Chapter 34
The Obsidian Order was collapsing, but neither man paused to savor the victory. For Stephan and Kareon, every strike carried a singular purpose: to finish the war and to return to her.
Stephan had kept his father’s vow. The Dragov line stood unbeaten. Now every strike, every breath, was a sprint toward the moment her hands would cradle his battle-worn face and remind him he was still a man, not just a weapon.
Kareon, born of chains and forged in fire, felt the weight of centuries lift with each kill. But now he moved faster to keep his promise, to return to her, to the eyes that made him more than a rebel and a beast.
Then the earth trembled. A soundless rupture split reality as the air thickened with something ancient and unseen.
Victory curdled into dread. Across the battlefield, every warrior—Firstblood, Lycan, and mercenary—stood frozen.
Between Dragov Castle and Mournshadow Lake, the world shifted.
It felt wrong, heavy, and unnatural. The castle began to glow.
It burned like a wound forced open, like a nightmare clawing its way back into the world.
Eris’s divine power had stirred more than the living. It had awakened something that should have remained buried. Something forbidden and monstrous.
The battlefield fell into silence.
Then, a Firstblood screamed, dropping his sword, clutching his chest. His horse shrieked and fled. Another fell without sound. A third stood mid-strike, his blade hovering, his blood turned to ice.
The Dragov blood had called to them. It did not summon as kin. It commanded as curse. Something older than memory whispered through their veins and held them in its grip.
Terror clamped around Stephan’s chest like a vice, each breath crushed beneath the weight of knowing. His grip tightened around Sanguine Oath, as if the steel alone could shield him from what had risen. The name slipped into his mind like poison.
Kriponius. The curse of his bloodline.
He knew what it meant. When Kriponius rose, he would hunt only one: Eris.
She had dreamed it—a voice calling her Seraphina, claiming her as its own. Now the nightmare was awake.
Stephan moved. There was no time to think. He had to reach Dragov Castle before Kriponius fed, before his strength returned in full. If the ancient king regained his power, not even Stephan, strongest of his generation, would be enough.
He had read the ancient texts. Kriponius was no mere vampire.
He was a god of death. The Firstbloods of this age were weaker, civilized.
They no longer hunted, no longer fed on the dying.
But Kriponius had thrived on it. He had grown stronger with every kill, every corpse, every drop consumed.
And now he was stirring. There was no time for fear. Only for speed.
Across the field, the Lycans felt it too. The realization struck them moments later. Though they carried no Dragov blood, history bound them. The sensation crept through their senses, heavy, suffocating. Impossible to ignore.
Then memory surged. They remembered the whispered tales, the centuries of bloodshed and loss, the one who had hunted them without mercy. The killer of Seraphina, their beloved and sacred flame.
He had returned.
Triumphant howls fell into silence. Fangs, still wet from victory, turned trembling toward the glowing castle on the horizon.
And then, Stephan arrived.
His horse reared before Kareon. Their eyes locked. They said nothing, because they already knew.
"That monster should have rotted in the dark. Now he’s awake." Stephan’s breath seared in his chest, but his voice held. "And his first instinct will be to take—" Kareon’s jaw tightened. "Eris."
Stephan nodded. His grip closed around Sanguine Oath with quiet fury. Though his breath came hard, his purpose did not waver. "I have to stop him before he reaches her."
Kareon stepped forward, his presence thunderous. "Then I ride with you."
Stephan stiffened. "No." His voice was iron, unyielding. "She cannot be left unguarded. If I—"
He choked on the words, silence holding between them.
Kareon understood what he could not say. His golden eyes burned like embers in the dark. "Come back whole, Dragov. Or I’ll come for you myself."
Stephan did not respond. He offered one last glance—a warrior’s farewell, a brother’s command. And then, he rode like hell.
The ride blurred beneath him, fire and frost trailing his path.
Dragov Castle rose ahead, its towers piercing the night, wreathed in an unnatural glow. Once it had been his home. Now it felt possessed.
A servant rushed forward as Stephan dismounted.
"Take him," Stephan said, his voice cold and final.
He strode through the gates into corridors heavy with unseen breath.
The torches shuddered, their flames clawing at the stone.
Portraits of dead kings watched with eyes that seemed to shift when he moved.
The deeper he went, the colder it became, thick with the presence of something buried and breathing.
By the time he reached the crypt level, the air pressed in on his lungs like stone.
He slowed. The crypt doors stood ajar, wide like a grave left open too long. The scent of blood filled his nostrils, metallic and wrong.
Stephan pressed his back to the wall, steadied his breath, and looked inside.
A figure stood before a coffin marked with his own name.
It was not a man. It was shadow given shape.
His black hair hung wild. His face was sharp, merciless.
Untouched by time. But it was the eyes that froze Stephan in place—not red or gold, but black as the void itself. A gaze that consumed rather than saw.
The air pulsed around him, bending to him. In his grasp, a servant hung limp, throat exposed, breathless with terror.
Kriponius fed.
He latched onto the man’s neck, his fangs sinking deep into flesh. The body shriveled as the skin collapsed inward. This was not feeding. This was erasure. He was the third. Two more lay crumpled nearby, drained and gray, forgotten by the world.
Stephan swallowed hard. He was too late.
Kriponius grew stronger with every drop. The air darkened. The walls seemed to press inward, power pulsing like a waking god. Stephan exhaled. There was no time. He had to end this for Eris.
Before Kriponius could move, Stephan stepped forward. His movements were slow, controlled. He placed himself between Kriponius and the exit.
His body held like steel. His face remained carved in stone, but inside, his heart slammed against his ribs with the force of a beast in a cage.
Kriponius let the body drop.
His movements were too smooth, too unnatural. He wiped the blood from his mouth with unsettling calm, then looked through Stephan as if reading something carved into the marrow of his bones. His gaze moved over him, slow and deliberate, as something flickered across his face. Recognition.
His black eyes narrowed. His head tilted slightly in fascination, like a man staring into a mirror.
Then his gaze dropped to Sanguine Oath, resting at Stephan’s hip. His expression shifted, as a frown formed, subtle and calculating.
When he spoke, his voice rose like a buried growl, low and resonant, not of this world.
"Ah… Sanguine Oath." He paused. The silence grew thick, swollen with memory.
"The blade upon which empires knelt and gods bled.
I wrought dominions in flame, was anointed by blood, and razed thrones that dared to stand.
Art thou so bold as to think thy hand worthy of such fire?
" Another silence followed. It pressed deeper, darker.
"Who walks in mine image, yet bears not my name? "
Stephan did not blink. His voice was cold steel, honed to kill. "Names are dust when the world ends. All you need to remember is this: Your next step will be your last."
Kriponius stared at him for a long moment.
Then he smiled slowly, dark and amused. "Arrogance is the marrow of Dragov blood. Yet thou wearest it ill, like a boy draped in a crown he cannot bear."
His smirk lingered, but his eyes remained cold. Then it was gone. His gaze swept over Stephan as his frown deepened. He had already seen Sanguine Oath, but now he saw the blood, soaking both blade and armor.
“What soul's end stains thee thus?”
But he did not wait for an answer. His will reached outward, slithering past the crypt, through the castle walls, and into the night beyond. He felt the battle raging outside, the Firstbloods locked against something unnatural: impure vampires.
Kriponius froze, rigid as marble. Then his black eyes widened with sudden disgust and fury.
"Thou hast let this abomination slither forth beneath mine ancient name?" He turned back to Stephan, feral. “Leeches adorned in counterfeit sovereignty, blood-cloaked pretenders to an inheritance they neither earned nor comprehend?”
The very walls shifted, as if the castle itself trembled.
Kriponius stepped forward. The stones beneath him cracked. The shadows deepened.
"Hath the House of Dragov sunk so low as to kneel before carrion?" His black gaze bore into Stephan, cold as a dying star. “In the days when thrones bled and gods wept, such filth was not endured. It was sundered. Scorched. Cast into ash.”
The crypt seemed to strain, reality bending beneath his fury.
Stephan stood his ground, grip tightening on Sanguine Oath.
His voice cut through the dark. “You ruled in your age. You fed on the weak and called it dominion. But your time is over. You are the shadow of a god already forgotten. And shadows belong to the dark.” The torches trembled as the ground seemed to listen.
Stephan stepped forward. “You should have remained buried.”
Kriponius went still. And then, the crypt shuddered from wrath itself awakening.
The ground groaned. The walls strained. Something vast stirred in the depths of his power.