### Chapter 3: First Blood
The library's scream still echoed in Kael's skull when the corridor lights snapped to crimson. Emergency runes flared along the walls—ancient script that pulsed like a warning heartbeat. Students poured from study alcoves, robes half-buttoned, eyes wide with the kind of panic that only comes when the wards *break*.
Lira's grip on his wrist turned bruising. "Shadow rift. *Big* one. We need the east wing—now."
They ran.
Kael's sneakers skidded on polished obsidian floors that reflected the eclipse moon like black glass. Portraits of long-dead archmages tracked their flight with painted eyes. Somewhere above, a bell tolled thirteen times—impossible, since Elyria only had twelve hours in its night cycle.
They burst into the east atrium. The air tasted of iron and ozone. A jagged tear hovered mid-air, edges flickering between Seattle's rainy skyline and Elyria's spires. Through it, Kael saw *his* alley—the one where he died—dumpsters overturned, police tape fluttering like yellow ghosts.
And standing in the rift's center: a figure in a hooded coat, face obscured by a mask of living shadow. Its voice slithered out, layered like a thousand whispers:
**"The eclipsed soul returns. The bond must break."**
The mask tilted toward Kael. Shadows *lunged*.
He didn't think. Instinct took over. His tattoo burned white-hot; darkness erupted from his palms in a whip-crack of night. It met the cultist's attack mid-air, sparks of black fire raining down. Students screamed. Someone shouted, "Contain it!"
Riven arrived like a storm.
He landed between Kael and the rift in a blur of black and silver, coat flaring like wings. One hand snapped up—crimson runes igniting across his knuckles. "**Seal.**"
The rift shuddered but didn't close. The cultist laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Too late, Prince. The anchor awakens."
Riven's eyes found Kael's. For a split second, something raw flashed there—*recognition, fear, hunger*. Then the mask was all business. "Voss. Behind me."
Kael opened his mouth to protest (*I'm not helpless*), but the shadows around Riven *moved*. Not magic—*blood*. It rose from the floor in thin crimson threads, weaving a cage around the rift. The cultist hissed, raising both hands. More shadows poured through, coalescing into *claws*.
Lira yanked Kael sideways as a claw raked the spot where he'd stood. Marble exploded into dust. "Less staring, more *helping*!"
Kael's heart slammed against his ribs. The tattoo pulsed in time with Riven's blood cage. He felt it—the *pull*. Like two magnets fighting polarity. Without thinking, he stepped forward, pressing his palm to Riven's back.
Contact.
Power *surged*.
Shadows and blood braided together in a helix of black and red, slamming into the rift like a tidal wave. The cultist shrieked as the tear *snapped* shut, severing its arm at the elbow. The limb hit the floor and dissolved into ash.
Silence.
Then the atrium erupted—cheers, gasps, someone retching. Riven spun, grabbing Kael's shoulders hard enough to bruise. "What the *hell* was that?"
"I don't know!" Kael's voice cracked. His hand still tingled where it had touched Riven's coat. "It just—happened."
Riven's pupils were blown wide, crimson bleeding into the whites. "You *fed* me. Your shadows—they *obeyed* my blood." His grip tightened. "That's not supposed to be possible."
Lira whistled, kicking at the ash pile. "Yeah, well, 'impossible' is kinda our brand now." She glanced up as Professor Elowen Hart swept in, antlers casting long shadows. The elf's face was grim.
"Thorne. Voss. My office. *Now.*"
---
Elowen's office smelled of parchment and stormglass. Books floated in lazy orbits around a central desk carved from a single piece of star-oak. She didn't sit.
"Explain," she said, voice like winter wind.
Riven recounted the attack—clinical, precise. Kael filled in the rift's Earth-side glimpse. When he mentioned the cultist's words, Elowen's antlers flickered with silver light.
"The Fractured Eclipse," she murmured. "They haven't surfaced in centuries." She fixed Kael with a stare that peeled back layers. "Your death wasn't random. Someone *pushed* you through the veil. And they used Riven's bloodline as the anchor."
Riven went very still. "My curse."
Elowen nodded. "The eclipse amplification. It's why your clan's been hunted for generations. But this—" She gestured between them. "—this synergy. It's the prophecy's counterweight."
Kael's stomach dropped. "Prophecy?"
"*When shadow binds to blood under veiled stars, the realm shall fracture—or mend.*" Elowen's eyes softened. "You're the fracture, Kael. Riven's the mend. Or vice versa."
Riven's jaw clenched. "I don't do destiny."
"Destiny doesn't care," Elowen said. "But the cult does. They'll come again. Harder."
She slid a crystal vial across the desk—inside swirled liquid night and crimson sparks. "Eclipse essence. One drop each, at midnight. It'll stabilize the bond temporarily. Buy us time."
Kael stared at the vial. "And if we don't?"
Elowen's smile was sharp. "Then next time, the rift opens *inside* one of you."
---
Midnight found them on the astronomy tower, city lights of Elyria glittering below like fallen stars. The eclipse moon hung full and hungry.
Riven uncorked the vial. "You first."
Kael took it with shaking fingers. The liquid tasted like copper and smoke. Warmth spread through his chest, pooling where Riven's hand had touched him earlier. He passed the vial back.
Riven drank. For a moment, nothing.
Then the bond *snapped* into place.
Kael *felt* Riven—cold clarity, centuries of loneliness, a thirst that wasn't just for blood. Riven gasped, staggering. Kael caught his arm instinctively.
Their eyes met. The air between them shimmered with black-red threads, visible now. Permanent.
Riven's voice was rough. "I can taste your heartbeat."
Kael's laugh was half-hysterical. "Romantic."
Riven's thumb brushed Kael's wrist—right over the tattoo. "We're linked. If one of us breaks…"
"…the other shatters," Kael finished.
Somewhere below, a second bell tolled thirteen times.
The hunt had just begun.
**To be continued...**
Written by goddesslove950