The jade token pulsed faintly in his palm, its glow steady, patient, as though it were breathing in time with him. He stared at it for what felt like hours, unable to tear his eyes away.
The dying general's words still hung in his chest like a blade lodged between his ribs: "Your mother prepared something… for you."
He wanted to scoff, to dismiss it as a soldier's final delusion. Yet here was the token—alive, thrumming with power—and the Codex inside him stirred as though the two recognized each other.
"Fragment integrated. Resonance detected. Pathway coordinates available."
The Codex's voice slithered across his thoughts, mechanical yet tinged with hunger. He felt its runes flare within him, spreading across his veins like a map written in fire. His vision blurred, and for a heartbeat, he saw it: jagged mountains, a desert plain, a ruined spire clawing against the sky. Then the image vanished, leaving only the weight of the jade in his hand.
A legacy. A path. A curse. He could not yet tell which.
Lira's voice broke the silence, soft but steady. "It's guiding you, isn't it?"
He turned his head, meeting her eyes. She didn't look at the token with greed or fear—only with a strange reverence, as though she were staring at a relic of fate.
"It's none of your concern," he said sharply. The words tasted bitter in his mouth. He wanted her to retreat, to stop looking at him with that unwavering trust.
But Lira did not flinch. She stepped closer, dirt and blood still streaked across her face, her small frame dwarfed by the cavern's shadows. "Fate doesn't choose lightly. The token found its way to you, and it brought me here too. You can't tell me that means nothing."
He almost laughed. Fate? He had never believed in it. Fate was what his siblings used to justify their cruelty, what the Empire invoked when it cast him aside as unworthy. Fate was a chain, not a guide.
And yet… hadn't the Codex found him in the moment of his death? Hadn't the dying general survived long enough to place this key in his hands?
The jade pulsed again, as though mocking his doubt.
He closed his fist tightly, hiding its light, and turned away. "Believe what you want. But know this—whatever lies at the end of this path, it won't be mercy. It won't be salvation. It will be blood."
Lira's expression did not falter. If anything, it hardened. "Then I'll walk through blood beside you."
Her words pierced him deeper than she could ever understand. He had spent his life alone, mocked, unwanted. And now here was this girl of ashes, speaking oaths she couldn't possibly keep, binding herself to a curse she barely understood. He wanted to push her away—for her sake, for his own. But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, he shoved the token into his cloak and strode out of the cavern.
The night greeted them with a cruel wind. The borderlands stretched endlessly, jagged ridges casting long shadows under the pale light of the twin moons. The land itself felt hostile, broken and scarred like him.
The Codex's voice whispered in his skull, low and commanding:
"Proceed north. Forty-three leagues. Coordinate lock unstable. Warning: interference detected."
"Interference?" he muttered under his breath.
"Presence of other essences. Beasts. Predators."
He almost smiled. Of course it would never be simple.
They traveled in silence for hours, their footsteps crunching against gravel and ash. The air grew colder, the wind sharper. Every sound pricked at his heightened senses—the flap of wings in the distance, the shifting of stones under unseen paws. The Codex murmured constantly, feeding him fragments of direction, urging him onward like a master tugging a leash.
At last, Lira broke the silence. "Do you ever wonder why the Codex chose you?"
The question cut deeper than any blade. He kept walking, jaw tight.
"I don't wonder," he said at last. "Because I know it didn't choose me. It was thrown at me—just like everything else. My siblings were given genius, talent, armies. I was given exile… and a curse that eats me alive."
Lira quickened her pace until she walked beside him. "Then make it more than a curse. If it consumes you, let it consume your enemies first."
He glanced at her, startled by the steel in her tone. She was trembling, her hand clutching the broken dagger at her side, but her eyes burned with the same fire that had driven her to kneel before him in the dust.
For a moment, he saw not weakness but reflection—his own hunger mirrored in her fragile frame.
The Codex pulsed violently, as if it too recognized the bond forming between them. He ignored it, shoving the sensation down.
The horizon shifted. He stopped abruptly, his senses flaring. A smell reached him first—coppery, thick, primal. Blood. Then came the sound: a low growl, rolling through the night like thunder.
Lira froze, her breath hitching. "What is that…?"
His claws twitched against his palms. His heart hammered. The Codex's voice slid into his mind, cold and eager:
"Essence anomaly detected. High-grade beast. Bloodline potential… significant."
The growl deepened, and from the shadows between the jagged rocks, two crimson eyes opened, gleaming with hunger.
The Blood Wolf had found them.
The beast lunged, its fangs gleaming under the moonlight, and the prince's body moved on instinct caught between terror, hunger, and the Codex's unrelenting whisper:
"Devour… or be devoured."
The crimson eyes burned in the dark like twin coals, unblinking, fixed entirely on them. The air itself seemed to tighten, carrying with it the stench of musk and iron, a predator's domain.
The wolf's body slinked into view, massive, its shoulders level with his chest even while crouched low. Black fur bristled like spears, veins glowing faintly red beneath the skin as though fire ran through its blood. Each breath from its fanged maw rolled out in visible clouds, thick with heat despite the cold night.
Lira's dagger trembled in her grip, but she held it aloft all the same, her lips pressed into a thin line. Fear clung to her, yes, but it was laced with defiance.
The prince's own claws dug into his palms until blood trickled down. His heart pounded, every instinct screaming flee, yet another, darker instinct coiled tighter—an urge to meet the wolf's hunger with his own.
The Codex's whisper coiled around his mind like smoke:
"Superior essence confirmed. Consumption probability: uncertain. Risk factor: extreme. Reward: transformation."
He swallowed hard. The Codex's promises were poison, yet the thirst it planted in him grew with every word. His body ached not with fear but with anticipation—his veins buzzing, his muscles twitching.
The wolf prowled closer, circling, its eyes darting between him and Lira. Its growl deepened into a rumble, so low he felt it vibrate in his chest.
"Stay behind me," he ordered without turning.
Lira hesitated. "You can't fight that thing alone—"
"Stay behind me!" His voice cracked like a whip, harsher than he intended. For a moment, her eyes flashed hurt, but she obeyed, stepping back until the shadows swallowed her small frame.
The wolf lunged halfway, stopping short, snapping its jaws in warning. The sound of its teeth slamming together echoed like steel striking steel. The prince did not flinch. Instead, he met the beast's glare, his own demonic eyes burning brighter, the Codex's sigil faintly glowing across his skin.
And for a fleeting moment… the wolf paused.
Recognition. Not of weakness, but of kinship.
The Codex seized the moment, its tone a cold command:
"Strike now. Rend its flesh. Drink its bloodline."
But another thought fought back, raw and human: If I fail… she dies too.
His siblings would have laughed at the dilemma. Mercy was weakness. Fear was weakness. But here, facing a predator that mirrored his own existence, the weight of another's life pressed heavier than the Codex's hunger.
The wolf's ears pricked, its gaze snapping past him toward Lira. Saliva dripped from its fangs. It lowered its stance.
"No," he muttered, body tensing.
The Codex hissed in his skull:
"Protect. Devour. Rule. All paths lead to the same end."
The wolf lunged fully this time, a blur of muscle and fangs cutting through the night.
He moved before thought could catch him, black flame bursting faintly along his arm as his claws extended. The impact shook the ground—fangs against flame, flesh against steel. He staggered back, knees nearly buckling under the force, but he held his ground. The wolf snarled, its breath hot, its eyes mad with hunger.
For a heartbeat, man and beast locked in a contest of wills, neither yielding.
And in that instant, the Codex's voice surged, not whispering now but thundering:
"This is your mirror. Kill it, and rise. Fail… and you are nothing."
His vision blurred, the jade token in his cloak pulsing against his chest as though responding to the battle. He felt its rhythm sync with his heart, each beat louder, heavier, dragging him into something deeper, something older than blood.
The wolf snapped again, breaking the deadlock. Its claws scraped sparks against stone as it drove him backward. His heels slid across the dirt, fire flaring around his hands just to keep from being torn apart.
Lira screamed his name, but he barely heard. The world had narrowed to blood, fire, and hunger.
The chapter's cliffhanger carved itself in that frozen moment—man against beast, both driven by instinct, both bound by hunger, both refusing to yield.
And over it all, the Codex's words fell like judgment:
"Devour… or be devoured."