....
Lord Damian Kuron did not sleep. Not truly. Two decades into the Rift State, he had traded the unconsciousness of night for the meditation of the Mental Space, his consciousness submerged in a sea of Aether and probability. It was there, in the quiet realm between thought and reality, that he reviewed the intelligence that had forced his hand.
The letter sat on his desk, written in a hand he knew well—formal, precise, bearing the seal of House Voralis itself. Its contents were simple and devastating:
The boy's bloodline has manifested. Orochi's Spiral, mixed with something... other. He is unstable. Dangerous. If you do not act, the other Families will claim him first. Do what must be done. The poison kept him weak, but it will not hold much longer.
It was unsigned. It didn't need to be. Damian had verified the handwriting against three independent samples. The source was genuine.
The door opened without knock. Marius, his spymaster, slipped in like a shadow wearing a smile. "My lord. The palace agents are in place. Seraphine will be neutralized first—she's the only real threat."
"And the boy?" Damian's voice was flat. He disliked this entire affair. Assassinations were messy, but necessary. This felt like something else.
"Confirmed in his chambers. The slow poison kept his Aether channels suppressed for eleven years. He'll be too weak to resist extraction."
Extraction. The polite term for what they were about to do. Cut out the boy's bloodline like a tumor, leaving him an empty husk. If he survived, he'd be a vegetable. If he died—well, that solved the problem too.
"You're certain the father is dead?" Damian asked.
Marius's smile widened. "Very. We found him in the throne room, surrounded by his personal guard. He fought well for a dying man."
Dying man. The letter had mentioned the Voralis patriarch was already terminal. Had been for years. The poison given to the boy was meant to keep him manageable, not lethal. A father poisoning his own son to control a bloodline that should have been impossible.
What kind of man did that?
The same kind who'd write a letter to his family's executioner, offering up his child like a sacrificial lamb.
Aric entered then, his armor already buckled for war. "Father. Third Company is ready. We can breach the palace gates in under thirty minutes."
Damian looked at his son—strong, idealistic, still believing their family was righteous. Still believing this was about protecting the realm from an unstable bloodline, not harvesting a rival's carefully cultivated weapon.
"Son," he said carefully, "do you remember what I taught you about bloodlines?"
"That they are a gift from our ancestors. To be honored, not abused."
"What if I told you the Voralis boy's bloodline is a curse? That his father spent eleven years poisoning him to keep it from consuming him whole?"
Aric's hand touched his sword hilt, a nervous gesture. "Then... we would be saving him from a fate worse than death."
Would we? Damian thought. Or are we just stealing another man's work?
But he didn't say it. Aric needed his righteousness the way a sword needed its edge. Remove it, and he'd be useless.
"Give the order," Damian said. "Take the boy alive if possible. Dead if necessary. But make it clean."
When Aric left, Marius lingered. "The letter also mentioned a secondary objective. Something hidden in the prince's chambers. A family heirloom."
Damian's fingers traced the seal on the parchment. Voralis serpent, devouring its own tail. The symbol of a bloodline that supposedly descended from the Orochi itself.
"Find it. And Marius—when this is done, make sure the letter burns with everything else."
"Of course, my lord."
Alone, Damian pulled out a hidden drawer. Not for a portrait this time. For a small vial, its contents a familiar pale green. The same poison that had killed the Voralis boy's spirit slowly over eleven years.
He'd had it analyzed. The formula was ancient, traced back to the first generation of bloodline cultivators. It didn't just suppress Aether—it preserved the subject, kept them in a state of perfect potential. Like pickling a fruit before it could rot.
The Voralis patriarch hadn't been trying to kill his son. He'd been cultivating him. Keeping the boy's channels pristine, uncontaminated by premature manifestation. Waiting for the bloodline to mature to perfect extraction quality.
And when he'd realized he wouldn't live to harvest the fruit himself? He'd offered it to his enemies, ensuring his son's death would at least take his rivals with him.
What kind of man does that?
A desperate one. A brilliant one. A monster who'd engineered his own family's extinction for a gambit that wouldn't even benefit him.
The boots began to march outside. The purge had begun.
Damian Kuron pocketed the vial and went to watch his son wage war. He told himself they were heroes, saving the realm from an unstable bloodline.
But in the quiet of his Mental Space, he wondered if they were just scavengers, picking at a carcass his enemy had prepared for them.
And he wondered, with the cold clarity of a man who'd sacrificed his own conscience long ago, what kind of monster that boy would become if he survived...