House of Blood

The cold iron of the blade pressed hard against the back of my neck.

Rain washed over the wooden platform, mixing with the dark, heavy blood of the thousands who had died on this execution block before me.

”Valerian Prim Sanguis,” the priest’s voice boomed above the roaring storm. ”A disgrace to the Blood Dragon bloodline. A dud without a Death Aura. You stand condemned for high treason.”

I didn’t answer.

My arms were bound behind me with heavy anti-mana chains, digging deep into my skin.

I forced my chin up, looking through my soaked silver hair toward the high balcony of the execution square.

Sitting atop the padded velvet seats were the elders of the Sec Sanguis family. Their faces were twisted into fake expressions of solemn grief, but their eyes danced with absolute triumph.

They had done it.

They had framed me—the weak, useless seventh child of the main core family—and stripped me of my very name.

Idiots.

I didn’t care about the fake treason charges.

What made my chest burn—what ignited my blood with a fury hotter than hellfire—was the sight down in the courtyard below.

Banners of black dragons floated violently in the storm.

Breaking through the ranks of the imperial guard, six figures were carving a path of utter devastation through the square.

At the front was a tall, regal woman holding a massive, pitch-black battle scythe.

Her long silver hair streamed in the wind like a shroud of death, her red eyes burning with tears and insane, unbridled rage.

”GET AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!” her voice echoed, shattering the stained glass of the surrounding cathedrals.

It was my eldest sister.

The Death Mistress.

Behind her, my five other siblings fought like unleashed demons, tearing through thousands of armed knights just to reach the wooden block where I lay.

They weren’t trying to execute me.

They were trying to save me.

All my life, I thought they hated me.

I thought they looked down on me because I was born weak, unable to manifest our bloodline’s Death Aura like a true Prim Sanguis.

I thought their cold silence was disgust.

I was wrong.

Only hours before my execution, I had found the letters hidden beneath the floorboards of my cell—hundreds of secret missives written by my eldest sister, detailing her raids on ancient dungeons, her desperate bargains with outlawed mages, all to find a cure for the curse in my soul.

They had loved me.

They had always loved me.

And because of my blind foolishness, they had walked straight into the Sec Sanguis’s trap.

”Pardon is denied,” the executioner yelled, grasping the heavy iron lever. ”Execute the trash!”

”VALERIAN!” my sister screamed, her battle scythe cutting three hundred guards in half with a single swing of crimson aura.

She leaped into the air, reaching out her hand toward me, her eyes filled with absolute despair.

I offered her a weak, bloody smile.

I’m sorry, sister.

I was too blind to see it.

CLANG!

The heavy guillotine blade dropped.

A flash of blinding silver cut through my vision, and then—

Pain.

Total, black darkness.

---

”Gasp!”

I sat up violently, my lungs pulling in a frantic, burning breath.

My hand flew straight to my neck.

No blood.

No gaping wound.

No cold iron blade.

Instead, soft silk sheets covered my lap. Morning light poured through a tall stained-glass window, casting warm crimson patterns across an ornate bedroom I hadn’t seen in fifteen years.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I looked down at my hands.

They were small. Smooth. Completely devoid of the heavy sword calluses and battlefield scars I had carried to the executioner’s block.

What... is this?

I reached out, grabbing the carved wooden bedpost.

The texture was real.

The cool air against my skin was real.

Ten years old.

I was ten years old again.

I clutched my head, pressing my palms against my temples as my breath hitched.

The execution.

The rain.

The sight of my eldest sister screaming my name as she tore through an army...

I had regressed.

Before the panic could fully swallow me, the ambient temperature in the room dropped sharply.

The air above the foot of my bed shattered like thin ice, sparking with dark, obsidian embers.

A tiny flicker of black fire ignited in midair.

It didn’t burn with heat.

It burned with pure, ancient pressure.

The flame curled outward, twisting and expanding until it formed the shadowy shape of a small bird.

Out from the black fire emerged two pairs of feather-like wings, accompanied by two massive, sweeping dragonic wings made of pure, liquid darkness.

”Well, well, well,” a sharp, velvety voice echoed directly inside my mind. ”You took long enough to draw a breath, partner.”

The black flame crow landed lightly on my knee, her glowing amber eyes fixing straight onto mine.

I froze, pulling back slightly against the pillows.

”What... are you?” my voice squeaked, thin and unformed with the pitch of a child.

”I am Wren,” the spirit chimed, settling her dark wings against her back. ”The spirit of the origin weapon. And the lovely lady who just finished digesting that foul curse carved into your soul.”

My mind stalled.

The curse?

”You were shackled, little dragon,” Wren continued softly, leaning closer. ”The Medeis family sealed your core when you were an infant. But death breaks all mortal magic.”

Before I could ask another question, an agonizing surge of heat rushed into my skull.

My vision ruptured into shimmering gold and blood-red runes.

” The Soul-Carved Seal has been devoured. ”

” The Blood Dragon acknowledges its rightful heir. ”

” Sovereign’s Guilt Eyes awakening... ”

”Agh!”

I slammed my hands over my face as a searing, beautiful agony tore through my eye sockets.

My eyes burnt like twin suns. I could feel an intricate, ancient dragonic pattern etching itself directly into my irises.

”Hold still, kid!” Wren flapped her wings.

Her body dissolved into a cloud of black fire, rushing toward my face. The shadow wrapped tightly around my head, coalescing into a sleek, pitch-black silk blindfold that bound itself firmly over my eyes.

The burning pain instantly subsided into a dull throb.

”Keep those hidden for now,” Wren’s voice rang out from the very fabric of the blindfold. ”Your gaze carries the full weight of your dragon bloodline now. Look a weak-willed man in the eyes, and his own soul will crush him until he ends his own life just to make it stop.”

Even beneath the dark cloth, my vision didn’t vanish.

I could see the room as clearly as if the blindfold were made of thin glass, but the world was now painted in glowing crimson outlines.

I clenched my small fist, feeling a thick, dark reservoir of power finally stirring inside my chest.

Three times the blood of a normal human.

The dormant power of the Prim Sanguis.

It was awake.

BOOM!

The heavy double doors of my bedroom were violently blasted off their hinges, sending iron splinters flying across the floor.

A terrifying, blood-red aura flooded the atmosphere, heavy enough to crush an ordinary child’s lungs.

Standing in the shattered doorway was a tall, sharp-featured teenage girl holding a massive black battle scythe over her shoulder.

Her silver hair fell wildly around her face, and her crimson eyes were wide with pure, unadulterated panic.

”VALERIAN!”

My eldest sister surged into the room like a gale-force wind, dropping her heavy divine weapon onto the floorboards with a loud THUD that shook the entire wing of the manor.

She crashed to her knees by my bed and grabbed my shoulders, her hands trembling violently as her eyes frantically scanned my body.

”I felt a sudden spike in your soul-core! Are you hurt?! Did the Sec family elders send someone into your quarters?!”

I stared at her through my blindfold, completely paralyzed.

Her face was smooth, devoid of the jagged battlefield scars she had carried on the day of my death.

But her eyes...

Her eyes contained the exact same desperate, tearful love I had seen right before the blade fell.

”Sister...” I whispered softly.

Without another word, the terrifying Death Mistress—the woman feared by every noble household on the continent—pulled me tightly against her armor, hugging me so fiercely my ribs creaked.

”You’re fine,” she breathed, her voice cracking as she buried her face into the crook of my neck. ”You’re okay. I won’t let anyone touch you. I swear it on my blood.”

I slowly wrapped my small arms around her back, resting my cheek against her shoulder.

Beneath the black silk blindfold, a quiet smile touched my lips.

The Medeis mages who bound my soul.

The Sec Sanguis elders who plotted my execution.

I’m back.

’Valerian,’ Wren’s urgent voice suddenly cut through my mind, razor-thin and devoid of its usual playful mockery. ’Don’t move. Look at her shadow.’

I shifted my crimson-tinted vision downward toward Vespera’s shadow stretched across the wooden floorboards.

Bound directly inside the dark silhouette of my sister’s soul was a faint, blue, glowing thread of magic—a Medeis tracking curse, pulsing with dark mana.

Someone was watching and listening to us through my sister’s very shadow at this exact second.