Chapter 5: Whispers of the Old Blood
Aurelian rushed to the doorway, heart pounding in his chest. The corridor was empty.
The cloaked figure was gone.
But those words—"The blood remembers"—echoed in his mind like a distant bell tolling.
He leaned against the cold stone frame, breath unsteady.
"Who was he?" he whispered. "A hallucination? A spy? A… mage?"
His gaze flicked to faint marks left in the dust, then to jagged cracks forming beneath his feet.
The air had shifted—not with wind, but with power.
Something inside him was stirring.
As if the very dust and stone bent in response to his emotions.
He stumbled backward. The pendant beneath his tunic pulsed faintly—warm, then cold, then warm again—as if responding to something unseen.
Instinctively, he clutched it, breath catching.
This wasn't normal... this wasn't safe.
Without wasting another moment, he ran back to the servant quarters, locked the creaky door behind him, and dropped to his knees by the loose floorboard.
He yanked it up.
Beneath lay his old, tattered journal—the only remnant from the life before his family's fall.
He opened to a blank page and scribbled rapidly: Dust moving on its own... cracks forming... pendant pulsing after encounter. Figure said: "The blood remembers."
When the ink dried and his hand trembled from fatigue, he collapsed onto the straw mat that served as his bed.
Sleep claimed him before he could finish the prayer on his lips.
---
The dreams returned with fire and shadow.
A forest of silver trees, his mother whispering beneath the moonlight.
Aurelian, if the old blood stirs... hide it. Your name is both sword and shackle. The Thorne name... it brings ruin.
He awoke in a cold sweat.
The first thing he did was check the journal.
The page where he'd drawn the sigil weeks ago—the one that had glowed faintly—now looked normal. No light, no hum.
But the air... it still felt charged.
He stood, teeth gritted. "I can't stay here. I need strength. I need to get to the Arcanum Academy."
Outside his tiny room, he heard hushed whispers—familiar voices.
Mistress Calda. Overseer Garvek.
"Unusual glow... from the servant quarters," she murmured.
"I say it's that boy. He's always muttering and staring at things," Garvek replied. "Cursed, maybe."
Aurelian pressed his back to the wall, trying not to breathe.
His blood ran cold.
They saw it. They felt it.
No... no, I was careful!
A flicker of memory rose unbidden—his mother's voice once more, whispering over an open tome of ancient sigils.
These runes... they were once taught to us in secret. Dangerous. Forbidden. Never let anyone see you write them. Never draw attention.
The name Thorne brings ruin, Aurelian. Even to those you love.
When the conversation moved elsewhere, Aurelian exhaled.
He stepped out quietly and headed toward the courtyard, careful not to be noticed.
Stay low. Stay quiet.
Just a servant boy.
But even as he resumed his chores—sweeping cracked cobblestones, drawing water—the words haunted him: The blood remembers.
He didn't notice Kegan until it was too late.
"Hey, look who decided to wake up," sneered a voice.
Ulric wasn't far behind, arms crossed.
"I bet he dreams of being a noble. Look at him. Always dazed like he's better than us," Ulric added, kicking the bucket Aurelian had just filled.
Aurelian clenched his jaw, picking it back up silently.
He said nothing.
Kegan stepped closer, voice low.
"Heard the mistress talking this morning. 'Unnatural glow.' You hiding something, gutter rat?"
Aurelian's heart thudded, but he forced a shrug.
"Maybe it was just the moonlight. You'd know all about being pale and dumb."
Ulric's fist twitched.
Before either could act, Overseer Garvek's bark echoed through the courtyard.
"You two! Get to the stables! And you, runt—Master wants something delivered to the magistrate's office in the capital."
Aurelian's head shot up. The capital?
The Overseer sneered. "You deaf, boy? Or is your brain still full of straw?"
Aurelian bowed quickly, hiding the shock on his face.
"Yes, Overseer."
He didn't know why the Master would trust a servant like him with such an errand.
But it was the first opportunity that had ever opened itself to him.
He had to use it.
---
The journey to the magistrate's office was long and winding.
The roads were thick with carts, shouting vendors, and the dust of a hundred footsteps.
Aurelian pulled his hood lower over his brow, the satchel tight at his side.
Within it—hidden beneath spare linens—were the journal, the pendant, and a sliver of dried bread.
When he finally reached the gleaming building of marble and polished stone, he felt every eye turn toward him.
The guards at the entrance looked him over but let him through without question, thanks to the Master's seal.
Inside, he delivered the rolled scroll to the magistrate's attendant and bowed.
But as he turned to leave, a voice stopped him.
"You. Boy."
Aurelian froze.
A noble stood by the balcony, robes deep green and marked with a sigil he didn't recognize—an older man with silver hair and sharp eyes.
"Some blood," the man said slowly, "runs deeper than exile."
Aurelian blinked.
"I—I don't understand, my lord."
But the man had already turned away.
The same chill returned to Aurelian's spine.
---
On the road back, he kept looking over his shoulder.
He wasn't imagining it—someone was following him.
A figure, always just beyond the next turn.
Too quiet. Too consistent.
Panic rose in his chest.
I can't be caught—not now!
He ducked into the marketplace, slipping between crowds of traders and children chasing goats.
For a moment, he lost the figure.
He didn't stop to look back.
When he reached the estate again, breathless and shaken, the pendant glowed faintly.
Just once.
Like it was… warning him.
---
That night, Aurelian lay awake in his cramped room.
The shadows seemed to move wrong.
He whispered, "If they're onto me... I have to leave. Before the trials."
He pulled the satchel from beneath the floorboard.
Inside, he placed the essentials: food, clothes, the pendant, the journal, and a small flask of water.
Every night now, he trained in secret—in the old storeroom near the grain silos, long abandoned and half-collapsed.
He did pushups, strikes, practiced dodging against the hanging sacks.
He redrew the sigil again and again in chalk on the stone wall, watching for even the faintest flicker of glow.
Sometimes, it answered.
And sometimes... he felt it within him.
His magic was not tame.
It lived in his emotions—in his fear, in his defiance, in the ache of longing.
---
One afternoon, while gathering firewood near the training grounds, he paused too long near a wooden staff resting against the wall.
He imagined wielding it—not like a servant—but like a warrior.
Crackling heat pulsed in his fingers.
Just as quickly, a cane slapped his back.
"Dreaming again, are we?" Overseer Garvek snarled. "Think you're a swordsman now, boy?"
"I was just—"
"Lying, more like it."
The pain was sharp.
But what hurt more was the humiliation.
Aurelian's hands balled into fists.
The magic surged for a second—just under the skin. Like fire in his veins.
But he suppressed it.
Not yet.
Not here.
---
In the kitchen, whispers floated through the air.
"Did you hear?" one maid said. "They say the Academy will allow anyone to enter the trials this year."
"A sign of change," murmured another. "But I fear… even the forgotten lines will start clawing back if we let those gates stay open."
Aurelian froze behind the shelves.
They know.
They're scared.
They're scared of me.
---
Later that night, in the broken mirror above the washbasin, Aurelian stared at himself.
Dark hair tousled, eyes sharp and haunted.
"You were right, Mother," he whispered. "Our name is a sword. But I won't let it be a shackle."
He drew the sigil on the wall one final time.
The chalk glowed faintly behind him.
In the mirror... it pulsed.
"I won't just survive the trials. I'll reclaim our bloodline."
---
Far from the estate, in a candle-lit chamber hidden beneath the capital, the cloaked figure knelt before a shadowed council.
"The last Thorne stirs," the figure said. "The line is not dead."
A councilman slammed his fist on the table.
"We should have buried every last drop of that blood!"
"It's too late," the cloaked figure murmured. "He has heard the Call."