Bloodmarked: The forgotten seal

There's a moment before a storm hits — when the sky holds its breath and the world goes still.

That was what the Vault felt like now.

Except instead of thunder, it smelled like burning stone and magic cracking at the seams.

Cairen stood in the circular chamber alone, surrounded by obsidian walls humming with faint red light. He clutched his blade, which vibrated softly in his grip, like it too was bracing for something to wake up.

And then it hit.

A roar—not physical, not audible in any normal sense—ripped through his chest like a second heartbeat detonating. His knees buckled. The sword ignited with gold and crimson flame, and the runes on its edge reshaped themselves in real time.

One word echoed in his skull:

"Kael'dros."

His dragon had a name.

And it had just opened its eyes.

A Memory Not His

He was no longer in the Vault.

He stood on blackened battlefield ash, under a sky cut open by flame. Towering in the distance were two dragons — mirror images in size but not in spirit.

One burned with gold light, noble and calm.

The other pulsed with red, wild and unbound.

And a figure—his figure?—stood between them, holding both palms out, fire streaming from each hand.

A voice, deep and ancient, wrapped around him.

"You are not the first to bear the twin flame. But you may be the last."

The vision snapped. The heat vanished.

Cairen was back on the cold stone floor of the Vault, gasping.

The First Flame Scholar

Lyrix found him minutes later.

She didn't speak right away. Just watched him sit there, breathing like he'd run a mountain.

Finally, she knelt. "It's awake, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Kael'dros."

Her eyebrows rose. "That name hasn't been spoken in 400 years."

Cairen glanced at the glowing sword. "It's not just flame. It's memory. It's… a will."

Lyrix's voice dropped. "It means your bond is deepening. Fast. Too fast."

"Is that bad?"

"It's unnatural. The last twinflame bearer took years to reach this stage."

He swallowed. "So what does that make me?"

Lyrix didn't answer. But her eyes said enough.

Tessia and the Terrible Idea

Later that night, Cairen found Tessia on the outer balcony overlooking the storm-battered cliffs. Her hair whipped in the wind, and her cloak was gone.

"You look like you're about to make a really dramatic decision," he said.

She didn't turn. "I already did."

"…Do I get to know what it is?"

"I kissed you, didn't I?"

"Oh, that." He smirked. "I thought that was just blood loss and adrenaline."

She turned to him. "Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't."

He stepped beside her. "You're impossible to read."

"I prefer the term 'mysteriously traumatized.'"

He laughed. She didn't.

Instead, she said, "When Kael'dros awakens fully, you'll hear him more often. In your dreams. In battle. Maybe in your decisions."

"I'm fine with that."

"You say that now." She looked at him. "But what if the dragon's will… isn't yours?"

A silence hung there.

Until Cairen replied, "Then I'll burn anyway. Just to find out who I really am."

And Tessia kissed him again.

This time, there was no blood loss.

Ember Tongue

The ground shook at sunrise.

Vault alarms screamed. Red runes flared to life in the ceilings. Fire burst from cracked stone seams.

Cairen leapt from bed half-dressed, sword in hand.

Outside his chamber, chaos reigned.

Tessia kicked a door down. "You feel that?"

"Is the mountain exploding?"

"No," Lyrix said, racing past with three scrolls and zero patience. "Something is trying to come up."

They followed her down to the Deep Hall, where molten light glowed beneath the glass floor. It pulsed once—then shattered.

From the pit rose a cloaked figure surrounded by flame runes, floating on a disk of obsidian. His face was hidden behind a steel mask etched with dragon symbols.

Lyrix cursed. "Ember Tongue."

Cairen blinked. "Who?"

"Cult of flame fanatics," Tessia said, drawing her dagger. "They worship the memory of dragons, not the creatures themselves."

The masked figure raised a hand.

"Return the twinflame, and your Sanctuary burns last."

Cairen stepped forward. "Sorry, I'm kind of attached to it."

The cultist snarled, flames crackling between his fingers.

"Then burn first."

A Fight Beneath the World

Fire erupted. Cairen leapt aside as a wall of flame streaked past. The sword in his hand burned brighter than ever, seemingly eager.

Lyrix cast a barrier just in time. Tessia flanked left, daggers flashing.

The cultist moved fast — his flame was dark, not red or gold, but blackish-orange, twisted by ash magic. Cairen's dragonfire clashed with it midair, and the entire chamber trembled.

Cairen closed his eyes.

Kael'dros… lend me more.

The reply was a growl in his skull. And then heat — flooding his limbs, wrapping around his thoughts like a second skin.

He didn't swing his sword. He guided it, and it answered.

With one strike, he shattered the cultist's shield.

With the second, he drove him back into the pit.

The man screamed as flame consumed him from the inside out — not Cairen's, but his own, turned against him.

Silence returned.

Tessia blinked. "So… that was dramatic."

"I'm trying something new."

"Keep trying. It's working."

What Comes Next

Later, back in the quiet chamber, Lyrix examined Cairen's blade again.

"The runes are changing faster now," she said. "I think it's forming a full language."

"Dragon tongue?"

"No," she said. "Twin tongue. A dialect spoken by only two dragons in history."

He looked at her. "What does it say?"

She hesitated.

"Lyrix."

She finally said it:

"It says: One must die for the other to rise."

Cairen stared.

"But… I'm the only one with the twinflame."

She nodded slowly.

"Then who's the other?"

The chamber rumbled again — this time, deeper. Older.

And far away, in a distant sealed tomb none of them had entered in centuries…

A second sword opened its eye.