The world was built on walls. Big, arrogant, enchanted ones that told you exactly how small you were.
Cairen Vale had spent the last eighteen years staring up at the outer wall of Velmora, wondering what it was guarding—or hiding. Most people down in the Dust Tier just assumed it was to keep the monsters out. Or the trash in. Cairen wasn't sure which applied to him.
"Are you actually going to do it, or just mope dramatically until sunrise?" Tessia's voice cut through the dark like a whip. Fiery, sarcastic, and always two steps ahead of his patience.
"I'm weighing the options," Cairen muttered, eyes fixed on the cracked stone surface in front of him. The runes were faint, barely visible in the moonlight. But they were definitely there—carved deep and old, like they'd been waiting for something.
Or someone.
She leaned against a pile of rubble behind him, twirling a stolen mage coin between her fingers. "You do realize if those runes actually react to your blood, we're going to be murdered by morning. Executed. Vaporized. Maybe eaten. Depends on the mood of the Mage Court that day."
"Well, that's comforting," he said dryly, then added, "You could leave."
"And miss this disaster in the making? Not a chance."
Cairen didn't know when Tessia had become his best friend. Probably around the fifth time she saved him from getting stabbed in a back-alley dice game. Or maybe when she burned off a bounty hunter's eyebrows for calling him "magicless trash."
Either way, she stuck around. Even when she shouldn't.
He pulled his knife from his belt and held it to his palm. It trembled slightly in his grip—not from fear, he told himself, but from anticipation. He was finally going to do something that mattered. Even if it got him killed.
"You know," he said, "for someone with a fire affinity, you're surprisingly cold-blooded."
"Comes with the territory," she smirked. "Now bleed, idiot."
With a deep breath, Cairen pressed the blade to his hand and cut.
The pain was quick and sharp. Blood welled up, warm and thick. He stepped forward and pressed his palm to the center of the rune, smearing red into the stone.
Nothing happened.
For a moment.
Then the rune pulsed.
It wasn't just glowing—it was alive. Red light bled out from the crack, spreading like veins across the wall. A low hum filled the air. The stones beneath his hand vibrated, then sank inward, as if the wall were inhaling.
Tessia swore behind him. Loudly.
"Cairen," she said carefully, "what the actual hell did you just awaken?"
"I think…" he whispered, staring in disbelief as the wall began to shift, gears grinding inside stone, ancient mechanisms clicking into motion, "I think it likes me."
And then the voice came.
Low. Deep. Not heard with the ears, but inside the skull.
"Blood of the Bound. The seal breaks. The pact stirs."
He staggered back, clutching his head as heat surged through his veins. His vision blurred—images flashing too fast to understand. Wings. Fire. Scales. A city burning. A girl screaming his name. And above it all, a glowing red eye, watching.
Tessia caught him as he collapsed. "Cairen! Snap out of it!"
He gasped, the world swimming back into focus. The wall had stopped moving. The rune glowed faintly beneath his blood, now calm… waiting.
"You okay?" she asked, sounding more concerned than she probably wanted to.
"No idea." He sat up, wincing. "But I'm pretty sure I just broke reality."
Several Hours Later…
Cairen had exactly three regrets:
Touching ancient magical graffiti with his bare, bleeding hand.
Not punching the smug guard who asked if he was "summoning a girlfriend" with the glowing wall.
And letting Tessia tell the story to their contact in exactly the most dramatic way possible.
"And then he screamed like a kicked goat," she added, taking a bite of flatbread. "Real high-pitched. Kinda heroic."
"Thanks," Cairen muttered, clutching a mug of something that was either soup or spicy tea. His arm still burned with a faint red sigil, and his dreams were now sponsored by terrifying dragon eyes.
Across the table, their contact—a cloaked figure known only as Whist—raised an eyebrow.
"You say the seal responded to his blood?"
"Like it owed him money," Tessia said.
Whist didn't laugh. Whist never laughed.
"This shouldn't be possible," they murmured, tapping a finger against the table. "The Bloodbinding seals were all buried or destroyed after the Great Severance. No one has touched that magic in over two hundred years."
"Well," Cairen said, sipping whatever was in his mug, "I guess I'm just built different."
Tessia snorted. "You tripped over a root ten minutes ago."
Whist leaned in. "You need to leave the city. Now. If the Whisper Blades find out you activated a seal, they'll—"
The door shattered.
Three figures in silver-black cloaks stepped into the tavern, blades drawn, masks smooth and faceless.
"Too late," Tessia muttered, drawing her daggers.
Cairen stood, heart pounding. The rune on his arm flared to life.
One of the masked figures pointed at him.
"Bloodmarked. You will come with us. Or die here."
Cairen smiled faintly.
"Can I pick both?"