The rain had turned to mist by the time Elias stepped out of the Astoria's private entrance, the city cloaked in silver haze. He pulled his jacket tighter against the damp and kept his head low as he weaved through the sleeping streets. The city around him buzzed with muted life—honking taxis, neon signs flickering in puddles, distant laughter from midnight drunks.
But in Elias's mind, it was quiet.
The binder Caius had given him felt heavier than its weight should allow. Names. Faces. Places that had survived the fall of the Crane house, hidden and waiting. Some likely didn't even know they were still bound to a legacy thought lost. Others remembered—and were waiting for a rightful heir to claim them.
He tucked the binder beneath his arm and made his way back to his small apartment above the café, heart pounding with a quiet, simmering urgency he hadn't felt in years.
Tonight wasn't about sleeping.
Tonight was about waking up.
Inside, he locked the door, pulled the curtains tight, and set the binder aside. He drew the old pendant from his pocket, the crescent moon wrapped in flame glinting under the soft kitchen light. He set it down carefully in the center of the worn table.
And he stared at it.
For a long time, nothing happened. Just the low hum of the city beyond the window and the beating of his own heart.
Then—without warning—the pendant pulsed.
It was subtle at first. A ripple across the metal, like the surface of a disturbed pond. Then stronger, like a heartbeat answering his own. The light around the pendant dimmed, the air thickened, and Elias felt something shift inside him.
He reached out, placing his palm flat over the ancient symbol.
A jolt ran through his body—sharp, electric, but not painful. His mind flooded with images. Broken temples swallowed by vines. Blades humming with forgotten power. Armies kneeling beneath a silver banner bearing the same moon and flame that burned against his skin now.
It wasn't just memories.
It was a call.
The Crane bloodline had been more than nobles. They had been guardians, warriors, and wielders of something older than kingdoms—something that could bend the world around them if they dared awaken it.
Elias gritted his teeth and pressed harder, willing himself to understand, to absorb whatever his ancestors had left for him.
The pendant grew hot under his hand. His breathing slowed without effort, falling into a deep, steady rhythm. He could feel the flow of energy tracing paths through his body—down his arms, along his spine, into his core. Ancient pathways that had slept dormant since birth.
Breath is strength.Breath is will.Breath is life.
The words weren't spoken aloud, but they echoed inside him all the same.
He closed his eyes and began to move without thinking—slow, deliberate motions guided by instincts not his own. His hands flowed through invisible shapes in the air, his muscles adjusting, memory buried deep in his blood taking over. A form not taught, but inherited.
Time stretched thin. Minutes, hours—he wasn't sure how long he moved.
When he finally stopped, the pendant's glow faded, leaving only its cool metal pressed against his chest.
Elias stood in the center of the room, breathing slowly, his shirt damp with sweat. The world around him felt sharper, clearer. Every creak of the building, every whisper of the wind outside—it all sang in his ears with crystalline clarity.
And beneath it all, deep within him, something ancient had opened its eyes.
The Crane blood had begun to stir.
Not fully awakened. Not yet.
But enough.
Enough to make the world take notice soon.
Elias sat back down, the binder still waiting at the table's edge. He flipped it open and began to study the first page—a name scrawled in careful handwriting.
He would start small.
Quiet.
Patient.
He would rebuild what had been lost.
And when the time came, he would show them all—
The legacy they thought they had buried... was alive.
And it was coming for them.