Four months had passed since Alpas was taken.
Not taken by the emissary, but claimed—like a blade drawn from stone—by the laws etched into the marrow of the Kingdom of Darakhul. He was ten winters and four moons old, not yet a man, and yet already conscripted. Not because he was strong, nor brave, nor capable. But because he was of age, and the bloodborne decrees of Darakhul demanded it.
In this kingdom where memory was a weapon, and forgetting was a crime, a child was no shield.
Darakhul, dark and towering, wreathed in firelight and old smoke, had no patience for the soft. The bones of its people bore their names—literally. In a ritual known as Name-Sealing, the true name of every citizen was carved into their skeletons with ink made of ash, blood, and a part of the soul to be named.
He had not been spared.
They brought him with a thousand others—no, more than that. Three thousand, the conscripts said. Boys and girls, wide-eyed and trembling, marched like lambs into the war camp near the burning horizon of Dhal'Yrath—a city devoured by flame, its towers still smoking, its streets red with ash and ghosts.
The camp was alive with the stench of steel and sweat, the earth churned black beneath boot and hoof, and in its heart stood a towering woman clad in armor engraved with names. Thousands of them. Tiny, curling script etched into steel, trailing over her pauldrons, her gauntlets, her breastplate, even the edge of her blade. Names of the dead. Names of the fallen.
Sereth Milhiram, the war-scarred general of the Eastern Legion. And more than that—a Kalagun.
One of the Name-Writers.
She was the overseer of the ritual. She alone could inscribe the name that would echo for eternity.
Her presence silenced even the wind.
---
The ritual began at dawn. The conscripts were gathered in ranks before a burning pyre.
"Do you know why the name-sealing ritual is significant?" Sereth asked aloud as she stands at the stage overseeing all the newly conscripted soldiers.
None answered, for most of the conscripts were not educated and some who knew, couldn't spare to say a word for the aura of the general was too strong for them to handle. For her undersong, the very essence that shaped this world, weaves around her like a song scratching every essence and bones of those near her.
"How disappointing" She howled. "Remember, names are sacred. People, beasts, and even gods if they do even exist, can pillage us and strip us of everything but once our names are sealed into our very being, the undersong will remember us! Our names and destiny shall be sang till the last undersong burned asunder." Sereth's voiced echoid for all to hear, and with that the ritual finally begins.
The youngest among them sobbed, the older ones clenched their fists. The bravest tried not to flinch, but all of them screamed in howling pain when a part of their soul was torn apart and was weaved together with their blood and ashes.
When it was Alpas' turn, he walked forward alone, his thin frame dwarfed by the ceremonial stone where the branding bone-spike rested. His shirt was stripped. His back was bare. And yet, he did not tremble. He stood, back straight, eyes locked ahead.
Sereth Milhiram approached, her blade sheathed. In her hand was the Ink of Eternity, black as the void between stars. Her voice rang clear, deep as thunder
"Speak your name."
Alpas answered. "Alpas of No House. Bloodless"
The Kalagun raised an eyebrow. A low murmur passed through the soldiers standing in ritual formation. No House? That was rare. Dangerous.
No one without blood ties usually survived conscription. But this one had.
Sereth said nothing at first. She dipped the bone-spike in the ink. Then, without ceremony, she placed the point just beneath his left shoulder blade—and drove it in.
The pain was blinding.
Fire exploded in Alpas' back, nerves screaming, bones grinding. He gritted his teeth. His knees buckled—but he did not kneel. Not even as the spike dragged, carving the shape of his name into bone. Not even when the blood mixed with the ink and hissed on the stone below. He bit down until his mouth filled with iron, his eyes wide and locked on the pyre.
Sereth watched.
When it was done, and the spike was withdrawn, she stood over him. For the briefest moment, the edge of her mouth curled—not into a smile, but something far colder. A silent judgment. A recognition.
She leaned close and whispered:
"A monster has emerged."
Another Kalagun behind her frowned. "He did not cry," she murmured.
As if in deep thought, Sereth answered, "No. And that is dangerous."
---
Later that night, as the camp burned low and soldiers whispered of omens and portents, Sereth Milhiram stood at the edge of her war tent, staring at the distant glow of Dhal'Yrath's smoldering corpse.
An aide approached her, hesitant. "Shall I mark the name of the bloodless boy in the war ledgers?"
Sereth did not look back.
"Mark him," she said, her voice low, "but not among the dead. Not yet."
---
The dawn bled red across the scorched sky of Dhal'Yrath.
Ash drifted from the distant volcano like snow without mercy, covering the camp in soot and silence. The stench of sulfur and smoke had already soaked into every thread of the conscripts' garments, every strand of their hair. To live here was to breathe punishment.
Alpas stirred from a restless sleep. His muscles burned, his bones hummed from the lingering ache of the Name-Sealing. The memory of the ritual clawed at the edge of his thoughts—heat, screaming, the sting of metal across bone. He had not cried out, but the silence within him now felt... wrong. Like something had been taken and left hollow in its place.
A horn's dull blast broke the morning gloom.
The conscripts—over two thousand souls left from the initial three—rose from their cots, wordless, broken-eyed. Some limped. Others simply shuffled like corpses not yet granted the right to die.
The Ironward awaited them by the gate.
He wore no armor, only a dark tunic marked by dried blood and volcanic ash. His voice came like cold stone grinding against a whetstone. "On your feet, meat. Today, you bleed again."
No one dared ask what he meant. No one dared fall behind.
They followed him through a winding gorge outside the camp, past jagged outcroppings of obsidian and scorched soil that hissed under their boots. The wind carried whispers—echoes of voices lost in the magma below. Some conscripts flinched. Others stared blankly, too tired to wonder if it was madness or memory.
Eventually, they reached it.
A basin carved into the earth like a wound, glowing faintly red in the morning gloom. The Blood Pool. It shimmered with a surface that pulsed like a heartbeat. Crimson and steaming, it bubbled faintly from a fissure in the rock.
"This," the Ironward began, his voice a sermon spoken to the damned, "is the first kindness Darakhul offers you. Savor it. There will be few more."
He stepped forward, his boots crunching over volcanic glass.
"This pool is fed from the central heart of the world—the Black Lung of Darakhul. Its blood flows from beneath the capital, through stone veins older than the walls themselves. It nourishes, yes. Heals, partially. But do not mistake it for salvation."
He paced before them, face grim.
"It will not mend the tear carved into your soul. That wound—what you lost last night in the sealing—is permanent. A scar upon your essence. You are no longer whole. You are a blade. Use the pool to temper your edge. Then return to the grounds. Training begins at high sun."
The Ironward turned sharply. "Bathe. Quickly. The blood remembers the slow."
He stepped aside, and silence fell. The conscripts hesitated.
Alpas was the first to move.
He stripped without word, boots thudding on the ashen rock. The others followed in silence. The pool hissed as flesh met heat. Alpas sank in, his breath caught as warmth enveloped his bruised limbs. It felt like sinking into breathless fever—pain easing just enough to remember what pain was.
His thoughts swam.
The blood was warm, yes, but not water-warm. It was the warmth of a hand pressed over a dying fire. It throbbed with something deeper—something old. He felt it tingle under his skin, creeping through the wounds etched across his chest and back.
His name—burned into his rib—ached.
The pool seemed to pulse against the mark, recognizing it. Accepting it.
All around him, the others bathed in silence. Some whispered prayers to forgotten gods. Some wept. A few stared at nothing, as if waiting for the water to speak.
One boy beside Alpas muttered, his lips quivering. "It feels like it's inside me. The pool… it's looking."
Alpas didn't respond. He kept his eyes closed and his mind still.
But he felt it too.
Not cleansing.
Not healing.
The pool remembered.
It clung to the names carved into their bones. It tasted them, catalogued them, and marked them deeper.
This was not mercy.
It was branding.
But something was different, it was like he was absorbing the very essence of the pool and those around him.
It was not the pool that was branding, he was the hole, that was making his way unto the others.