The sterile scent of antiseptic and cold stone hung heavy in the air of the Imperial Medical Wing. Outside the heavy, iron-reinforced doors, guards stood in silent formation, their armor gleaming under the flickering lights.
The silence was shattered by the frantic, echoing stride of a young man. At twenty-three, Cassian Hern carried himself with the inherent, suffocating authority of high nobility. His silk traveling cloak billowed behind him, stained with the dust of a journey he had clearly cut short. He didn't wait for the guards to announce him; he threw the doors open with a violence that made the hinges groan.
Inside, the room was a tomb of high-end medical machinery and whispered incantations. Michael lay on the central bed, wrapped in bandages etched with stabilization runes. Standing by the window, silhouetted against the dim evening light of Theron City, was Farbuti Hern. He didn't turn around.
Cassian bypassed his father entirely, rushing to the bedside. The sight of his younger brother, usually so arrogant and full of life, reduced to a broken shell, made a vein pulse dangerously in Cassian's temple. He dropped to his knees and pulled Michael into a fierce, protective embrace, his hands trembling.
"Michael," he whispered, his voice thick with a rare, raw affection. "I'm here. I'm back."
He held the embrace for a long minute before pulling away, his eyes scanning the burns and the deep, concussive bruising that even the best healers hadn't fully erased. Cassian stood up, his grief curdling instantly into a cold, sharp-edged fury. He turned toward the guards standing at the periphery.
"Who did this?" he demanded.
No one spoke. The guards lowered their heads, staring at the polished floor. Cassian's voice rose, cutting through. "I asked a question! Who laid hands on my brother!"
Farbuti Hern exhaled a long, weary sigh, finally turning away from the window. He looked at his eldest son not with pride or shared grief, but with the detached scrutiny of a merchant looking at a flawed ledger.
"It was a commoner," one of the guards finally stammered, his voice small. "During the tournament. A boy named Solace."
The name hung in the air like a foul odor. Cassian froze, his expression twisting into a mask of pure disbelief.
"A commoner?" Cassian repeated the word, sounding like a slur. "A piece of street filth beat a Hern? In a public forum?" He turned his head slowly toward his father, his eyes wide. "Father, why is this 'Solace' still breathing? Why has his district not been razed to the ground?"
Farbuti didn't blink. He paced toward a small table and poured himself a glass of dark wine, his movements agonizingly deliberate.
"Because," Farbuti said, his voice flat and rhythmic, "it is not the right time. We are in the most delicate phase of our operations, Cassian."
Cassian stepped forward, his fists clenched at his sides. "Our blood was spilled! Our reputation is being dragged through the gutters of Theron City by a commoner! If he has no major family backing him, what is stopping us?"
Farbuti took a slow sip of his wine, watching the ripples in the glass. "He is already on the Church's radar, Cassian. They are investigating him with far more scrutiny than we ever could. In that match against your foolish brother, he displayed... unusual abilities. Things that are theoretically impossible for a commoner registered with the Threads of Chain, Glass, and Stillness."
Farbuti leaned in, his voice dropping to a chilling whisper. "He displayed an affinity for spatial displacement. Teleportation, Cassian. Do you understand the implications?"
Cassian went still.
"The Church is desperate," Farbuti continued, turning back to the window. "They are attempting to retrieve something ancient from the Itou Sea, and the 'Key' for the next phase is being moved as we speak. It is being sent to our primary base in the Western Jungles. We are planning to ascend the mountain in six or seven months. The Blood Trials are already complicated enough without you starting a street war over Michael's bruised ego."
Farbuti's eyes snapped to his eldest son, cold and demanding. "I wish for you not to let me down. If we successfully facilitate this for the Church, our standing in the Imperial Court will be higher than the Great Houses. We will be untouchable."
The fury in Cassian's chest didn't vanish, but it retreated, compressed into a hard, dense core of hatred. He took a steadying breath, adjusting his cuffs.
"You don't need to remind me of the stakes, Father," Cassian said, his voice regaining its noble composure. "I have already received the letter. A girl named Love is to deliver this said to deliver the 'Key' to the jungle base."
The room grew quiet for a moment. Cassian walked to the table, looking at the maps and reports his father had laid out. "Speaking of the trials... what about the results from the Jungle base?"
Farbuti's expression shifted just a fraction into something darker.
"Failure, mostly," Cassian said, his voice turning clinical. "Those who are given the diluted samples show no changes at all. But those who receive the strong doses... they are mutating. They are mutating into something horrible. I have to keep them in heavy containment."
Cassian paused, looking outside from the window. "Personally, I don't believe whatever the Pope is trying to replicate is working at all. I mean... whose blood is this? Whose essence are we injecting into these children that causes such a violent rejection?"
Farbuti Hern leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to chill the very air in the room.
"The Pope's himself, Cassian. It is his blood."
Cassian blinked, his eyes widening. "Francis Sanguivar? But he's—"
"He is trying to recreate something ancient," Farbuti interrupted,
Cassian stood still, the weight of the conspiracy pressing down on him. He turned back to Michael, reaching out to gently brush a strand of hair from his brother's forehead. His touch was tender, but his eyes were filled with a cold, poisonous light.
"Let the Church have its investigation," Cassian murmured, his voice trembling with a dark, low promise. "But once the mountain is ours and the Key is turned..."
He leaned down, whispering into Michael's ear as if the unconscious boy could hear him.
"I swear it, Michael. I will wipe that commoner's bloodline from the history of this empire."
Farbuti watched his son, a small, ghost of a smile appearing on his lips—not out of love, but out of the satisfaction of seeing a tool sharpened to a perfect, lethal edge.
The room fell silent once more, save for the rhythmic, mechanical breathing of the machines keeping the younger Hern alive.