House of Blood

The rain in the Eastern Marches did not fall in clean, rhythmic drops; it slammed into the jagged basalt crags of the Iron-Tooth Pass like a tempest of needles.

Three hundred feet above the mud-slicked gorge, perched on a narrow spur of obsidian rock that oversaw the main trade arterial, Valerian Prim Sanguis sat cross-legged.

He wore his black faceless mask, its slate surface slick with rainwater that trickled down to his wolf-fur cloak.

Beneath the mask, his frost-hide blindfold pulsed with a soft, steady blue light, its northern runes humming as his acoustic perception mapped the surrounding canyon with absolute, microscopic precision.

Every falling raindrop, every shift of gravel three leagues away, and every erratic heartbeat of the wilderness was rendered in his mind like a high-contrast geometric blueprint.

In his lap rested a fresh, uncarved shaft of heavy ironwood—four times denser than standard timber, harvested from the deep frost-glen by Kaelen before they crossed the border.

In his right hand, a small, rune-carved skinning knife shaved off long, curling ribbons of dark wood, shaping the ends into balanced, tapered cold-iron sockets.

’You’re carving too deep on the left balance point, partner,’ Wren’s voice echoed softly inside his consciousness, her phantom ribbon form weaving lazily around his wrists like a streak of black-and-crimson smoke.

’If you drive that into a High Demon’s sternum with full kinetic leverage, the grain will split before the shockwave transfers.’

’The balance point isn’t for thrusting, Wren,’ Valerian thought back smoothly, his hands moving with mechanical, hypnotic precision.

’It’s angled at three degrees to offset the drag of the eastern gale. When I spin it, the air pressure will create a localized vacuum along the shaft, muting the sound of the swing.’

Wren let out a low, purring laugh that vibrated against his soul.

’Always calculating. Always building a quiet weapon. You know, your executioner sister almost turned that courtyard into a crater trying to touch your face. And your brother...’

Valerian’s knife paused for a fraction of a millisecond.

A thin curl of ironwood fell onto his knee.

’Alexis has the wooden dragon,’ Valerian replied internally, his tone flat, guarded, and stripped of all nostalgia.

’He has his answer. That is enough to keep Vespera from launching a blind, suicidal war against the Imperial Court before our network is fully anchored.’

”Spatial anomaly detected at Vector 4!” Castor’s voice cut through the sound of the howling wind.

The manic scholar popped out from a spatial pocket beneath an overhang twenty feet away, his bloodshot eyes wide behind his brass-rimmed magnifying monocle.

His hands were covered in silver array ink, and his compass was spinning so rapidly it generated a faint, humming static.

”It’s not the Eldritch Sun Sanctum’s transport!” Castor squeaked, wiping a mixture of rain and ink from his forehead.

”Density readings indicate three high-speed entities approaching along the upper ridgeline! Blood-aura signatures... terrifyingly dense! Structural compression ratio exceeds C = 8.9!”

Kaelen stepped out from behind a jagged boulder, her heavy bone bludgeons already resting across her broad shoulders.

Her golden barbarian eyes narrowed as she looked up into the sheets of grey rain pouring over the eastern cliffs.

”They aren’t imperial guards,” Kaelen growled, her wild instincts flaring.

”Imperial guards move in heavy, loud formations with wind-spells. These three are gliders. They’re running on the rainwater without breaking the surface tension of the puddles.”

”Pollux,” Valerian called out quietly.

From the shadows beneath the cliff face, Pollux emerged like a ghost rising from a grave.

Her pale face was partially hidden beneath her black cowl, her violet eyes shining with an unhinged, zealot-like fascination.

In her hands, she held three glass vials filled with grey corpse-salt.

”Shall I salt their steps, My Sovereign?” Pollux whispered, her voice trembling with ecstatic devotion.

”Shall I turn their blood into dust before they can lay their filthy eyes upon your holy mask?”

”No,” Valerian commanded, his pleasant, calm voice settling over the small band like an icy sheet.

”Keep your salt in your robes, Pollux. They aren’t enemies.”

Valerian stood up.

He slid his skinning knife into his belt, gripped his newly shaped ironwood bo staff at its center, and turned his blindfolded face toward the high eastern ridge.

Through his acoustic mapping, he felt them before they even cleared the mountain pass.

Three distinct movement profiles.

The first moved with long, sweeping, razor-sharp strides—lightweight leather armor, twin short-swords, and an asymmetrical rhythm that favored silent deceleration.

Morrigan.

The Third Eldest.

The Executioner.

The second and third moved in complete, terrifying synchronicity—a pair of fifteen-year-old predators whose heartbeats clicked together like a twin-gear clockwork mechanism.

One carried a massive, top-heavy weight that dragged slightly behind his right shoulder—Marvos and his executioner scythe—while the other hovered on the balls of her feet, her hands carrying twelve micro-vibrational metal signatures—Maelis and her rune-carved throwing daggers.

’Your family really doesn’t know how to send a polite letter, does it?’ Wren cackled inside his head.

’They brought the executioner squad to a rainstorm.’

Valerian didn’t answer.

He stepped to the edge of the cliff spur, letting his wolf-fur cloak snap violently in the rising tempest.

Five hundred yards away, on the crest of the highest jagged peak overlooking the gorge, three silhouettes materialized out of the rain.

Morrigan Prim Sanguis stood in the center, her dark silver hair plastered against her forehead by the storm.

Her crimson cloth mask was pulled high over her face, leaving only her sharp, cat-like crimson eyes exposed.

To her left, Marvos leaned casually on his jagged scythe, a wild, feral grin visible even through the thick sheets of falling water.

To her right, Maelis twirled a rune-carved throwing dagger around her slender forefinger, her dark eyes fixed intently on the masked figure standing across the canyon.

Neither side moved.

Neither side drew a weapon.

The silence between the two cliffs was absolute—a vast, echoing void suspended above the roaring thunder of the Iron-Tooth Pass.

Marvos raised his left hand, flashing a rapid, five-finger tactical sign language used exclusively by the Prim Sanguis Vanguard during night raids.

” TARGET: EASTERN DEPOT. WE ARE YOUR SHADOW. ”

Valerian stood still on his cliff spur, the rain washing over his black faceless mask.

He didn’t return the sign language.

To use the Vanguard’s silent cipher would be an explicit acknowledgment of his bloodline—a trail that spatial mages could trace back to the family.

Instead, Valerian simply raised his left hand, closed his fingers into a tight, precise fist, and extended two fingers toward the eastern horizon—a simple, non-aura command used by northern mountain guides to indicate a multi-pronged ambush.

” CLEAR THE PERIMETER. LEAVE THE CORE TO ME. ”

On the opposite peak, Marvos’s feral grin widened until his sharp teeth caught the flash of distant lightning.

Beside him, Maelis let out a quiet, tinkling laugh that was swallowed by the gale, while Morrigan offered a single, solemn nod of her head.

Without another word, the three figures leaped backward into the storm, vanishing into the grey mist as if they had never existed at all.

”They... they left?” Castor blinked, staring at his spatial compass in total bewilderment.

”They didn’t attack? They didn’t even attempt a spatial inquiry or an aura scan! That violates every standard engagement protocol for High Noble Houses by 100%!”

”They didn’t come to engage, Castor,” Valerian said softly, testing the weight of his new ironwood staff with a quick, soundless wrist rotation.

”They came to fulfill an order from the Patriarch.”

”Your father?” Kaelen asked, stepping up beside him, her golden eyes fixed on the empty peak where the Sanguis siblings had stood.

”He knows?”

”He knows Alexis doesn’t make errors,” Valerian replied, his voice dropping into a cold, sovereign register.

”And he knows that if the Imperial Court sees the Sanguis Vanguard publicly protecting a masked rogue, it gives the Emperor the legal precedent he needs to declare our main line traitors to the Crown.”

Valerian lowered his staff, resting the cold-iron cap against the wet stone beneath his boots.

”They will cut down the Eldritch Sun Sanctum’s outer guards in the dark,” Valerian continued, his blindfolded gaze tracking three faint, high-speed acoustic signatures moving through the valley below.

”They will ensure no imperial scouts survive to report what happens inside the depot. And they will leave the core to us.”

’A family of monsters protecting their baby brother from the shadows,’ Wren purred, her phantom ribbon form wrapping around his right arm, infusing the ironwood shaft with a faint, dormant trace of black dragon fire.

’It’s almost touching, partner. If they weren’t all psychotic killers, I might actually like them.’

”Castor,” Valerian commanded, ignoring Wren’s sarcasm.

”Open the spatial concealment array over the valley floor. We move in three minutes.”

”Understood, My Lord!” Castor shouted, his hands flying across his spatial parchment as glowing blue runes erupted in the air around them.

”Spatial camouflage active! Probability of imperial detection: 0.02%!”

”Pollux,” Valerian turned to the zealot girl.

”When the core array collapses, prepare your corpse-salt. Every corrupted soul-gem in that depot must be neutralized before the Medeis mages can trace the supply line back to the capital.”

”IT SHALL BE DONE, MY SOVEREIGN!” Pollux squealed in delight, clutching her vials to her chest with wide, fanatic eyes.

”THE VOID SHALL BE CLEANSED IN YOUR DIVINE NAME!”

Valerian adjusted his black faceless mask, pulling his wolf-fur cloak tightly around his shoulders as he stepped to the absolute edge of the cliff.

Below, in the shadowy depths of the Iron-Tooth Pass, the primary supply depot of the Eldritch Sun Sanctum hummed with dark, abyssal mana—unaware that above them, two factions of the continent’s most lethal bloodline had just converged in the dark.

Valerian took a single step forward, falling off the cliff face into the roaring tempest below.