The grand hall of the Azure Veil Clan swallowed sound like a tomb. Kael Ardentis' boots clicked against polished obsidian as he approached the dais, each step measured, each breath controlled. Five years of lies had led to this moment. The scent of bloodroot incense mixed with something metallic beneath - likely the remains of the last fool who failed them.
Silver masks watched from shadowed alcoves as he stopped precisely three paces from the bone thrones. The Hall of Elders sat motionless, their featureless masks reflecting the torchlight in distorted streaks. At the center, Grandmaster Veythas leaned forward, his crimson eyes burning like coals through the slits of his mask.
"Kael Ardentis." The Grandmaster's voice slithered through the chamber, sweet as poisoned wine. "You return victorious."
Kael went to one knee without hesitation. The scroll case at his belt felt heavier than the steel he'd spilled to obtain it. "The Eclipse Sigil is recovered, Grandmaster."
A collective inhale from the assembled elders. The lost technique. The reason their clan had fallen from glory. Now resting against his hip in a cylinder of blackened elderwood.
Veythas extended a skeletal hand. "Show me."
The case clicked open with a sound like cracking bone. The parchment inside was impossibly thin, nearly translucent, covered in sigils that seemed to writhe when viewed from the corner of the eye. As Kael laid it at the Grandmaster's feet, the torches flickered green for half a heartbeat.
"Five years," Veythas murmured, tracing a claw-like nail along the edge of the scroll. "Five years we waited while you wormed your way into the Stormblade's confidence. Five years of watching, wondering if you'd turn traitor." His mask tilted. "And yet here you stand."
Kael kept his gaze lowered. "The clan's glory comes before all."
A chuckle slithered through the chamber. Then pain.
Cold steel punched through his back, erupting from his chest in a spray of crimson. Kael looked down in numb shock at the ornate blade protruding from his sternum. The metal was blackened, etched with the same sigils as the scroll.
"Indeed it does," Veythas purred, twisting the blade. "And now your final service begins."
Kael collapsed to his knees, blood bubbling at his lips. His hands scrabbled uselessly at the weapon as the elders rose from their thrones in perfect unison.
"Why?" he gasped.
The Grandmaster removed his mask.
Flesh melted like candle wax, revealing jagged bone beneath. A mouth too wide, filled with needle teeth. Eyes that burned without pupils. "Because, little spy," the demon crooned, "meat should never know the butcher's plans."
Around him, silver masks clattered to the floor as the elders shed their human skins. Horns curled from foreheads. Extra joints appeared in grasping limbs. The torches flared emerald, casting the chamber in corpse-light.
Kael's vision tunneled. His last conscious thought was of fire.
Light.
Pain.
The smell of rotting fish.
Kael came awake with a gasp, his small body convulsing on cold stone. Rain sheeted down, turning the alley's filth into a shallow river beneath him. He rolled onto his side, vomiting nothing but bile.
"Easy there, kid. Deep breaths."
The voice came from inside his skull.
Kael froze. His hands - small, dirty, unmarked by the calluses of swordplay - flew to his temples. "Who-?"
"Name's Elias. And before you ask: no, you're not dead. No, this isn't hell. Unless you count puberty, which honestly..."
Kael scrambled backward until his spine hit a crumbling wall. His breath came in ragged gulps as he took inventory. Ragged tunic. Bare feet. The familiar ache of hunger in his gut. This was the slums of Veldros. This was his childhood.
But he'd just been in the Grand Hall. He'd just died.
"Okay, serious talk time." The voice - Elias - took on a firmer tone. "You're experiencing what we'll call an 'unexpected temporal relocation event.'"
Kael pressed his palms against his eyes until colors burst behind his lids. "I've gone mad."
"Tempting theory, but nope. Check this out - reach into your left pocket."
With trembling fingers, Kael obeyed. His hand closed around something cold. He drew out a copper coin dated twenty years before his death.
"Still think you're hallucinating?"
The coin bit into Kael's palm as he clenched his fist. The pain felt real. The rain felt real. The voice in his head...
He lunged to his feet and immediately toppled as his malnourished limbs betrayed him. The impact sent a jolt through his bones.
"Easy! You're in, like, a forty-pound body right now. Maybe don't try parkour."
Kael ignored him, crawling to a rusted metal sheet leaning against the wall. His reflection stared back - wide golden eyes in a gaunt face, hair matted with filth. Eight years old. Maybe nine.
The night before the Azure Veil found him.
His breath hitched. Then came the laughter - jagged, hysterical barks that echoed off the alley walls. He laughed until his ribs ached, until tears cut tracks through the grime on his face.
"Oh good, the existential breakdown. Right on schedule."
Kael smashed his fist into the metal sheet. The dent was pathetic. "They killed me," he whispered. "After everything I did for them..."
"Yeeeah, about that." Elias's tone shifted. "Those 'elders' weren't exactly human, were they?"
Kael's blood turned to ice. "You saw?"
"Got front row seats to the whole demonic reveal. Classy bunch. Real 'we eat souls for brunch' vibes."
The pieces clicked together with terrible clarity. The secrecy. The rituals. The way no outsider ever rose beyond lieutenant. The Azure Veil wasn't just a clan - it was a hunting ground.
And he'd been livestock.
Kael's vision swam. He pressed his forehead to the cold stone, focusing on the uneven texture beneath his skin. Real. This was real.
"Okay, new plan," Elias announced. "Step one: don't die of hypothermia. Step two: revenge. Probably should flip those, but-"
"How are you in my mind?" Kael interrupted.
Silence. Then a sigh. "Best guess? My last experiment involved quantum entanglement and a truly irresponsible amount of caffeine. Next thing I know, boom - I'm sharing headspace with Murder Baby."
Kael scowled. "I'm not a baby."
"You're literally covered in alley juice. Also, I can see your memories. You ate a rat last Tuesday."
"That was-"
"A rat, Kael. You ate a whole rat."
The absurdity of arguing with a voice in his head while sitting in a puddle of rainwater finally struck him. Another laugh bubbled up, this one edged with something dangerous.
Elias seemed to sense the shift. "Hey. We good?"
Kael stared at his reflection in the dented metal. The eyes staring back were too old for the face they inhabited. "They'll pay," he murmured. "Every last one of them."
A pause. Then, with surprising warmth: "Damn right they will. But first..." A mental image flashed - a steaming meat pie sitting on a windowsill. "Calories. Lots of calories."
Kael pushed himself upright, wiping his nose on his sleeve. The rain had eased to a drizzle. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell tolled midnight.
He had twenty years until his death. Twenty years to prepare. To learn. To become something the Azure Veil couldn't predict.
Something they couldn't kill.
A slow smile spread across his face as he stepped out of the alley. Behind him, the metal sheet trembled, then flattened itself with a screech of protesting metal.
"Uh. Did you mean to do that?"
Kael didn't answer. The Eclipse Sigil's first sigil had been for kinetic redirection. He'd seen it on the scroll before handing it over.
Now it lived in his bones.
Elias whistled. "Okay. Maybe we can skip straight to step two."