WAR GOD'S CRIMSON AWAKENING

Elias Voss moved through the grand banquet hall with the silence of a shadow, balancing a silver tray heavy with crystal goblets of spirit wine. Seventeen years old, tall but lean from too many skipped meals, he kept his storm-gray eyes lowered. His black hair, overdue for a cut, fell across a face marked by faint scars one along the jaw from a guard’s ring, another across the brow from a “lesson” years ago. He wore the plain gray servant’s tunic that marked him as property more than person.

Around him, the nobles of House Voss and their guests laughed too loudly, their bloodlines flaring in casual displays of power. Flames danced harmlessly above Harlan Voss’s palm as he recounted some trivial victory. Storm mana crackled around Lady Seraphine’s fingers while she toyed with her wineglass. The air itself thrummed with the weight of inherited might.

Elias set the tray down near the head table and began refilling goblets. Harlan nineteen, golden-haired, perfect in every way the world valued didn’t even glance at him until the third pour.

“Careful, bloodless,” Harlan drawled, loud enough for the nearest tables to hear. “Wouldn’t want you spilling on my new robes. Though I suppose stains wouldn’t show on you anyway.”

Laughter rippled outward. A few guests leaned in, eager for the sport.

Elias’s jaw tightened, but he kept his voice level. “No, young master. It won’t happen.”

Harlan’s smile was sharp as a blade. “Still speaking when not spoken to. Some habits die hard.”

Elias stepped back, ready to retreat, when a small hand tugged at his sleeve from behind a pillar. Mira Solwyn fifteen, freckled, auburn braids messy as always peeked out with wide green eyes. She held up a crumpled heel of bread she’d saved from her own rations.

“For later,” she whispered. “You didn’t eat today.”

His heart twisted. He ruffled her hair gently. “Save it for yourself, little one. I’m fine.”

But he wasn’t. He hadn’t been fine since the awakening ceremony five years ago, when every other child in the lower city had felt their blood stir and spark while his remained cold and dead. Bloodless. The word had followed him like a curse ever since.

The banquet dragged on. Harlan’s advancement to high-tier flame dominion was the night’s centerpiece a crystal artifact worth a small fortune had been used to purify his bloodline further. Elias had carried that crystal himself only yesterday, under guard, feeling nothing as its power hummed inches from his skin.

Later, when the guests grew drunk and bold, the theft was discovered.

The vault alarm shrieked through the manor. Guards poured in. Lord Voss himself descended from his private chambers, face thunderous.

The crystal was found in Elias’s cramped servant quarters, hidden beneath his thin mattress.

He didn’t bother protesting when they dragged him into the great hall. The evidence was too perfect. Harlan stood beside his father, expression grave but eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

“Treason,” Lord Voss said coldly. “Theft of a house treasure. Punishment is exile.”

No trial. No questions. In a bloodline world, the word of the powerful was law.

They bound his wrists with mana-suppressing cuffs unnecessary, really, since he had no power to suppress and marched him to the airship docks. Mira’s sobs echoed behind him as guards held her back.

On the deck, wind whipping his face, Elias finally looked at Harlan.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

Harlan leaned in, voice low enough only Elias could hear. “Because you’re a reminder of what we could have been without our blood. Weak. Nothing. And because I can.”

The airship lurched. They flew low over the empire’s heartlands, past glittering cities and endless forests, until the landscape below turned barren and gray. The Ashen Wastes cursed borderlands where ancient wars had scarred the earth itself. Nothing grew there. Mana storms raged unpredictably. Beasts born of old god-blood roamed hungry and fearless.

The crew opened the lower hatch. Cold wind howled in.

Elias was shoved forward. For one heartbeat he hung in empty air, then he fell.

He hit the cracked earth hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. Pain exploded in his ribs, his shoulder. The cuffs shattered on impact cheap things meant for show. The airship was already rising, vanishing into the clouds without a backward glance.

He lay there for a long time, tasting blood and dust. When he finally pushed himself up, the wastes stretched endless in every direction: jagged ruins half-buried in ash, twisted skeletons of trees, fog that moved like living things.

Night fell fast. The temperature plummeted. Elias stumbled forward, every step agony, searching for shelter. Blood seeped from a gash on his forearm where rock had torn flesh.

Hours bled into one another. Thirst clawed his throat. His vision blurred. He collapsed at the base of a crumbling stone structure an altar, maybe, from some forgotten age. Its surface was carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly, pulsing faintly with crimson light.

His wounded arm draped across the stone. Blood dripped onto the central rune.

The reaction was immediate.

Pain lanced through him not the dull ache of injury, but fire in his veins, as if his blood had turned to molten iron. He tried to pull away, but his body wouldn’t obey. The symbols flared blinding red. The ground trembled.

A voice not heard, but felt echoed inside his skull, ancient and vast and furious.

(Primordial War God Bloodline detected… suppression seal fracturing…)

(Host compatibility confirmed. Awakening initiated.)

Elias screamed. Every vein burned. Bones ground against each other as something deep inside shifted, stretched, roared to life. Memories that weren’t his flashed behind his eyes battlefields soaked in blood, armies clashing beneath skies torn by god-weapons, a lone figure wreathed in crimson standing against divine legions.

Then it stopped.

He gasped, sprawled on hands and knees. The pain ebbed into a warm, thrumming heat. The gash on his arm had closed, leaving only a faint scar. Strength impossible, surging strength flooded his limbs.

A translucent figure materialized above the altar: a tall man in ancient armor cracked and battle-worn, face hard as granite, eyes glowing the same crimson now pulsing beneath Elias’s skin.

The spirit stared down at him with open disdain.

“Congratulations, boy,” the figure said, voice gravel and smoke. “You’ve just inherited the bloodline the gods themselves pissed themselves trying to erase. Name’s General Thorne Kael. And thanks to your bleeding on my prison, I’m bound to you until the end of time or until you get us both killed. Whichever comes first.”

Elias stared up, chest heaving. “What… what is this?”

Thorne’s laugh was bitter. “Power. Real power. The kind that topples empires and makes divinities flinch. Also the kind that devours its host if he’s too weak to control the rage.”

In the distance, howls rose deep, guttural, hungry. Red eyes gleamed in the fog. Mana beasts, drawn by the awakening’s flare.

Thorne folded his arms. “First lesson, pup: war doesn’t care about your feelings. Get up. They’re coming.”

Elias rose slowly, fists clenched. For the first time in his life, power answered his call hot, violent, eager.

He smiled, small and sharp and dangerous.

“Let them come.”