Time passed.
Rael didn't know how much.
He sat alone now. Mira had stepped out an hour ago—maybe more. The hum of the chamber's magic pulsed faintly in the background, a slow heartbeat carved into crystal walls.
He stared at his hands.
The blackening had faded, mostly. His skin looked normal again. Too normal. As if trying too hard to be what it used to be.
But when he touched the edge of his eye, the red one, his fingers trembled.
It was still cold.
Not like sickness or fear.
Cold like it didn't belong to him.
He gripped the talisman in his palm—the one his uncle used to wear around his neck. The carved wolf's tooth was scorched on one side, but still whole. Still real. Rael held it like it was a rope, the last thread tying him to something human.
The door hissed open.
Two figures entered. Their armor gleamed with silver linings and Eclipse-inscribed plates—official Duskguard enforcers. Between them walked a tall woman, wrapped in charcoal-black robes with silver pauldrons shaped like rising wings. Her face was stern, angled, unscarred—the kind of woman who expected answers without asking questions.
She stopped a few paces from Rael.
"I am Captain Hira Kael," she said. "Commander of the Outer Duskguard and current overseer of this field detachment."
Rael didn't stand. He stared at her.
She waited a moment, then added, "You are Rael Kurogane. Age fifteen. No confirmed bloodline. No known Eclipse training. And yet…"
She tilted her head slightly. Studying.
"You mimicked a Nightbreed."
Rael's jaw locked. "I didn't mimic anything."
One of the guards took a half-step forward, but Hira held up a hand.
"No formal Eclipse state was triggered. No chant. No seal. And yet your output during the incident was ranked off the scale by our binding wards. Your aura destabilized the barrier arrays on impact."
She narrowed her eyes.
"You fought like a Nightbreed. You moved like one. Your aura didn't just spike—it bled."
Rael opened his mouth—then stopped.
He remembered the way the floor cracked under his feet. The sound his bones made. The way the vampire looked afraid.
He looked down at the talisman. "I didn't choose it."
Captain Hira's voice softened—barely. "That doesn't make it safer."
She turned to her guards. "Take him to containment. Full scan. Alert the Arcane Scribes."
Rael stood. Slowly. "I'm not a prisoner."
Hira paused at the door. "Then prove you're not a threat."
The door hissed shut behind her.
Rael sat in the silence again. Cold. Still gripping the tooth.
The walls pulsed with that same quiet rhythm. But now… something else was pulsing too.
Beneath his ribs.
A second heartbeat.
Slower. Lower. Like an echo waking up beneath his own.
Far below, deep in the belly of the mobile fortress, a vault door—sealed for over a century—rippled faintly.
Not visibly.
Not physically.
But along its runes, a line of ancient script glowed red for the first time in decades.
One word.
"Heir."