The Chamber of Echoed Thought
The scroll hissed as Maraka unrolled it.
He shouldn't be here.
The Chamber of Echoed Thought was forbidden to all but scholars of the Ninth Circle. Its door was sealed with ancient sigils, buried beneath the western wing of the Nebula Empire's Grand Archive. Even the Emperor himself seldom entered.
And yet… he had.
Not by command, but by vision.
---
The Mark in the Dreams
The flames danced in the silver lanterns, casting strange shadows across the stone floor. Cold wind whispered through the cracks of the stone, murmuring syllables in languages no longer spoken.
The walls breathed, as though the stone itself remembered every word ever spoken in its presence.
He had seen it again and again in the dreams:
> A crown of veins.
A throne of blood.
A boy with eyes like war and weeping.
And now, in the brittle binding of a codex far older than the empire itself, he read the words that haunted his bones:
> "When the moon bleeds for nine years, the Red King shall rise. Neither salvation nor doom. A choice."
> "He who holds dominion over all that bleeds."
Maraka's breath caught in his throat.
> "He's real…" he whispered.
---
The flames flickered.
The shadows writhed.
And from the air itself, something folded into shape.
A figure made of parchment, ink, and smoke emerged. Its body was bound in flowing robes of script and memory, its eyes glimmering from the void of a face made of written words.
It did not breathe.
It simply existed, as though it had always been here—waiting.
> "You seek truth," the entity said.
"So truth has answered."
Maraka stumbled back, heart hammering in his chest.
> "Who… what are you?"
The figure bowed without moving.
> "I am Klein, Spirit of Knowledge."
"Born when the first story was told."
"I have watched empires rise on lies and fall to a single truth."
"And now you seek him."
---
Maraka nodded slowly.
> "The Red King… the prophecy… It's not just myth, is it?"
Klein's voice deepened, reverberating like a thousand pages turning at once.
> "He is a scar upon history.
A child born of freedom, which the world calls chaos.
Blood answers him—not because he commands it, but because it remembers him."
"He is what lies before gods, and what endures after fate."
Maraka's voice trembled.
> "Is he the end?"
Klein stepped forward, the script across his body warping with ancient names.
> "He is the beginning… that ends endings."
---
Klein's Warning
> "The Red King will bring choice to a world that has forgotten it. And for that, he will be feared.
Worshipped. Hunted."
> "There have been others like him… echoes in other ages.
But this time, the world will remember.
Or it will burn trying to forget."
Maraka swallowed hard. The scroll in his hand had grown cold, heavy, as if it no longer wished to be read.
> "What do I do?" he asked.
Klein's voice dropped to a whisper of ink on parchment.
> "Beware, young prince.
Those who seek the Red King… often become part of his tale."
And with that, the Spirit began to unravel—ink bleeding into the wind, his form scattering like forgotten words.
Only silence remained.
---
Annabell circled him slowly, her fingers glowing faintly with mana.
"Again," she said, voice crisp. "Focus on the memory within the blood."
Kalen closed his eyes.
He could feel the pulse of his heart. The rhythm of his body. But more than that… he felt the blood beneath the stone. Old blood. Dried. Forgotten.
He reached toward it.
And then—
The Vision
The world twisted.
Suddenly, the courtyard shifted. Stone turned warm. The snow was gone. He stood in the same place, but it was decades earlier. Two elves practiced spells. One laughed. Another shouted. The sky above was bright.
A memory. Not his.
"This is the Seer's power," Annabell's voice echoed distantly.
"You see what the blood remembers. You witness the world through its wounds."
Kalen gasped as he returned, stumbling to his knees. The snow stung his skin, but his body burned with energy.
Annabell knelt before him.
"You are stronger than I feared," she whispered. "But your power is… chaotic. It responds to emotion. And your blood is not bound."
"What do you mean?"
She hesitated.
"Your magic is alive, Kalen. It has memory. It has want. That is dangerous."
Lessons in Power
Over the following days, the lessons deepened.
Blood Healing: He could close wounds not only on himself, but on others—though it cost him his own strength.
Blood Manipulation: He could shape blood like water, mold it into tendrils, blades, shields.
Blood Seer: With blood from a creature, he could see flashes of its memories—sometimes from the future, sometimes from long ago.
But the strangest lesson came when he touched a dead raven's blood and saw not a vision of the bird—
—but of himself, standing atop a ruined battlefield, surrounded by red mist, eyes glowing like suns dying.
He said nothing of that vision.
Not yet.
---
Urial stood watch at the entrance, arms crossed, unmoving. Silent guardian. Silent judge.
The boy read aloud:
"The moon bled for nine years… and on the ninth, the king was born…"
"The Crimson Veil rejoices in silence… The Divine Order whispers in fear."
He slammed the book shut.
"They all speak of him, but no one knows him."
"Knowledge is not knowing," Urial said softly. "It is enduring the burden of truth."
Maraka turned toward the swordmaster.
"Do you think he's real? The Red King?"
"I do not know," Urial answered. "But I believe you believe. That is enough to prepare."
The Scholar's Warning
Later that night, Maraka returned to the Chamber of Echoed Thought.
The door creaked open with protest.
Klein was not there.
But his voice lingered, burned into the walls:
"Truth is a blade, young prince. It cuts deeper the more you use it."
"Study. But do not forget… he is watching you too."
---
One boy dives into magic older than gods, learning that his blood remembers everything.
Another boy digs into prophecy and finds himself tangled in a web of fate, watched by a king not yet crowned.
The world turns.
And the shadows grow longer.