Every instinct honed by seven days of frantic preparation, three days of brutal training, and one increasingly desperate education in exactly how dangerous this world actually was screamed at Caius to run.
Instead, he forced his expression into something calm, forced his voice into something that wouldn’t betray the fact that he was standing three feet from the exact reincarnated deity destined to eventually slaughter every heroine on this continent for the crime of loving him.
“Caius Draxos,” he said, offering a shallow, formally correct bow that House Draxos’s brutal military etiquette lessons had at least drilled into muscle memory.
“House Draxos, of the northern border.”
“Draxos,” Ellric repeated, something flickering behind those warm golden eyes, thoughtful and unhurried, the kind of casual, patient attention that Caius understood with cold clarity was probably how a predator studied something it hadn’t yet decided was worth hunting.
“The name carries weight along the border legions, if I recall correctly. Your family’s held that territory for centuries.”
“Four hundred years,” Caius confirmed, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
“Impressive lineage,” Ellric said warmly, and there was nothing in his tone, nothing in his easy, magnetic smile, that suggested anything other than genuine, harmless interest.
That was, Caius reminded himself with a fresh chill, exactly the point.
This was the performance that had spent the first half of the game convincing an entire continent, an entire generation of powerful noble heroines, that Ellric Lumaris was simply a righteous, charming heir rebuilding his fallen house through honest merit and genuine affection.
Not a single one of them had suspected the truth until it was far too late to matter.
“I understand you’re the subject of Seraphina’s current assignment,” Ellric continued, his golden gaze flicking briefly toward her with unmistakable warmth before settling back onto Caius.
“Some manner of unusual Council evaluation, if the courtyard gossip is to be believed.”
“Something like that,” Caius said carefully, painfully aware of exactly how much information was likely already circulating through Academy channels given the very public nature of his encounter with the Enforcement Delegation.
“You’ll have to forgive the curiosity,” Ellric said, his easy smile widening slightly.
“Seraphina rarely takes personal interest in mundane bureaucratic matters. Whatever circumstances warranted her direct involvement must be genuinely remarkable.”
Seraphina’s composed expression tightened almost imperceptibly at the implied prying, and she stepped in smoothly before Caius was forced to navigate an answer.
“Of course,” Ellric said easily, raising his hands in a gesture of gracious concession that Caius recognized, with mounting unease, as another rehearsed piece of the same charming, harmless performance.
“I wouldn’t dream of pressing further.” His golden eyes drifted back toward Caius one final time, something unreadable flickering briefly behind the warm exterior before smoothing back into easy, effortless charisma.
“I do hope we have the opportunity to speak further, Caius Draxos. Any friend under Seraphina’s direct care is worth knowing properly, given how discerning her professional judgment tends to be.”
It wasn’t a threat.
It wasn’t even remotely hostile, delivered with the same warm, magnetic ease that had apparently convinced an entire continent’s worth of powerful heroines to lower their guard completely over the course of the game’s opening chapters.
That, Caius understood with growing dread, was precisely what made it so much more dangerous than open hostility could ever be.
“I’d like that,” Caius lied.
Ellric’s smile widened fractionally, apparently satisfied, and he turned his attention back toward Seraphina, offering his arm with practiced, easy affection.
“Walk with me to the orientation hall? I’ve heard the incoming cohort’s placement evaluations begin within the hour, and I confess I’d rather not navigate the Academy’s administrative bureaucracy alone.”
“Of course,” Seraphina said, accepting his arm with a warmth that made Caius’s stomach twist with a complicated tangle of guilt and dread, knowing exactly what fate the game’s original script had assigned this composed, dutiful young woman who currently had absolutely no idea that her betrothed’s affection was, according to canonical lore, an elaborately constructed prelude to ritual sacrifice.
As the golden procession began moving away toward the Academy’s central administrative hall, Ellric glanced back once more over his shoulder, his warm golden eyes meeting Caius’s directly across the crowded courtyard, and for just a fraction of a second, something shifted behind that easy, magnetic smile.
It was gone almost instantly, replaced by the same effortless charm, but Caius had spent enough hours studying this exact character’s carefully animated expressions across hundreds of hours of gameplay to recognize what he’d just glimpsed underneath the performance.
Curiosity.
Genuine, focused, predatory curiosity, the kind a hunter reserved for prey that had, against all reasonable expectation, just displayed an unfamiliar wariness that a properly unsuspecting target should never have possessed.
Kaelan’s hand found Caius’s shoulder as the golden procession disappeared into the Academy’s central hall, his grip firm and grounding.
“You went pale the moment that man looked at you,” his brother said quietly, his crimson eyes carrying none of their usual sharp aggression, replaced instead by genuine, careful concern. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“What exactly did I just witness.”
Caius forced himself to breathe, forced the rising panic back down into something manageable, watching the space where Ellric Lumaris had disappeared with a growing, sickening certainty that his carefully constructed timeline had just fractured in ways he hadn’t remotely prepared for.
“That,” Caius said quietly, “was the bloodline I told you and Isolde about. The one that’s supposed to be dormant for months, maybe years, before it fully awakens.”
Isolde’s sharp intake of breath beside him confirmed she’d understood immediately exactly what that meant.
“He’s already active,” Kaelan said slowly, the weight of the realization settling across his features.
“Already at the Academy. Already courting his future bride.”
“Yes,” Caius said, his mind racing through every implication, every way his desperate two-week head start had apparently accomplished nothing except accelerating a confrontation he’d assumed he still had months to prepare for.
“Then whatever timeline you were counting on,” Isolde said grimly, watching the empty archway where the golden procession had vanished, “has already collapsed entirely.”
Before Caius could formulate any response, a fresh notification chimed softly behind his eyes, cold and clinical against the mounting dread already twisting through his chest, and the words hovering there confirmed his worst suspicion with brutal, undeniable clarity.
[Warning: Divine Signature Detected. Classification: Helion, God of Light.]
[Warning: Vessel Activation Status: Partial Awakening Confirmed.]
[Notification: System Countdown Initiated – Full Bloodline Trial Awakening: 34 Days.]
Thirty-four days.
Not the months Caius had desperately assumed he still had.
Just over a month before the story’s genre-defining catastrophe began in earnest, and he had absolutely no idea whether thirty-four days would be nearly enough time to change anything at all.