a wound across the land—endless, choking, and deceptively still. Virellos had once been a temple city, its faith drowned in floods brought by a blood moon centuries ago. Now it stank of brine, rot, and something older—something waiting.
Selene tightened her cloak as mud sucked at her boots. Lucien moved beside her in silence, steps almost too light for the shifting ground. Behind them, the Thorn Witch vanished into mist, whispering prayers in a forgotten tongue to keep the mire from remembering her.
> “We’re close,” Lucien murmured. “I can feel it.”
The drowned chapel loomed ahead.
Its spire crooked like a broken finger.
---
They found the first Progenitor inside.
Or rather, what remained of him.
His bones had grown into the walls—flesh tangled in roots and scripture. His chest cavity glowed faintly, housing a blood-gem that pulsed with heartbeat-like rhythm.
> “He’s still alive,” Selene said, stepping forward.
> Lucien: “No... kept alive.”
The air vibrated. Mist thickened.
Then the Guardians of the Mire appeared—wraithlike beings born from drowned faith and corrupted memory. Armor of kelp, mouths full of sermons.
Selene drew her blade. Lucien summoned his shadows.
The fight was fast, brutal. Every cut they landed was undone by the swamp’s hunger. For every Guardian slain, another rose.
> “They’re protecting the heart,” Lucien shouted.
> “Then we have to burn it.”
Selene surged forward. The blade in her hand glowed silver—the fire of her blood answering the blasphemy in the air.
She stabbed the blood-gem.
And the world screamed.
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Chapter Eighteen: The First Flame-Fall
The Mire of Virellos didn’t explode.
It wept.
The water turned to blood. The trees ignited from their roots. The drowned chapel cracked open like an egg—and from its ruins rose a column of fire shaped like a crown.
Selene stood in the center of it.
Unburned.
> “What did you do?” Lucien asked, staring at her—wide-eyed, cautious.
> Selene (whispers): “I severed the limb.”
> Lucien: “You burned a piece of the King…”
> Selene: “I buried it in fire.”
But something answered her.
A cry—not of pain, but of recognition.
The King had noticed.
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Chapter Nineteen: Darian’s Ascension
Far away—too far to reach in time—Darian knelt in a forest of bones.
He held the second Progenitor’s skull in his hands, whispering words that had not been spoken since before language.
The bones cracked. Reformed. Glowed.
And then—
> Darian (smiling): “My King... I offer you the tongue.”
The skull opened. A scream echoed from its hollow. Red lightning tore the clouds above.
In the distance, wolves began to howl—though no moon graced the sky.
The second limb was taken.
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Chapter Twenty: The Velcaris Trial
After Virellos, Selene could barely stand.
The fire she had called had taken more than just strength—it had drained her soul. For days, she burned with fever. Lucien kept vigil, refusing to sleep.
The Thorn Witch returned with news:
> “There are five in total. Darian now has two. You have burned one. The race is no longer even.”
Selene sat upright.
> Selene: “Then we get the next two before he does.”
But the Thorn Witch shook her head.
> “You cannot hold another flame unless you are anchored. You burned the heart of a god without the Rite of Binding. You will die if you do it again.”
Lucien rose.
> “Then bind her. Bind her to me.”
> Selene (startled): “Lucien—”
> Lucien: “We either stand together... or we fall apart.”
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The Rite of Binding was old, sacred—and f*******n.
It linked not just power, but souls. If one died, so did the other. If one fell to corruption, the other followed.
And yet...
They did it anyway.
In the ruins of a blood-temple beneath the Shattered Peaks, Selene and Lucien stood facing each other, blood mixed in a goblet carved from a broken angel’s rib.
The Thorn Witch presided.
> Thorn Witch: “Speak your truths.”
> Selene: “I am fire born of silence. I choose to burn with him, not without him.”
> Lucien: “I am shadow born of grief. I choose to walk toward the flame, even if it blinds me.”
They drank.
The bond formed.
And the world trembled again.
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Chapter Twenty-One: The Third Limb
The next Progenitor was a child.
Frozen in time, deep beneath the icefields of Sereth, guarded by creatures half-vampire, half-spirit. She sang lullabies in languages never heard aloud, her power emanating in pulses.
Selene felt her pain.
> “She doesn’t want to wake,” she said.
> Lucien: “She’s afraid.”
They didn’t kill her.
Instead, Selene used the binding to draw the fire out gently. She placed it in a vessel of obsidian, sealed with the twin blood of their bond.
For the first time, the flame obeyed her.
> “We can win,” she whispered.
But even as she said it, the sky darkened.
A blood eclipse began to rise.
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Chapter Twenty-Two: The War-Mourned Bell
The Thorn Witch came to them on a night of black rain.
> “The last limb has awakened.”
It was not where they expected.
It was in Selene.
She bore the fifth flame—the crown. It had always been hers. A legacy sealed in her line by Velcara herself.
Darian didn’t want to steal it.
He wanted to summon her.
> Lucien: “He plans to awaken the King through you.”
> Selene: “Then he’s going to be very disappointed.”
They returned to the ruined palace where it all began—where Darian had first tried to awaken the Seed.
He was waiting.
With followers.
With chains made of shadow.
And with one final offer.
> Darian: “Bow, sister. And the Mourning King will spare what remains.”
> Selene (smiling): “I didn’t burn the world just to kneel in its ashes.”
And the battle began.
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Chapter Twenty-Three: The Final Thornbound
It was not clean.
It was not noble.
It was fire and bone and grief and love turned into weapons.
Selene and Lucien fought as one—bound not just by magic, but by a unity no god could break.
Darian summoned the spirits of every vampire ancestor. Selene lit the skies on fire with their names.
Lucien fell.
Selene bled.
And the Mourning King awoke—not in Darian, not in Selene, but in the land itself.
He was the grief of every vampire ever sired. He was the wound left open too long.
> “I see you,” Selene whispered.
> “Then remember me,” the King replied.
She thrust the obsidian flame—the sealed soul of the child—into the heart of the world.
And the Mourning King screamed.
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Chapter Twenty-Four: Thornbound Oaths
The earth shattered.
Darian disintegrated into light and ash.
The flames receded.
And the King… wept.
Then disappeared.
Selene collapsed, Lucien beside her.
But neither died.
Their bond had anchored them.
Not to grief.
To love.
To something older than mourning.
Something the King could not consume.
---
Epilogue: The Ash-Born Dawn
Weeks passed.
The Thornbound scattered. The Mourning King became myth again. Darian was named a fallen god by his followers—and quietly forgotten.
Selene stood atop the ruins of the Crimson Court, watching the sunrise.
Lucien joined her, hand slipping into hers.
> Lucien: “No thrones.”
> Selene: “No crowns.”
> Lucien: “Just us.”
> Selene: “Just us.”
But far beneath the soil, where no light reached, a single thorn still pulsed.
Waiting.
Watching.
And remembering.
---
✅ End of Part 3: Thornbound Oaths
🩸 Blood & Thorns – Part 4: Crimson Requiem
🔥 Spoilers for the part 4🔥
---
The Mourning King may have vanished, but the wound he left behind festers in silence.
The land mourns. The sky refuses to clear. A red mist covers the forgotten cities—an aftereffect of godblood spilled.
Selene and Lucien return to a fractured world. Their bond has changed them, yes—but it also marked them. Those with eyes to see now recognize them not only as heroes, but as catalysts. To some, they are saints. To others, harbingers.
The Warden Council splits. Half view Selene as a savior who burned back the dark. The other half see her as a godbound weapon who broke their oaths and blurred the line between sacred and profane.
The High Warden, once an ally, now demands she surrender her flame to be studied. "For the future of humanity," he claims.
She refuses.
That refusal ignites the Second Warden Schism.
---
A new enemy rises—not from within vampire ranks, but from humanity itself. A secret sect called The Pale Choir believes the Mourning King was only the first of several ancient vampiric gods imprisoned long ago.
According to f*******n scrolls, the Seed was never a singular artifact.
It was a fragment.
A shard of something far more dangerous—something called The Crimson Source.
The Pale Choir seeks to collect the remaining shards buried beneath war-ravaged temples and forgotten lands. They believe that when the shards are reunited, the Crimson Source will open and undo mortality itself.
Immortality, they whisper, is not the gift of vampires—but a curse left unfinished.
The Pale Choir intends to finish it.
---
Selene discovers a terrifying truth while investigating one of their hidden temples in the Dustreach Wastes:
She is not the last of her bloodline.
A Velcaris child—believed stillborn—was taken by the Pale Choir years ago. Grown in secrecy. Fed myth. Named Sorin.
He’s now a man. And worse—he’s a vessel.
They've carved the Crimson Requiem into his soul. A litany of forgotten blood magic meant to reshape reality when sung in full.
Lucien, bound to Selene, begins to feel echoes of Sorin’s presence—like a twin sun rising beside theirs. The bond frays. Lucien’s shadow begins to waver.
He sees visions of a different past.
One in which he stood beside Darian in loyalty.
And died by Selene’s hand.
---
Meanwhile, Darian is not entirely gone.
Fragments of him linger—memories burned into the thorns of creation. His essence fused with the Mourning King's final breath. In the deep places of the world, Darian speaks through dreams, through fire, through doubt.
He whispers to Sorin.
> “She will betray you. As she betrayed me.”
“Your blood is pure. Your purpose—divine.”
Sorin listens.
He doesn’t want war.
He wants remaking.
---
The Pale Choir attacks a city protected by the remaining Crimson Wardens—those loyal to Selene. They wield weapons of paradox: fire that freezes, shadow that speaks, sound that blinds. Selene rushes to defend them but arrives too late.
They burn the city.
But they don’t take lives.
They take names—erasing people from memory, one by one.
This is the second stage of the Requiem: Silence.
---
Ysara wakes from her long slumber only to weep.
> “It’s happening again,” she tells Selene.
“The last time the Crimson Source opened, we lost time. We lost years. We forgot ourselves. We bled truth into myth.”
Selene demands answers.
Ysara admits: the flame inside her was once part of a greater whole. Divided to save the world, scattered among mortal bloodlines.
Only five fragments remain.
Selene has one.
Sorin holds another.
Three more slumber beneath graves that cannot be found by map or magic—only memory.
---
Lucien begins to change.
The closer they come to Sorin, the more Lucien feels… erased.
In his dreams, he’s someone else. Sometimes Darian. Sometimes Sorin. Once, even Selene.
He fears the bond is collapsing.
Selene begins to fear that too.
But she won’t give him up.
Not again.
They travel to the Hollow Archives, where reality warps to memory. The only way to locate the final shards is to live the lives of those who held them.
Selene becomes a fire-priestess of the First Flame. Lucien relives life as a Crimson General at the end of the Old War.
Each trial costs them something.
Selene forgets her own face for a time.
Lucien forgets why he ever loved.
But they endure.
They find the final shard.
And with it—truth.
---
Sorin isn't a pawn.
He chose this.
Because in the world Selene saved, there was no place for him.
Abandoned, forgotten, turned into a myth.
He doesn’t want vengeance.
He wants return.
He sings the third verse of the Crimson Requiem atop the Warden Citadel. The sky tears open. Time bends. The dead return—but only as echoes.
Selene confronts him.
- Writer
