The cellar seemed to shrink as the assassin descended the staircase, each step measured and deliberate. The glyphs carved into the stone walls flickered uncertainly in the brazier's light, as if reacting to the malevolent presence.
Lysander shifted his stance, blade low, shoulders squared to shield Mira's unconscious form behind him. Beside him, Seraphine moved with equal readiness, her curved dagger gleaming ominously, her face set in a calm determination that only barely masked the rage simmering beneath.
The masked man paused at the foot of the stairs, his boots scraping over stone with an unnatural softness—as if the shadows absorbed even the sound of his presence.
"Last warning," he said, voice distorted behind porcelain. "Relinquish the relic and the girl. Your bloodlines are obsolete."
Lysander smirked, eyes glinting with something ancient. "Obsolete? Then why are you so afraid of us?"
The assassin's posture changed subtly—a coiling of muscles, a readiness to strike, the tension in his body as precise as a drawn bowstring.
Without further words, the assassin lunged, his dagger flashing toward Lysander's throat.
Steel rang against steel as Lysander parried, the shock vibrating up his arm. The clash echoed like thunder against the arched ceiling. He sidestepped, guiding the deadly thrust away from Mira, his instincts sharper than they had ever been, driven by both adrenaline and something deeper—something long buried.
The assassin pressed forward relentlessly. Each movement was precise, honed, almost mechanical. Lysander found himself driven back by the sheer speed and ferocity. Sparks danced with every parry, the air around them growing heavy with the charge of raw magic.
But even as he defended, something inside him stirred—an ancient, cold fire that thrummed under his skin, awakening piece by piece.
With a snarl, Lysander twisted his body low, letting the assassin's dagger pass over his shoulder. In the same breath, he drove his fist upward into the man's ribs. He felt the satisfying crunch of impact beneath the hardened fabric.
The assassin stumbled but recovered with inhuman grace, spinning to bring his blade slashing toward Lysander's exposed side.
Before the edge could bite, Seraphine was there. Her dagger intercepted the blow with a sharp clang, and she countered with a flick of her wrist that left a shallow gash across the assassin's forearm.
The wound smoked.
Both Lysander and Seraphine noticed it—blood that steamed and hissed against the cold air, evaporating unnaturally.
"Enhanced," Seraphine muttered. "He's been modified. Alchemically. Maybe worse."
The assassin laughed—a hollow, broken sound, muffled through the crack in his mask. It wasn't joy. It was an inevitability.
"We are the future," he rasped. "You are relics."
He reached beneath his cloak, pulling out three small black spheres. With a flick of his wrist, he hurled them at the floor.
Smoke exploded outward, thick and acrid, swallowing the room in darkness. The glyphs along the walls flared erratically as the magic within the room fought against the foreign intrusion. The air turned vicious, as though something unnatural moved with it.
Lysander closed his eyes for half a heartbeat, letting instinct guide him. He felt the movement through the floor, through the tremors in the stale, cold air. His breathing slowed. Time stretched.
He spun just as the assassin emerged from the smoke, blade raised for a killing blow aimed at Mira.
"No!" Lysander roared, the cry torn from his throat with more force than voice alone.
Frost erupted from his body in a savage blast, freezing the air, the smoke, and even the moisture in the stone around them. Sharp crystals spread outward like jagged claws, encasing everything within a ten-foot radius in a sheath of glittering ice.
The assassin screamed as ice climbed up his legs, encasing him to the waist before he could retreat. His dagger clattered to the floor, spinning harmlessly across the frozen stone.
Lysander moved in.
He slashed with his sword, aiming for a disabling cut—but the assassin, despite his imprisonment, twisted unnaturally, avoiding the fatal blow by inches.
With a shuddering cry, the assassin shattered the ice around him in a violent pulse of dark energy, the shockwave throwing Lysander and Seraphine back. It was like being hit by a wall of compressed air and fire.
Stone cracked. Dust filled the air. A brazier crashed onto the floor, its flames sputtering against the cold stone.
Lysander groaned, struggling to his feet. His ears rang, and blood trickled from a gash above his brow. Pain lanced through his ribs, but the frost in his blood dulled it.
Across the room, the assassin staggered, one hand pressed to his side where Seraphine's dagger had found purchase earlier. His breath came in short, ragged bursts. He was weakening—but so were they.
He reached up and ripped the porcelain mask from his face.
Silver hair is spilt free, matted with sweat and blood. His eyes—cold, inhuman—locked onto Lysander with burning hatred, the kind that went beyond orders and into legacy.
"You were supposed to die," he rasped. "Your blood was meant to end with the fire."
Lysander's vision blurred, memories crashing down on him: flames licking at silk banners, a woman's desperate scream, the shattering of everything he had once known.
"Vex," Lysander growled, his voice low and furious. "Where is he?"
The assassin's smile was broken and bitter. "Closer than you think. He's been waiting."
He reached into his tunic and pulled something from beneath the fabric—a black crystal, pulsing with sickly green light.
"No!" Seraphine cried, lunging forward.
Lysander recognized it an instant later.
Self-detonation crystal.
A last act of defiance.
Without hesitation, Lysander tackled Seraphine to the ground, shielding her body with his own.
The explosion wasn't fire or sound—it was silence. A sucking void that collapsed the air inward, ripping at the very fabric of the magic that protected the cellar. The glyphs bent inward, light vanishing like it had never existed.
When the light faded, when the pressure eased, Lysander pushed himself upright, gasping for breath, lungs burning as if they'd been emptied of air.
The assassin was gone.
Only a blackened scorch mark remained where he had stood.
The brazier guttered weakly. The glyphs along the walls flickered, then stabilized, their power warped but still clinging to duty.
Mira still lay unconscious, miraculously untouched by the blast, her small hand still curled tightly around the broken jade pendant.
Lysander reached down, prying gently at Mira's hand until the broken jade piece slipped free. As the shard caught the brazier's light, a thin crack down its centre gleamed faintly—a fracture line that mirrored something deeper.
He turned to Seraphine to speak, but paused.
She was frozen, her gaze locked onto the shard.
Recognition hit her like a blade to the gut.
Her breath hitched. Slowly, she knelt beside him. Her hand trembled as she reached for the fragment, brushing its chipped edge with her thumb.
"Where did she get this?" she whispered.
"It was clutched in her hand," Lysander said. "She wouldn't let go."
Seraphine said nothing. Her fingers closed around the shard, knuckles white. For a moment, her composure slipped. She exhaled shakily and tucked the jade into her sleeve—swiftly, almost furtively.
"Is it...?" Lysander began.
She didn't meet his eyes. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It was part of a pair. My sister's. I buried it with her."
A silence fell between them. Thick. Final.
Seraphine's face hardened. "The ones who did this—who ended my bloodline—have come back to finish what they missed."
Her voice cracked. Then she turned away, shoulders stiff.
Seraphine sat up slowly, her face pale. Her eyes met Lysander's.
"That wasn't just an assassin," she whispered. "He was a message. A warning."
Lysander nodded grimly. "Vex knows. He's watching."
He turned and surveyed the vault door at the far end of the cellar.
Ancient, massive, bound with spells so old they predated the current dynasties. Runes shimmered faintly, no longer humming but pulsing like a failing heartbeat.
And now, slightly ajar.
"The blast weakened the seals," Seraphine realized aloud. "It's not safe anymore."
"No," Lysander said. "And it won't stay hidden for long."
He walked to Mira, crouching beside her. Her small hand still clutched the broken jade pendant, even in unconsciousness.
A symbol of bloodlines thought lost. A key to secrets others would kill to erase.
As he leaned over her, something flickered in his blood. The jade shard now tucked in Seraphine's sleeve hummed faintly. But it wasn't the shard itself—it was his blood's response.
A golden thread flared across his palm, just for a moment, like a symbol surfacing through water. A crescent. Twin wings.
The same crest.
His breath caught. He touched his chest without knowing why. Memory stirred.
But not memory. Legacy.
He blinked hard, the sensation passing.
He brushed her hair back gently, then looked up at Seraphine.
"We can't run," he said. "Not anymore."
She gave a shaky laugh, tears glinting at the corners of her eyes.
"We never could."
He extended a hand.
"Then we fight. Together."
After a long moment, Seraphine placed her hand in his.
The oath was silent, but no less binding.
Outside, the storm raged anew. Thunder cracked like the drums of an approaching army. The wind screamed through fractured eaves.
And deep beneath the earth, something ancient stirred.
Something that would not be silenced.
Not again.