Chapter 81: Curse of the Crimson

The fire in the hearth snapped softly, casting long, dancing shadows across the vaulted wooden ceiling of the First Sovereign’s suite.

Aurelix did not move her hand from his jaw. Her nine tails lay heavy and warm across Valerian’s legs, their silky, golden-white fur glowing faintly in the dim blue light. Her golden-crimson eyes remained fixed on his covered face, searching for a twitch, a crack, or a flinch in the cold marble of his expression.

Valerian lay still for a long time. His chest rose and fell with slow, deliberate discipline, as if every breath were a calculated equation designed to keep his heart from beating too fast.

"You speak as though you understand the dead," Valerian said softly, his voice dry and flat in the quiet room.

"I am a god-beast who has slept inside the marrow of the world for three thousand years, little master," Aurelix purred, her dark nail lightly tracing the sharp edge of his cheekbone. "I have seen empires turn to dust because a king was lonely. I know what a dying soul smells like. Yours smells like salt, old iron, and ash."

Valerian reached up. He did not push her hand away, nor did he shrink from her touch. He simply unclasped his dark leather coat, letting the heavy fabric fall open against the velvet mattress, allowing the ambient warmth of the room to cool his skin.

Through the link of their soul-contract—the thin, glowing tether binding her ethereal essence to his spiritual space—a quiet shift occurred. Valerian unlocked a small, walled-off corridor of his mind, permitting her divine consciousness to glimpse the ancient, shadowed records etched into his blood memory.

"The Sanguis bloodline was not born from nobility," Valerian spoke, his tone measured, like a scholar reading from a forbidden tomb. "It was born from a pact of necessity."

Aurelix’s fox ears twitched. Inside her mind, visual fragments flickered to life—an age of dark, jagged skies, torn earth, and rivers running thick with black, corrupted bile.

"Ten thousand years ago, during the first Cataclysm, the mortal realm was being devoured by the subterranean abyssal void," Valerian continued softly. "Our first patriarch—the father of the primordial lineage—did not pray to the gods for salvation. He descended into the deepest trench of the abyssal rift and forged a soul-pact with the Progenitor."

Aurelix felt a sudden, oppressive spike of cold pressure ripple through the tether.

"The Abyssal Blood Dragon," Valerian whispered. "The Blood Chaos Dragon. A creature born not of mana, but of pure, unadulterated primordial chaos and slaughter. The patriarch bound the dragon’s essence to his own soul, splitting its chaotic lineage among his descendants to turn his clan into living weapons capable of driving back the void."

Aurelix’s eyes narrowed slightly as the blood memories washed over her senses. She saw armies of ancient warriors in red-and-black plate armor, their eyes glowing like dying stars as they tore through hordes of abyssal beasts with bare hands, laughing in madness as they drank the black blood of the void.

"We won the war," Valerian said, his voice dropping an octave. "But the dragon never left our veins. It stayed. It bred into our marrow, passing down through every generation like a quiet, latent cancer."

He turned his head slightly toward her, though the thick black blindfold still hid his eyes.

"That is why the Sanguis House has so many rules," he explained calmly. "The grand decrees, the strict bloodline isolation, the cold, emotionless discipline enforced by the elders... people outside think it is noble arrogance. They think we hoard our status. They do not understand that the rules exist to protect the world from us."

Aurelix tilted her head, her multi-colored tail swaying gently against his shins.

"The killing intent."

"The slaughter instinct," Valerian corrected. "Every drop of Sanguis blood carries an inherent, violent desire to tear, crush, and destroy. If a Sanguis loses control of his mind—if he surrenders to grief, rage, or temptation—the chaos dragon inside his blood wakes up. A single fallen Sanguis noble can turn an entire province into a slaughterhouse before his own heart bursts from the strain."

He paused, the memory of Calla’s pale, bleeding body in the volcanic ridge flashing briefly through his thoughts.

"You wonder why I refused to give Calla my blood through a transfusion in the cavern," Valerian said, a faint, bitter edge creeping into his quiet voice. "Toby called me a coward. He thought I was saving my strength, or that I viewed a commoner’s life as too cheap for noble blood. But the law of our bloodline is absolute: Never pour Sanguis blood into an un-tempered vessel."

He turned his palm upward, staring at his gloved hand.

"Our blood is saturated with dense, volatile concentrations of abyssal chaos," he whispered. "If I had cut my wrist and poured my blood into her open veins, it would not have healed her. The chaotic dragon essence would have instantly burned her fragile pathways, turned her blood to acid, or mutated her soul into a mindless, rabid beast before her heart could beat twice. I would have murdered her with my own hand under the guise of mercy."

Aurelix listened in silence. The playful, mocking air she usually maintained melted away, replaced by a quiet, calculating stillness.

Valerian slowly raised both hands. His long, gloved fingers reached up to the back of his head, resting directly over the knot of the thick, dark-mithril blindfold binding his eyes.

"And then... there is the curse," he said softly.

The temperature in the bedroom seemed to plunge five degrees. The blue flames in the hearth flickered nervously, casting a pale, unnatural glare across the stone floor.

"Those born with the purest concentration of the primordial bloodline carry a defect," Valerian murmured, his fingertips touching the rough black cloth over his eye sockets. "A mutation where the chaos dragon’s divine sight manifests directly in the physical body. It is called the Abyssal Dragon Gaze."

He let his hands fall back onto the dark velvet sheets.

"In ten thousand years of Sanguis history, only six children have ever been born with those eyes," Valerian stated, his voice flat, devoid of self-pity or theatrical drama. "Six children out of millions. Not one of them ever reached their sixteenth birthday."

Aurelix’s breath hitched slightly.

"Why?"

"Because the eyes are a living time bomb," Valerian replied quietly. "The human mind cannot withstand the continuous, unfiltered perception of abyssal chaos. As the body grows, the eyes devour the host’s spiritual pathways, slowly turning their mind to madness while feeding their bloodlust until the seal shatters and the host detonates in a wave of primordial destruction. To prevent a catastrophic breach, the clan elders historically execute every child born with the Gaze before their fifteenth year."

He took a slow, deep breath, his chest expanding under the dark velvet sheets.

"I reached my fifteenth year fifteen weeks ago."

Silence returned to the grand bedroom, heavy and suffocating. The wind howled softly outside the balcony doors, rattling the leaded glass panes.

Valerian lay still, his history laid bare, his curse confessed—a walking weapon, born of chaos, burdened by rules designed to keep him from destroying everything he touched, living on borrowed time with a death sentence ticking beneath his blindfold.

Aurelix sat beside him on the bed for a long moment.

Her golden-crimson eyes scanned his face—the steady jaw, the pale lips, the absolute, cold detachment that wrapped around him like an impenetrable cloak of iron.

Slowly, gently, Aurelix reached out.

She did not touch his blindfold. She did not touch his face. Instead, she leaned forward, her long, slender hand passing over his exposed collar, resting her warm, soft palm directly over the left side of his chest—right above his steady, beating heart.

She felt the slow, rhythmic thump... thump... thump... beneath his ribs.

"I hear your words, little master," Aurelix whispered, her velvety voice dropping to a low, incredibly intimate frequency that vibrated straight through his chest. "I see the dragon in your blood. I see the rules, the bloodline, the ancient curse, and the eyes behind that black cloth."

Her golden eyes narrowed, burning with a terrifying, divine clarity that saw through every story, every defense, and every history lesson he had used to guard himself.

"I get all of it," she murmured, her hand pressing slightly firmer against his heart, her warm aura seeping through his skin. "But I know your soul, Valen. And I know that none of those things... are the reason for the darkness engulfing your heart."

THUMP.

The moment the words left her lips, something snapped deep within the sealed, dark vaults of Valerian’s suppressed mind.

The world vanished. The luxury bedroom, the crackling hearth, the scent of lotus, and the warm weight of Aurelix’s tails disappeared in a blinding, terrifying flash of mental static.

SCHLICK.

A cold, heavy shadow plummeted through his mind space with deafening, sickening speed.

It was a tall, rusted frame of heavy timber.

A massive, angled iron blade—dripping with dark, dried blood—flashed in the blinding light of a gray, rain-drenched execution square.

The heavy wood creaked. The iron lever clicked.

THUD.

The heavy, weighted blade slammed down into the wooden stock with a sickening, wet crunch, severing the air itself in a spray of cold iron and forgotten memories.

Valerian’s eyes—hidden beneath the thick, dark blindfold—snapped wide open in the dark.

His heart gave a violent, painful jerk against Aurelix’s palm, his entire frame going rigid as ice as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

Aurelix felt the sudden, terrifying tremor pass through his chest. Her smile vanished completely, her glowing eyes widening as she felt the true, deep, bottomless abyss dwelling inside the boy beneath her hands—a dark, shattered memory that had nothing to do with dragons, curses, or noble houses.

Valerian did not speak. He did not move.

He simply lay flat on his back in the dim room, his hand slowly tightening into a fist against the sheets, his breathing ragged as the phantom ring of the falling blade echoed in the absolute silence of his mind.