BOUND BY BLOOD

CHAPTER SIX

The moon hung low above the castle, pale and swollen, watching him like it always did. Its light spilled across the marble floor, glinting off the faint shimmer of dust in the air. The wind sighed against the broken glass windows, carrying the distant cry of a wolf.

Kael didn’t move. He hadn’t for hours.

He sat in the grand hall — what was once grand — on a throne that time had half devoured, one hand resting on his chin, eyes fixed on nothing. The fire had long gone out. He hadn’t bothered to light another. He didn’t need its warmth anymore.

Warmth was for the living.

And Kael hadn’t been that in a very, very long time.

He could feel it inside him — the curse — like a second heartbeat that wasn’t quite his. It pulsed faintly beneath his skin, whispering reminders he didn’t need. It made the air around him heavy. It made the night eternal.

There was no dawn for him. Only variations of darkness.

Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could almost remember what it was like to feel sunlight on his face. The memory burned as much as the truth of it would.

He had stopped trying to chase it.

It had been centuries, though he’d stopped counting. The clocks had all broken long ago — their ticking too painful, too human. He couldn’t bear to hear time move without him.

The curse had made him ageless, but not untouched. Every century, it took something from him — a memory, a feeling, a piece of who he used to be. He was still Kael, but less so every year.

Sometimes, when he looked down at his hands, he didn’t recognize them.

He lived on routine now. It was the only way to stay sane.

When the moon rose, he walked the halls. He would trace his fingers along the stone walls, whispering the names of the portraits whose faces had faded from their frames. He would stand by the balcony and listen to the forest breathe. He would talk to the wind because it was the only thing that answered back.

And when the thirst came — sharp, demanding, cruel — he’d go down to the lower halls where the iron gates opened into the woods.

He didn’t hunt like the others did.

He took only what he needed, leaving his victims alive — dizzy, drained, and unsure of what they’d seen. He couldn’t bear to add death to the list of things that already haunted him.

Feeding wasn’t pleasure. It was survival.

And even that, sometimes, felt like a sin.

He returned from one of those nights with blood drying on his sleeve, not caring enough to clean it.

When he passed through the old library, the candles lit themselves — the remnants of a spell cast long ago to keep the place alive. Shelves towered above him, books warped and brittle with age. He used to read once. He’d loved poetry — mortal words that tried to capture eternity. Now, even the beauty of language had lost its taste.

He pulled a random book from the shelf, not to read it, but to feel the weight of it. To remind himself that something in this world still obeyed gravity.

Then, without meaning to, he whispered—

“Why me?”

The sound echoed back at him.

His voice was rough, deeper now, carrying centuries of silence. The question wasn’t new. He’d asked it before — a thousand times, maybe more.

The curse never answered.

That night, when he finally let himself rest, sleep didn’t come gently. It came like drowning.

The darkness behind his eyes wasn’t empty — it was alive.

At first, it was just whispers — faint and soft, like voices from another room. Then, the whispers became words. Then screams.

He saw flashes of a face — a woman, her eyes cold as ice, her mouth moving in silent fury. Fire burned behind her. Shadows writhed around her wrists like serpents.

Her voice — when it came — was not human.

“You took what wasn’t yours, Kael of Nightbourne. So I take what you cannot live without.”

He reached out, but his hands were bloodied. He didn’t know why.

Then the world shattered.

He woke gasping. The sheets — black silk, centuries old — clung to him, damp with sweat. His breath came fast, though he hadn’t needed to breathe in years.

The firelight flickered across his face, revealing the tremor in his hands.

It wasn’t the first nightmare. It wouldn’t be the last.

Every time, it came back — the same voice, the same eyes, the same cold fury. But the memory stayed fragmented, just out of reach. The curse had stolen the truth along with everything else.

He rubbed his temple and stood. The room felt smaller than before.

He could feel her words still clinging to him, like frost.

“I take what you cannot live without.”

He’d wondered for centuries what that meant.

He was still alive, wasn’t he?

He could walk, talk, breathe if he wished. He could think. He could feel.

But maybe that was the curse.

To live without living.

The next night, he tried not to sleep.

He wandered through the west tower — the one that overlooked the valley. Once, it had been his favorite view. Now, it was a reminder of how vast the world was, and how small he had become.

Below, the forest stretched endlessly — dark and alive. Sometimes, lights flickered in the distance, small villages that had grown where there used to be none. Generations of mortals lived and died without ever knowing he was watching.

He felt the wind brush through his hair, but it carried no scent.

He had forgotten what the world smelled like.

When dawn neared — or what passed for it in his endless night — he went down into the crypts.

That was where the curse had bound him, the heart of it. Deep beneath the castle, where the air was thick and cold, where the walls whispered if you listened long enough.

He hated it down there. But he couldn’t stay away.

He stood before the stone altar, carved with runes that pulsed faintly when he approached. His chest tightened, the curse recognizing its master.

He reached out — stopped just before touching the stone.

“Tell me,” he said softly, voice trembling. “What did I do to deserve this?”

The silence answered him like always.

Then the runes flickered once, faintly — like a dying heartbeat.

And a whisper crawled through the air.

“You remember. Soon.”

Kael froze.

The voice wasn’t his imagination this time. It was the same one from the dream.

The witch’s voice.

Low. Cold. Ancient.

He stepped back, his throat tightening.

“Enough,” he muttered, anger cracking through the exhaustion. “Enough of your games.”

The air laughed — softly, cruelly. Then it faded.

Leaving him alone again.

He stood there for a long while, his head bowed, eyes burning with something old and bitter.

He didn’t remember her face clearly anymore — the witch, the reason for his curse — but her voice never left him. It lingered in his mind like a wound that refused to close.

And no matter how many centuries passed, she always came back in his dreams.

He didn’t know what was worse — her voice or the emptiness that followed it.

Either way, it was killing him.

But he couldn’t die.

That was the curse.