The nights had changed.
Since his first contact with the world of bloodlines and shadows, Kael no longer slept the same. The voices that once whispered in his dreams now screamed. They were no longer words, but broken fragments of an ancestral tongue that pierced him like blades.
One early morning, after a strenuous workout, he awoke with his back drenched in sweat. The palms of his hands were covered with dried blood, and on his forearm, new marks, as if the moon itself had left claws on his skin. She did not remember having received them.
-You are waking up," said the man who had saved him and guided him so far, the same man who had taught him to wield steel and read the truth in the eyes of others. His voice was gravelly, but laden with more than warning. Your blood is not common. It never was.
Kael faced him silently, waiting for more.
-You have a forgotten bloodline. One that others prefer to keep buried. A lineage cursed by some... revered by others.
The man held out a parchment covered with lunar symbols, ancient, hermetic. In the center, a name erased by fire, as if even the paper feared to pronounce it. And around it, drawings of shape-shifting men, of children burning with silver light under the full moon... and of beasts devouring gods.
-You are a direct descendant of the lunar lineage of Kin, the bringer of cycles and ruin. A bloodline that was purged centuries ago for defying the gods... and for loving one who was forbidden to them.
Kael said nothing. He did not need to. Something inside him, deep in his chest, vibrated with every word. An ancient connection, as if each revelation awakened memories that were not his, but hurt as if they were.
-The scars on your body," the man continued, "are not wounds. They are the manifestation of your heritage. Each one is a covenant, a memory sealed in your flesh. And when the full moon comes, they will begin to burn. Then you will remember more.
That night, Kael walked away from his shelter and climbed to the top of an old ruined temple. From there, the moon shone huge, red as the heart of a beast. He took off his shirt and looked at his scarred skin. The scars seemed to dance, to pulse with a life of their own. And, for an instant, in the reflection of his eyes, he saw himself... in another form. Bigger. Older. More broken.
He did not yet know exactly what it was. But he understood that his existence was an affront. That his lineage was a blasphemy and a promise.
A war slept in his blood.
And the moon was beginning to awaken.