The slums didn't glow at sunrise. It just got less dark.
Ash still floated in the air. The smell of rot didn't lift.
Dominic lay beneath a tattered tarp stretched between two collapsed walls, every inch of his body screaming in protest. His ribs ached with every breath. Dried blood clung to the edge of his shirt. His knuckles were torn open. His limbs, stiff and sore.
The quiet, the stillness—it felt wrong. Like the world was waiting to snap.
He sat up with a grunt, wincing as the sharp bite of pain flared across his side.
And then he saw him.
Garrick Osbourne.
The man knelt a few feet away, tending to a small fire, turning a piece of meat over the flame without a word. Calm. Controlled. Silent. Like this was just another ordinary morning.
Dominic's jaw clenched.
It wasn't.
"You're awake," Garrick said without looking up.
Dominic didn't respond. He slowly stood, every muscle resisting. He staggered forward and leaned on the broken wall.
Garrick handed him a roasted strip of meat. "Eat. It won't kill you."
Dominic sniffed it cautiously, then took a bite.
It was salty. Tough. But warm.
Better than anything he'd eaten in days.
"I thought you said you'd train me," Dominic muttered.
Garrick nodded. "I did."
Dominic frowned. "Then—?"
The man stood, cracking his neck. "You're about to learn what training actually means."
He gestured toward the open lot behind the warehouse.
Dust. Stones. Mud.
Nothing but ruin.
"Out there," Garrick said, "you'll bleed. You'll scream. You'll think about giving up. And then you'll crawl back here and ask for more."
No weapons. No instruction.
Dominic stood in the dirt, watching as Garrick pulled a small, blood-stained whistle from his coat and blew it.
The sound didn't reach Dominic's ears.
But something heard.
From the far end of the lot, a snarl tore through the silence.
Then it appeared.
A slum hound. Massive. Feral. Teeth like daggers, ribs sticking through its matted black fur. Its eyes were milky, blind—but it moved with confidence.
Dominic stepped back instinctively.
"You're throwing me to a dog?"
"No," Garrick said. "I'm showing you what happens when weakness meets hunger."
The beast charged.
There was no time to think.
Dominic dove to the side. Pain flared up his side. His legs barely kept him standing.
The beast skidded, turned faster than it should have, and came again.
Dominic grabbed a shard of broken wood from the ground—a makeshift weapon—and held it in both hands.
He remembered the last fight. The monster. The bloodline surge.
But this was different. He felt empty. No fire. Just pain and fear.
The hound lunged.
Dominic swung. The plank struck its shoulder with a dull crack. It barely flinched. Its claws raked across his forearm, drawing blood.
He screamed.
But didn't fall.
He kicked at the beast's leg, hard. It stumbled.
And in that second—just a second—Dominic pounced.
He slammed the wood against its jaw. Once. Twice. The beast reeled back, yelped, then lunged blindly again.
Dominic didn't run.
He waited.
And ducked low.
The beast flew over him, crashing to the ground behind.
Before it could recover, he drove the jagged plank into its throat.
It didn't scream. It just gurgled.
And then it was still.
Dominic dropped the makeshift weapon.
He fell to his knees.
His lungs burned. His vision swam. Blood dripped from his forearm like a broken pipe.
But he had won.
He had survived.
And yet—he felt no triumph. No pride.
Only exhaustion.
Only the cold.
Garrick walked toward him, nodding once. "You didn't rely on your bloodline. Good."
"I didn't have a choice."
"Exactly."
Then it hit him.
Heat. Pressure.
A throb in his chest—then a full-body surge of pain.
His veins lit up beneath his skin, glowing faintly red.
His breath came in gasps. His body convulsed.
It was like his blood was boiling.
"What—what's happening?"
Garrick knelt beside him. "You activated your bloodline for a second. Just a flicker. You didn't notice. But your body did."
Dominic screamed.
It wasn't pain. It was transformation.
But too raw. Too uncontrolled.
Garrick grabbed his shoulder and forced him down. "Stay still. Ride it out."
"I—can't—breathe!"
"You will. If you survive this, you'll be one step closer to understanding it."
Dominic gritted his teeth as the fire pulsed inside him.
Then—slowly—it began to fade.
He lay there for what felt like hours, panting, sweating, trembling.
"I thought you were supposed to train me," Dominic rasped.
"I am," Garrick said. "Lesson two: power comes with pain. And you don't get to choose the price."
Dominic looked at him.
"I could've died."
"But you didn't, you pushed through and that takes you a step closer to becoming strong."
Meanwhile…
Elsewhere, on the fringes of the slums, a man in black stepped over a corpse.
He wore no insignia. His boots left no tracks.
The body at his feet was shredded beyond recognition—but he knew who it had been.
One of their agents. A courier.
The relic he had carried… gone.
And it had been used.
The agent crouched and placed two fingers on the bloodstained ground.
A pulse. Barely a trace. But enough.
"Someone awakened," he muttered.
He looked toward the heart of the slums.
Toward the boy who should've died.
"The prince won't like this."
He vanished into the shadows.
---
That night, Dominic sat by the fading fire. His shirt was torn. His arm was bandaged with cloth ripped from his own sleeve.
He said nothing.
Neither did Garrick.
The silence wasn't awkward. It was honest.
Dominic stared into the flames, thinking of the fight. Of the pain. Of the blood.
And of the moment he felt something inside him pulse—violent, powerful, unrestrained.
"What am I?" he whispered.
Garrick didn't answer right away.
Then, calmly:
"You're a question no one knows how to answer. Not yet."
Dominic looked at his hands—shaking, bloodstained, calloused.
"I don't feel strong."
"You're not," Garrick replied. "But you're no longer weak either."
Dominic didn't smile. But he didn't break either.
He leaned back against the cold stone wall.
Somewhere deep inside, a flicker stirred.
Not rage.
Not pride.
Resolve.