The wind screamed through the splintered doorway, rattling loose the brittle bones of old charms hanging from the rafters. The pale fire burned sickly green, spitting embers like spitting teeth. And the song — gods, the song — it lingered in the air like smoke, impossible to place, yet unmistakably there. A language older than pain.
Vaelen felt it in his marrow.
Each word, if they could be called words, reverberated through him like iron nails driven into flesh. A voice that belonged to something vast, something ancient, something wrong.
The Ashen Blade who'd reached for the pelt faltered. His hand hovered inches from the fur, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold.
"Boss…" he croaked.
The leader snarled, stepping closer to Mira, using her as a human shield. "It's the boy. The damned bloodline's waking."
Another flicker of that impossible warmth surged through Vaelen's veins. The world blurred, edges sharpening and warping. Shadows no longer clung to surfaces — they bled from them, like ink in water.
The one nearest the curtain finally snapped. He lunged forward, ripping the pelt aside with a grunt.
And Vaelen was waiting.
The boy's eyes glowed — twin pinpricks of endless black ringed with a halo of seething crimson. His skin gleamed pale and sweat-slick in the firelight, a thin trickle of blood running from his nose.
And in his hand, the wooden star pulsed once, then split into jagged shards as an unseen pressure tore it apart.
The Ashen Blade had no time to react.
A tendril of darkness — no, of something denser than shadow, more like liquid night — erupted from the floor, coiling around his neck. The sound it made was wet and eager, like something long-starved.
With a single wrench, the tendril yanked him down.
The man's scream was short, choked off as his throat collapsed inward with a sickening crunch. His body thudded to the dirt floor, spasming once, then going still.
The others shouted, weapons raised.
"Kill him!" the leader barked. "Now!"
But the house… it was no longer theirs.
The wind outside howled like a beast denied its prey. The walls groaned as if straining to contain the ancient thing rising within.
Another soldier stepped forward — a great brute with a war club — only for a jagged spike of splintered wood to erupt from the ground beneath him, impaling him through the chest. His blood sprayed hot and thick, spattering the walls, the fire, Mira's pale face.
Two down.
The survivors hesitated now, their bravado crumbling under the weight of a horror they couldn't name.
"Gods damn you, it's just a boy!" one snarled, though his voice cracked.
"No," whispered Mira, slumped against the wall, eyes glazed with pain but lips curling into a bloodied smile. "Not anymore."
Vaelen rose to his feet, blood trickling down his face, his hair clinging to his skin in dark strands. The boy was deathly calm, his breath fogging the air. Shadows clung to him like old friends.
And then — he spoke.
Not in the tongue of Averenth. Not in any language meant for mortal throats.
The song.
His voice was thin, a child's, yet carried the weight of endless decay. The house itself seemed to flinch.
The remaining Ashen Blades backed toward the door, sanity fraying at the edges.
Outside, others were gathering. Townsfolk, armed with whatever they could find, drawn by the noise, the sick light, the scent of death.
The Ashen Blade leader made one last move — he hurled Mira aside and charged at Vaelen, axe raised.
And Vaelen… smiled.
The earth split beneath the man's feet, skeletal hands — bone white, black-veined — reaching up to seize him. His scream was long and hoarse as they dragged him down into the cold soil, his axe clattering uselessly away.
Silence fell.
The fire guttered once more, then steadied.
Vaelen swayed, the warmth behind his eyes fading, the impossible song quieting.
Mira, coughing, managed a single word before darkness claimed her:
"…Vael'Zhaur…"
The boy turned to the door, where dozens of wide, terrified eyes stared back at him.
A new night had begun.