The wind howled low across the Outskirts, carrying dust, grief, and memory. The fire crackled in the center of the caravan's makeshift camp, casting flickering shadows that danced like specters on the cracked earth.
Kael sat slightly apart from the others, his back against a stone, the bloodstone compass pulsing faintly beneath his tunic. But it wasn't the compass that stirred him tonight.
It was his Blood Core.
It throbbed like a second heart. And then—without warning—it opened.
Kael's eyes glazed over. The fire turned crimson in his vision, and then—
He stood in a different time. Not Kael, but someone else. Someone ancient.
He was kneeling in a vast cathedral of bone and gold. Above him towered obsidian statues of the Vyr Kings, blood flowing from their eyes like eternal tears.
A voice thundered:
"Name your sacrifice, and be reborn."
The figure raised a dagger—his own name carved along the blade's edge. He plunged it into his chest without hesitation.
Blood sprayed across the altar, and the Heart at the center of the cathedral began to beat.
Kael gasped as the vision snapped back. His hand clutched his chest—his Core burning with hunger.
"Another vision?" Sorella asked, sitting beside him. She held a piece of dried root in her hand but hadn't eaten it.
Kael nodded, voice hoarse. "They're getting stronger."
An old man—Tarren, the grizzled elder who had survived three warbands and a fever that killed dozens—shifted closer. His breath smelled of firewood and decay.
"You saw the altar, didn't you?" he asked quietly.
Kael looked at him sharply.
Tarren nodded. "You're not the first the Blood calls to. And you won't be the last."
Sorella leaned in. "You know what it means, don't you?"
Tarren's eyes glinted with a mix of awe and fear. "The Crimson Heart was shattered after the Vyr fell. Pieces of it… shards… were scattered throughout Red Hollow, hidden in trials, rituals, tombs no sane man would enter."
"Why?" Kael asked.
"Because together, they make you a god. And a monster."
Later that night, Kael wandered from the firelight, hand pressed against a tree, chest heaving.
Inside him, the Blood Core pulsed louder. Not just pain—craving.
He clenched his fists. Visions of sacrifice danced before his eyes. He saw Ralek's face. Sorella's. The outcasts'.
Blood strengthens blood, the whisper said.
Kill. Feed. Ascend.
"No," Kael hissed, shaking.
The bloodstone compass flickered with violent crimson for a moment—then faded back to a steady glow, as if helping him steady himself.
Kael fell to his knees. Sweat poured from him like rain.
He was afraid. Not of death, not of the warlords who hunted him.
He was afraid of what he could become.
Back at the fire, Tarren watched him from afar.
"He fights it," Sorella said softly.
"For now," Tarren murmured. "But no one walks the path of the Crimson Heart unchanged. The Old World sees to that."
And far in the distance, something stirred—drawn to Kael's awakening.