*There exist places in the Empire where laws are merely suggestions and where magic obeys rules older than civilization itself.*
*The Lost Docks are one such place. And tonight, they call me by my actual name.*
The Black Convergence was ending in an agony of dying light, Luna Minor casting its last copper rays across the slippery cobblestones of the Lower City. Kain Vorthak slipped through the alleyways like a ghost with sharpened senses, every heartbeat of the hidden inhabitants resonating in his head like a war drum.
Six hours. Six hours since he had jumped from Elena's window, and his body still vibrated with the energy stolen from Darius. But it was no longer just magical energy flowing through his veins—it was something deeper, more ancient. Something that was transforming his perception of the world.
He could *see* now. Truly see.
The underground magical flows serpentined beneath the city like rivers of liquid fire, corrupted and wild, free from the purifying influence of the Crystal Towers. The auras of the slum dwellers pulsed in the darkness—weak flames dimmed by misery, but *nourishing* in a way that simultaneously nauseated and excited him.
*"That's not me thinking that,"* he murmured, clutching Elena's grimoires against his chest. His voice seemed foreign, deeper, carrying harmonics that resonated with forbidden frequencies.
*Of course it is,* whispered Kaelen with the patience of a father teaching his son. *You're finally beginning to see with my eyes. To feel with my heart. To hunger with my stomach.*
Kain stopped dead, his back pressed against a wall dripping with humidity. "No. I'm not you."
The silence that followed was more eloquent than a denial. In his head, something laughed softly—not mockery, but affection—the terrifying affection of a predator for its offspring.
*Not yet*, Kaelen conceded. *But soon.*
The Lost Docks stretched before him like a necropolis of abandoned dreams. Once the beating heart of imperial commerce, the district was now nothing but a cluster of constructions that defied gravity and common sense—gutted warehouses transformed into makeshift towers, rotting wooden walkways connecting buildings that should never have remained standing.
Here lived those the Empire preferred to forget: smugglers, assassins, prostitutes, deserters. And according to Elena's grimoires... survivors of the Dark Bloodlines.
The address scrawled in the margin of a *Codex Sanguinarius*—47 Drowned Street—was hidden somewhere in this labyrinth. But the deeper Kain ventured into the winding alleys, the more he felt that he wasn't the one seeking this address.
It was seeking him.
"Lost, little noble?"
The voice emerged from nowhere. Three silhouettes detached themselves from the shadows, blocking his path with the precision of predators accustomed to hunting in packs. Their blades gleamed with a dull luster in Luna Minor's light—blunt enough to torture, sharp enough to kill.
"Your student robes give you away," sneered the leader, a colossus whose skull was adorned with tribal scars. "Here, we don't much like visitors from the Academy."
Kain stepped back, but something in him no longer felt the fear he should have experienced. Instead, an almost clinical curiosity invaded him. These men had auras—weak, dull, corrupted by years of violence and degradation.
But auras nonetheless.
*Appetizing*, murmured Kaelen with the enthusiasm of a gourmet before a menu. *Not very nutritious, but excellent for training.*
"I don't want trouble," said Kain, but his voice now carried an authority he didn't know he possessed.
"Too late." The second brigand spun his blade. "Trouble is our specialty."
He lunged toward Kain with the brutal grace of an experienced killer.
And discovered that his prey had changed.
Kain didn't move. He didn't need to move. The moment the man leaped, he *inhaled*—not with his lungs, but with something more profound. The brigand's aura tore like gauze in a hurricane, drawn toward him in a visible whirlwind that made the other two attackers pale.
The man collapsed before he could even raise his blade, his eyes rolled back, black veins pulsing under his skin like rivers of poison.
"What the...?" The leader stepped back, his tribal scars seeming to move in the flickering light.
Kain straightened. He was exactly the same as before—same clothes, same face, same height. But something in his attitude had fundamentally changed. He held himself differently. Breathed differently. *Looked* differently.
Like a predator who had just discovered he had fangs.
"You wanted my belongings?" His voice had become a dangerous purr. "Here's what I have to offer you."
He extended his hand toward the leader, and this time, the suction was deliberate. Controlled. *Savory*.
The effect was spectacular. The brigand's aura—stronger than that of his accomplice—tore into golden spirals that converged toward Kain like hungry serpents. The man let out a cry that was nothing human, his hands going to his throat as if he were choking.
Then he collapsed, drained.
*Delicious*, sighed Kaelen with orgasmic satisfaction. *You're beginning to understand the true pleasure of existence, my heir.*
The third brigand—the youngest—stared at his unconscious companions with a terror that surpassed anything he had ever felt in his life of violence. His hands trembled so hard that he dropped his blade.
"You... you are...?" he stammered.
"In training," replied Kain with a smile that revealed canines slightly more pointed than they should have been. "But I learn quickly."
The boy fled into the dark alleys, his footsteps echoing like the beats of a panicked heart. Kain let him go—after all, legends needed witnesses to spread.
And he was beginning to understand that he was destined to become a legend.
*Or a nightmare.*
---
Drowned Street wound between buildings that seemed to defy the laws of physics, their leaning facades supporting each other in precarious balance. The air there was heavier, charged with humidity and something else—an almost tangible presence that made the hair on his neck stand up.
Number 47 was distinguished by its door of such deep red that it seemed carved from a giant ruby. But what stopped Kain were the symbols carved into the wood—runes that *moved* when he wasn't looking directly at them, forming and reforming patterns that simultaneously made him nauseous and want to approach.
Runes of the First Language. The ones Kaelen had used to mark his victims.
*Finally*, murmured the ancestral essence with almost painful nostalgia. *Finally, we're coming home.*
The door opened before he could knock, revealing a woman who immediately redefined all his concepts of beauty and danger.
Lyralei Shadowmere was... indescribable. Not in the sense that she was of indescribable beauty—though she was—but in the sense that something about her defied rational description. She was there, physically present, and at the same time, she gave the impression of being a mirage, a waking dream, a collective hallucination taking form.
Tall, slender, with alabaster skin that seemed never to have seen sunlight and black hair that absorbed light rather than reflecting it. But it was her eyes that took one's breath away—violet like the forbidden gems of the Cursed Mountains, and shining with an intelligence that had observed the fall of empires.
"Good evening, young Emperor," she said, and her voice carried impossible harmonics that resonated directly in his bones. "I was hoping you would come."
"You... were expecting me?" Kain kept his distance, all his new instincts simultaneously screaming at him to flee and to approach.
"Since your echoes crossed the capital like ripples on a dead lake." Her smile revealed perfect teeth. Too perfect. "Draining a Goldmane in public... either you're completely mad, or you're finally beginning to understand what you are."
She stepped aside gracefully, and Kain noticed that she didn't really walk—she *glided*, as if gravity were a suggestion she chose to follow or ignore according to her mood.
"I am Lyralei. And before you ask me..." Her violet eyes sparkled. "Yes, I am exactly what you suspect."
*Shadowmere*, whispered Kaelen with respect. *Seduction Bloodline. An equal. Finally.*
The interior constituted a shock that made Kain's reality waver. Where he expected to find a hovel, he discovered a miniature palace that defied the laws of space. The room was far too large to fit in the building he had just seen from outside, its walls hung with black silk embroidered with scenes that *moved* slightly when he looked at them.
Battles. Rituals. Executions. The secret history of the Dark Bloodlines told in gold and silver thread.
"Spatial magic," explained Lyralei, closing the door behind him. The locks that activated were so complex that they made the air ripple like a heat wave. "One of the advantages of being officially dead for four centuries."
She moved toward two armchairs arranged near a fireplace where a fire burned that produced no heat, only a hypnotic violet light that made the shadows dance.
"Tea?" she offered, making a service appear with a snap of her fingers. "It's a special blend. Particularly... nourishing for those who share our appetites."
Kain settled carefully into the indicated armchair but didn't touch the cup she handed him. The steaming liquid gave off an aroma that reminded him of his dreams—and something else. Something metallic that made his mouth water in a way that disgusted him.
"Our appetites?"
"The hunger that has been growing in you since your Awakening." Lyralei sipped her tea with studied delicacy. "That thirst for life energy that can never truly be quenched. What you felt when draining that young Blackthorn... that sensation of completeness... You already know you'll seek it for the rest of your existence."
She set down her cup and fixed him with an intensity that made him feel she was searching directly into his soul.
"Tell me, Kain Vorthak... what do you feel when you look at people now? Really?"
The question hit him like a punch. Because she was right—when he looked at people now, he no longer really saw *people*. He saw energy sources. Reservoirs to drain. *Prey*.
"I... that's not me thinking that."
"Of course it is." Her smile was of terrifying tenderness. "And it's perfectly normal. You are a predator, Kain. The apex of the magical food chain. It would be unnatural for you to consider your prey as equals."
She rose with hypnotic fluidity and moved toward a shelf covered with grimoires that seemed older than the Empire itself.
"Do you know the history of your family? Your true origins?"
"I'm an orphan. Raised in a hospice."
"How... convenient." Lyralei's tone suggested she found this coincidence particularly savory. "And this name, Vorthak... it really means nothing to you?"
Before he could answer, she placed before him a grimoire bound in blood-red leather. The volume opened by itself to a page marked with a black bookmark, revealing a portrait that literally took his breath away.
The man on the page was his perfect twin. Same hair, same eyes, same bone structure. Only difference: the expression. Where Kain still bore traces of humanity, the character in the portrait smiled with absolute cruelty, his eyes shining with a red glow that promised delight and damnation.
"Kaelen Vorthak," murmured Lyralei with almost religious reverence. "The Emperor of the Hungry Void. The greatest predator this world has ever known."
She turned the page, revealing a map of the Empire before the Great Purge—a territory three times larger than the current Empire, with names of cities and kingdoms that no longer existed.
"Three continents drained of their life essence. Seven entire kingdoms reduced to dust. Forty million dead." Her voice carried undisguised admiration. "It took the alliance of all Sacred Bloodlines to stop him. And even then, they could only execute him—never truly destroy him."
Kain contemplated the illustrations with horrified fascination. The engravings showed entire armies of desiccated soldiers, ghost cities, and landscapes transformed into sterile deserts by a single man.
By *him*.
"You think I'm his reincarnation."
"I don't think it, Kain." Lyralei leaned toward him, and he could smell her perfume—black roses and heated copper. "I *know* it. The question is: are you ready to embrace your heritage?"
*Say yes*, pleaded Kaelen in his head, his voice overflowing with four centuries of hope. *Say yes and reclaim your rightful place on the throne of the world.*
But before he could answer, the world exploded around them.
The red door disintegrated in a blast of golden light. Figures in blessed armor rushed into the room, their sacred swords tracing luminous arcs in the air. At their head, a man Kain recognized with icy terror.
Grand Inquisitor Thaddeus Malkor. The Scourge of Heretics. The man who had personally executed more corrupted mages than anyone else in the Empire's history.
"Lyralei Shadowmere," thundered his voice beneath his helm adorned with purifying symbols. "By the authority of the Circle of Twelve, I arrest you for crimes against humanity and practice of forbidden magic."
His eyes turned toward Kain, and even through the slits of his helm, their glow was terrifying.
"And you, abomination... You will discover why your ancestor preferred to die rather than suffer what we had prepared for him."
Lyralei rose with perfect grace, her smile becoming predatory.
"Oh, Thaddeus," she purred. "You arrive just in time for our young friend's most important lesson."
Her violet eyes began to shine with supernatural light.
"The one where he learns that some monsters... no longer allow themselves to be hunted."
The air in the room suddenly became electric, charged with magic so ancient and powerful it made the walls themselves vibrate.
And in his head, Kain heard Kaelen laugh—no longer with paternal affection, but with the pure joy of a predator who finally smells blood.
*Finally*, sighed the ancestral essence. *The real feast begins.*