The night after the Blood Rite, Vaeloria did not sleep.
From the towers to the servants' quarters, candles burned late into the hours when even the stars seemed too tired to watch. Nobles whispered behind closed doors. Old retainers drank deeply, half in celebration, half in fear. Rumors spread like wildfire across the estate and beyond—tales of the boy who had summoned a mythical Blood Crest.
Kaelen sat quietly by the hearth in his chambers, a heavy woolen blanket draped around his small shoulders. Lady Selene knelt before him, drying the cut across his palm with careful hands. Her touch was tender but her expression was far away, caught between pride and dread.
"You have awakened something that will shake the world, Kaelen," she said softly. "There are those who will bow to you... and those who will want you dead before you come of age."
Kaelen looked up at her, the firelight flickering in his silver eyes. His tiny fingers tightened into a fist.
"Let them come."
Selene's lips trembled with a mixture of sorrow and pride. She kissed his brow, then rose, her silhouette framed by the fire's golden glow.
"I will protect you," she vowed.
Kaelen said nothing.
Because he knew—protection would never be enough.
Not for what was coming.
The summons came at dawn.
Kaelen was to attend the Council of Elders.
Not as a child.
As an heir.
The council chamber was a cold, domed room, its walls lined with statues of past lords and ladies, their stone faces eroded by centuries of watching others fail.
The twelve Elders of Vaeloria sat in a semi-circle, each robed in the deep blue of the House, their eyes sharp with calculation.
At the center, Lord Arkan Vaeloria, Selene's elder brother and the current Patriarch, presided like a judge over a trial.
Kaelen entered the hall without fear. His short cloak barely brushed the floor. His small boots made almost no sound on the cold stone.
But every step echoed like a drumbeat of change.
Lord Arkan studied him with an expression that gave nothing away.
"Kaelen Vaeloria," he said. "Last night, you awakened a Crest unseen for generations. Such a thing cannot be ignored."
Murmurs rippled through the elders.
"You are no longer merely a child," another elder—an old man with a voice like gravel—growled. "You are a weapon."
Kaelen stood still, letting their words wash over him.
"A weapon we must sharpen," Lord Arkan continued. "And shield."
He leaned forward slightly, the firelight catching in the silver of his hair.
"You will be sent to the Blood and Blade Academy."
A hush fell over the room.
Kaelen's heart remained steady.
He had heard of it, of course. The Academy where heirs of all the Great Houses were sent to be honed into leaders—or broken.
It was no school. It was a crucible.
A forge for monsters.
Perfect.
"When?" Kaelen asked, his voice steady.
Lord Arkan's lips twitched—approval, perhaps.
"At the next full moon," he said. "Until then, you will train. You must not only survive, Kaelen. You must dominate."
Kaelen bowed his head in silent acceptance.
The council dismissed him shortly after, and as he left, he caught snippets of whispered arguments—some advocating for his rise, others plotting his downfall already.
He smiled to himself.
Let them scheme.
He had been broken once.
He would not break again.
The next weeks passed in a blur of steel and sweat.
Swordmasters drilled him from dawn to dusk. Scholars filled his mind with history, tactics, and languages. Mana instructors coaxed the unseen forces of the world from his blood and bone.
Kaelen endured.
He remembered the weight of a sword in his past life, though his current body still struggled with the basics. He practiced tirelessly, focusing not on strength—which would come—but on precision. Every strike, every block, every step carved into muscle memory.
His nights were spent in secret study.
Within the deepest archives of Vaeloria, Kaelen uncovered records sealed from public knowledge. Tales of the ancient Blood Crests, of wars fought not merely with steel, but with the power of the soul itself.
And sometimes—when the moon was high and the world slept—Kaelen would stand in the empty training yards, feeling the dragon within his blood stir, feeling the void between stars call to him.
The Mythical Crest was not just power.
It was a promise.
And a warning.
On the eve of his departure, Selene came to him once more.
She brought no speeches. No tears.
Only a sword.
It was plain—no gemstones, no intricate carvings. A blade forged of dark steel, the kind that had once been carried by Vaeloria's founders before they grew fat with power and forgot how to fight.
"This belonged to your grandfather," she said simply.
Kaelen took it from her hands. Though heavy, it fit into his grip like it had been waiting for him.
"Thank you," he said, meaning it.
Selene brushed a strand of hair from his forehead.
"Win, Kaelen," she said. "Whatever it takes."
He nodded once.
Then he turned his gaze to the horizon—to the distant walls of the Blood and Blade Academy, where dreams went to die and monsters were born.
A storm was coming.
And Kaelen Vaeloria would meet it head-on.
[End of Chapter 3]