The sky cracked open the night they were born. Thunder rolled across the mountain like the roar of an ancient god. The wind howled through the serpent statues lining the temple walls, and rain fell in long, cold needles. Beneath the great obsidian dome of the Coiled Night's sacred birthing chamber, two boys came into the world in silence—no cries, no warmth, only the metallic scent of blood and the weight of death in the air.
Their mother died before the second child left her womb. Her body was burned before dawn. No name was carved into her urn.
The twins were marked from the first breath. Their eyes opened too early—dark, bottomless, unblinking. Their skin pale as ash. Slithering down from the altar's coils, two temple serpents—one black as pitch, one emerald green—curled around each infant's neck and hissed as if in recognition. The priests called it a divine omen. The High Priest declared them bound to Izzaruun, the serpent god who dwells in endless shadow. A god of death, silence, and poison.
And so, under a blood moon, Raelith and Kaelen were anointed in ash and venom.
They were never given lullabies. Only mantras.
They were never taught games. Only the Path.
In the world of Valdren, power is not inherited. It is cultivated, carved into flesh and soul through agony. In the assassin clans, especially the Coiled Night, this power takes a brutal form.
The Path of the Serpent consists of five primary disciplines: Blood Tempering—refining one's body through poisons, toxins, and physical punishment. Shadow Weaving—manipulating spiritual darkness to blind, choke, bind, or assassinate. Venom Arts—crafting and absorbing specialized poisons that enhance strikes or destroy from within. Silence Rites—mental and spiritual suppression techniques to erase presence, emotion, fear. Fang Awakening—unlocking one's Serpent Core, a spiritual organ that allows the body to channel death energy through blade, hand, or gaze.
Most never awaken the core. Fewer survive its forging.
The twins were not granted time to be children. At age three, their skin was already being scarred with the clan's black tattoos—symbols that would grow, shift, and burn as their mastery evolved.
At five, they drank their first poison. At six, they could meditate in freezing water for hours, slowing their heartbeats to near death. At seven, they were blindfolded and left in the pit to kill wild jackals with nothing but broken stones.
They learned to kill without hate. To move without sound. To bleed without weakness.
Where Kaelen was flame—aggressive, raw, volatile—Raelith was frost. His silence unnerved even the priests. He would watch for hours without blinking. Study every motion. Every flaw. Kaelen, by contrast, would strike first and ask nothing after.
But both learned discipline through brutality.
They trained in the Hall of Poisoned Steps, a maze of shifting tiles coated in paralytic venom. They fought each other with barbed ropes and iron fangs. Every strike mattered. Every wound was a lesson. Their instructors did not hold back. Pain was sacred.
The Coiled Night is not the largest assassin clan, but it is the oldest. Ancient texts say they were born from the ribcage of a god-eater and that their techniques were taught by serpents who whisper under the earth.
They serve no king. No empire. Only Izzaruun—the Endless Coil.
Children are born into the clan, or stolen. Those who fail trials are sacrificed, their blood used in forging venom seals and shadow scrolls. The weak do not leave. They are consumed.
The main family holds the bloodline of the first High Fang, a warrior said to have killed a god with a dagger dipped in his own spinal fluid. The current Clan Head wears a mask of silver and speaks rarely. His presence alone can silence a room.
The twins' father was not of the ruling blood. He was a loyal servant—an elite killer known for precision, not cruelty. His sons' birth changed everything. Though he never showed them affection, he ensured their training was relentless. To be weak in this clan was to be meat.
At eight years old, Raelith and Kaelen were chosen for the Trial of Shadowfang.
They stood in the inner sanctum, wrapped in ash-dyed cloth, knives strapped to their hips, their eyes expressionless. Across from them lay the ritual pit—a jagged, circular arena lined with thorns, broken blades, and relic bones. At its center was the cage.
Inside it waited their first sanctioned kill: a former clan traitor, now half-mad from venom exposure. A test not of skill—but of execution.
"Pain is mercy," said the High Priest. "Delay is dishonor," said the master assassin overseeing the rite.
Kaelen licked his lips. Raelith closed his eyes.
When the gate rose, the man inside roared—not with words, but with broken fury. His skin was tattooed with faded runes. His arms ended in sharp metal claws. His eyes were wild and wrong.
Raelith struck first, sliding under the beast's lunge and carving a long gash along the inner thigh—precise, surgical. Kaelen leapt from above, driving both knives into the traitor's shoulders. The man bucked, screamed, twisted—tearing Kaelen's blade free but giving Raelith time to twist in and deliver a fang-palm to the chest. His venom sigil pulsed.
The traitor spasmed. Froth poured from his lips. Kaelen wrenched his neck sideways with brutal finality.
Silence returned to the chamber.
The clan watched from above, silent and still.
The twins stood over the corpse, breathing slow, eyes cold.
From the shadowed balcony, their father allowed himself the barest nod.
The High Priest stepped forward, staff in hand.
"The blood accepts them," he said, voice a whisper and a warning. "They are claimed."
The crimson moon burned brighter, and deep below the temple, the bones of dead gods stirred.