Chapter 185: The Judgment of Blood
The bound traitor bled down the corridor, dragged by the very warriors he once trained. His wrists shimmered with Umbrazin bindings, scorched into place by Vincent's fire and reinforced with Sombrosi markings Isla carved into his skin herself.
Marcus had lost everything, his blade, his cause and even his son’s faith and loyalty. Yet he walked with his chin lifted and defiant. Resentment trailed behind him like smoke. Nevertheless, his impressive strength and bravery didn’t seem to falter.
Lucira waited inside the Inner Sanctum, arms crossed, silver hair catching the flicker of warding torches. The child, Elysia, rested behind her in a stone cradle veined with ancestral sigils. The markings shifted faintly, pulsing with her heartbeat.
Corven stood beside Lucira, silent and shadow-bound, but his gaze sharpened when Marcus was shoved inside.
"You should’ve been killed from the moment you stepped over this threshold as a bloody traitor," he spat.
"Too many have died," Marcus replied, a bitter smile on his lips. "Too many will, before this is done."
Lucira’s face was carved in stone. She didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. Only stepped forward, her hands laced before her like a matriarch ready for sentencing.
“You gave them the child,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“I gave them access,” Marcus answered. “It’s not the same thing. But let’s not pretend it matters now.”
“You meddled with the veil,” Corven said, circling him. “You aligned with the Elders. That means you opened the boundary with your blood.”
Marcus smirked. “Didn’t need much. Just a drop. Just a memory. Funny how thin the lines become when the world’s falling apart.”
“Funny,” Vincent said darkly, “how traitors always justify their knives.” “Pfft” spat out Marcus, “funny coming from you… I guess it takes one to recognise another”.
Lucira raised her hand. Everyone fell silent.
“She is not just our blood,” she said, gesturing behind her to the sealed cradle. “She is our legacy and you would hand her over for what? Balance? Power? Or was it fear?”
Marcus’s jaw twitched. “I remember the first war. I remember what happened when the bloodlines mingled unchecked. It didn’t lead to peace, it led to destruction.”
“That destruction came from men like you,” Damian said, stepping beside Isla. His voice was cold as iron. “Men who feared what they could not control.” His whole body twitched with the anger that recoiled through his veins.
Marcus looked at him then, a faint flicker of something old and raw surfacing. “You remind me of your father. That same blind conviction.”
“I’m nothing like him,” Damian growled.
“No,” Lucira said suddenly, sharply. “You’re more than him and that’s why Marcus fears you.”
The chamber fell still. Marcus’s silence was confirmation.
Brienne approached, wiping blood from her arm. “If you gave them access, why haven’t they taken her yet?”
“They tried,” Marcus said, voice lowering. “But something stopped them. Or someone. I think Cassian blocked the final gate.”
Vincent narrowed his gaze. “Your son turned on you?”
Marcus didn’t answer. But the ghost of pain in his expression told enough.
Lucira nodded slowly. “Then the bond is not fully severed. The blood war continues even inside their own ranks.”
Corven stepped forward now, voice tight. “We should kill him. Here. Now. End the treason while the veil still holds.”
But Isla raised her hand. “No.”
Lucira turned to her.
“He will face judgment in the ancestral plane,” Isla said. “The Elders must see what we do to those who betray the line from within. We make a statement through him.”
“And if he refuses the walk through the plane?” Brienne asked.
“He won’t,” Isla said. “Because he’s still waiting for a way out. He doesn’t believe we’ll do what must be done.
Marcus finally looked at her, really looked into her shimmering eyes. “You think you can wield all three bloodlines without unraveling the world?”
“I don’t think,” Isla said softly. “I know, becuase the world is already unraveling, and we are not its end, somehow we are its correction.”
Behind her, the cradle stirred. Everyone turned. A single pulse of light radiated from it, glowing red-gold for a moment that seemed to stretch across eternity.
Elysia.
Her little hand pressed to the stone, fingers glowing faintly. The sigils around her twisted into new forms. Ancient glyphs none of them had ever seen.
Corven inhaled sharply. “That’s… that’s not from our lexicon.”
Lucira moved to the cradle, placing her palm gently above the mark. Her eyes widened. “She’s rewriting the bindings. She’s not just inheriting power, she’s remaking it.”
Isla felt the chill run through her spine. The convergence wasn’t a prophecy, it was an ongoing and unfinished process.
“Take him below,” Lucira said. “Seal him in the Iron Sanctum until the judgment rites are prepared.”
Brienne and Vincent seized Marcus. He didn’t fight. But he looked once more at Damian, eyes gleaming with fury. “You will regret letting her grow.”
Damian didn’t respond. But Isla did.
“No. You’ll regret trying to stop her.”
They dragged Marcus into the shadows of the deep fortress. The sound of his boots on stone faded into silence. Only the cradle pulsed behind them now. In a soft and steady rhythm. As if it was alive..
Lucira spoke first. “The veil is weakening.”
“Yes,” Corven said. “But she’s strengthening.”
Leo approached Isla. “If Marcus breached the outer sanctum once… the Elders will try again. Harder.”
“They’ll bring everything,” Alaine said. “Not just soldiers. But truths and illusions, all intertwined. Our worst memories.”
Isla stepped to the cradle and looked down at her daughter.
“Then we bring everything too,” she said. “And we make sure we’re the last ones standing.”
Outside, the sky bled light through wounds in the clouds. The next storm was coming and this time, it wasn’t just for survival. It was for sovereignty.