Blood and Brotherhood

Chapter 4: Blood and Brotherhood

Before he was the man kneeling for a queen, Kael Veyrion was something else entirely.

He was born in the underbelly of Varos, a city where loyalty was currency and betrayal was tradition. 🕯️⚔️ His mother died giving birth to him. His father, Rydor Drayce, ran the Black Fang Syndicate — a criminal empire masked beneath silk robes and political lies.

Kael was not raised; he was forged.

At seven, he witnessed his first execution. At nine, he learned how to poison without leaving a trace. And by thirteen, he had already earned a name among the shadows — The Silver Ghost — silent, beautiful, and lethal.

But power never came without a price.

Kael's soul was taught to bow only to control. Emotions were weakness. Love? A liability. And yet, even in the darkest corners of Varos, light found him — in the form of a street fighter with coal-black eyes and a jagged grin: Thorne Velric.

Thorne was chaos, Kael was calculation. Together, they burned their way through Varos like twin storms.

One night, Kael saved Thorne from a royal guard’s blade. The next morning, Thorne returned the favor by setting fire to the entire outpost that betrayed them.

That was the day Kael named him blood-brother.

Their bond was not spoken, but etched in wounds and ashes.

Years passed. The Black Fang grew. So did Kael’s hunger for something more — not just control, but purpose. He read scrolls stolen from royal libraries. Studied bloodlines. Tracked prophecies whispered by seers before they were silenced.

One name kept surfacing: The Moon-Marked Queen.

When he first read of her, she was only a tale. But Kael saw strategy in myth. A queen hidden by time, fated to either destroy kingdoms or save them. He wanted to find her — not to use her, but to understand if destiny could be controlled.

“Power that cannot be seen is power no one suspects,” he had said to Thorne.

It was Kael who learned of Elarian’s fractured bloodline. It was Kael who disguised himself and stepped into the city, leaving behind his empire.

But what he didn’t expect… was her.

Lyra.

She wasn’t what the scrolls described. She was more. More dangerous, more defiant, more divine than any prophecy dared to imagine.

And in her fire, Kael found what he never thought he needed: a place to belong.

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Back in the present, Kael stood in front of a cracked mirror inside the forest outpost they had taken shelter in. Behind him, Lyra rested.

He stared at his reflection, eyes tired. The face of a king, painted in crimes.

Thorne entered quietly. “She’ll see it eventually, you know. Who you were.”

Kael didn’t flinch. “She already has.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”