Chapter 413: Rise
Lord Koval took a step back from Veres and nodded solemnly. “I entrust you with my legacy, Veres. My greatest masterpiece. My will reborn in steel. My Bloodfang.”
The world abruptly fell into a blur of darkness like a blotch of ink on wet paper. Gone was the tower in the mountains. Stryg found himself in a dimly lit castle chamber. He tried to speak, to move, but all he could do was watch as the scene unfolded, an unwilling passenger in a memory of dreams.
A ring of tall candelabras surrounded two figures at the center of the chamber. The hazy scene began to clear and Stryg was able to make out the faces of two strangers. One was much younger than the other, yet both looked very similar. They had scarlet eyes, a somewhat pale complexion, raven-black hair, and a sharp nose. After a moment, Stryg recognized the older of the vampires, it was Veres, though the passage of time had left its mark. Strands of grey were strewn through his hair. Wrinkles stretched across the edges of his eyes and forehead. A silvery scar ran across his neck and up the side of his cheek, barely missing his eye.
“Callum, my son, do you know why I’ve brought you here tonight?” Veres asked in a quiet, somber voice.
Callum? Stryg wondered. This wasn’t the Callum he knew. An ancestor then.
The young man shook his head hesitantly, “I’m not certain, Father.”
Veres closed his eyes in recollection. “No one thought the Ebon Realm could change. Everyone believed the Realm of Monsters was doomed to devour itself, one life after another, ever hungry for power. I was born into war, armies clashing against one another without care for the villages they trampled along the way.”
Veres smiled bittersweetly. “I wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for Gale. I would have never made it out of the bloody Northern Lands.”
“I wish I had known her,” Callum whispered.