Chapter 7: The Blood of the Sun
The air in the valley didn't just turn cold; it turned wrong.
To Cassian, who had felt the subtle vibrations of the earth for eleven centuries, the moment Esther completed her ritual was like a tectonic plate snapping. The "Weight" within him, usually a steady, grounding force, surged with a violent, electric intensity. He felt the birth of the vampires not as a witness, but as a lightning rod. The universe was screaming at the violation of its laws, and because Cassian was the largest "mass" in the supernatural world, the feedback hit him first.
He stood in the center of the village, his feet sinking inches into the packed earth as his density spiked. Around him, the world was a blur of motion and screaming.
The Mikaelson children—once vibrant, flawed, and human—were now something else. They lay on the ground, their skin a sickly, pallid white, their veins thrumming with a hunger that wasn't of the stomach, but of the soul.
Mikael was the first to rise.
The patriarch didn't wake with a gasp; he woke with a roar. His eyes snapped open, a dark, primal red blooming in his irises. He looked at his hands, feeling the terrifying strength coursing through him—strength that finally, finally felt like it could rival the man he had envied for twenty years.
He turned his gaze toward Cassian. "Stone-Wright," Mikael rasped, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering over a tombstone. "I feel the pulse of the world. I feel the blood in your veins... it sounds like a river of fire."
"Control it, Mikael," Cassian warned, his voice low and dangerous. "The hunger is a lie. If you feed it now, you feed it forever."
But Mikael was gone. He launched himself at Cassian with a speed that would have been invisible to any mortal eye. To Cassian, however, it was still a desperate, clumsy lunge.
When Mikael's fist connected with Cassian's chest, the shockwave blew the thatched roofs off the nearby huts. Mikael expected to feel bone shatter. Instead, he felt as though he had punched the core of the planet. His arm recoiled, the sound of his own radius snapping echoing through the clearing.
Cassian didn't even stagger. He reached out, his hand moving with the deliberate, unstoppable force of a mountain slide, and gripped Mikael's throat.
"I told you before," Cassian said, his eyes darkening until they looked like twin voids. "I am not your enemy. But I will not be your prey."
He flung Mikael across the village square. The Original slammed into a stone well, shattering the masonry into dust. Mikael scrambled up, his broken arm knitting back together in seconds—a sight that made the watching villagers wail in terror.
While Mikael tested his new teeth, Cassian turned his attention to the shadows near the Great Oak. Esther stood there, her hands still stained with the blood of the ritual, her face a mask of pale, frozen horror. Beside her, Ayana wept, her head in her hands.
Cassian walked toward them. Every step left a deep, cracked imprint in the soil. The "Weight" was making him a physical god among monsters.
"You did it," Cassian said, stopping inches from Esther. "You traded their souls for a cage of skin and hunger."
"I saved them!" Esther shrieked, her voice cracking. "I gave them the strength to survive the wolves! I gave them forever!"
"You gave them a curse that will drink the world dry," Cassian replied.
But as he looked at her, his heightened senses picked up a secondary vibration. He could hear the hearts of the children—Elijah, Rebekah, Finn, and Kol—beating with a frantic, metallic rhythm. But Klaus... Klaus's heart was different.
Klaus was huddled on the ground, clutching his head. His skin wasn't just pale; it was flickering. A strange, golden light seemed to be trying to burst through his pores, clashing with the dark, vampiric red.
"What is happening to the boy?" Cassian demanded, his voice shaking the trees.
Esther paled further. "Nothing. It is just the transition."
"You lie," Cassian growled.
He moved toward Klaus. Mikael, seeing his favorite target of abuse in distress, moved to intervene, but a single look from Cassian—a psychic flare of pure, crushing intent—sent the Original stumbling back.
Cassian knelt beside Klaus. He placed a hand on the boy's back. The moment he touched him, Cassian felt it: the Double-Helix of the Curse.
Inside Klaus, the vampire blood was fighting a dormant, primal energy. A wolf.
"He's not just your son, is he, Esther?" Cassian asked, his voice dropping to a whisper that carried more weight than a scream.
The village went silent. Mikael froze, his predatory instincts suddenly focused on his wife. "What did the Stone-Wright say?"
Cassian stood up, turning to face the family. "The ritual didn't just turn him. It triggered something else. Something in his blood that doesn't belong to Mikael."
The betrayal hung in the air like the smell of ozone before a storm. The realization hit Mikael like a physical blow. He looked at Klaus—the boy he had beaten, the boy he had hated without knowing why—and saw the truth. He saw the face of the werewolf chieftain Esther had laid with years ago.
Mikael's grief turned into a white-hot, incandescent rage. "A bastard," he whispered. "A beast sired by a beast."
He drew his sword—now reinforced by his own unnatural strength—and lunged not at Cassian, but at Klaus.
"Mikael, no!" Rebekah cried, but she was too weak from the transition to move.
Cassian didn't intercept the sword. He did something far more devastating. He released the "Weight."
For a split second, Cassian stopped holding back the gravitational pressure of his own existence. The ground for twenty yards around him simply dropped six inches. The air became so dense that Mikael was slammed to his knees, the sword falling from his nerveless fingers.
"Enough!" Cassian's voice wasn't a sound; it was a physical force that knocked the breath out of every living and undead thing in the valley.
He walked over to Klaus, who was now beginning to transform. His bones were snapping, but not into the shape of a vampire. Fur was sprouting from his skin; his eyes had turned a brilliant, haunting yellow.
"Esther," Cassian commanded, not looking back. "The binding. Do it now, or Mikael will tear this valley apart before the sun sets."
Esther, shaking with terror, began the chant to suppress Klaus's werewolf side—the Curse of the Sun and the Moon. She used the blood of a doppelgänger (Tatia, who lay nearby, already drained) to lock away the boy's true nature.
Cassian watched the process. He saw the golden light inside Klaus dim and vanish, replaced by a cold, hollow void. He watched the boy's spirit break as his mother—the one person he trusted—betrayed his very identity to appease a husband who wanted him dead.
As the moon began to set, the carnage was complete. The villagers were dead or fled. The Mikaelsons stood in the ruins of their lives, immortal but utterly broken.
Mikael stood up, his eyes fixed on the horizon. He didn't look at Esther. He didn't look at his children. "We leave this place," he commanded. "We hunt the wolves. We hunt the weak. And we never speak of the bastard again."
The siblings moved to follow, their faces masks of shock. Only Elijah stayed behind for a moment, looking at Cassian.
"You knew," Elijah said, his voice trembling. "You knew what we would become."
"I knew the price, Elijah," Cassian said, his heart heavy. "I didn't know if you were willing to pay it."
"We had no choice," Elijah whispered.
"We always have a choice," Cassian replied. "Now you have eternity to regret this one."
The Confrontation with the Witch
Once the family had vanished into the woods, Cassian turned to Esther. She was alone, standing amidst the corpses of her neighbors.
"You think you've won," Cassian said. "You think you've preserved your family."
"I have," she snapped, trying to regain her dignity. "They will live forever. They will be the apex of this world."
"No," Cassian said, stepping closer. The "Weight" around him was so intense that Esther's jewelry began to hum and vibrate. "You've created a hunger that can never be satisfied. And because you used the White Oak—the only thing in this forest that was older and denser than your magic—you've given them a weakness. You've made them gods with glass hearts."
He reached out and took the necklace from around her neck—the one containing the protective charms. In his grip, the gold didn't just melt; it turned to vapor.
"I have walked this earth for a thousand years, Esther. I have seen the rise and fall of Rome. I have seen the library of Alexandria burn. And I am telling you now: your children will be the greatest tragedy the world has ever known. And you will be the one who has to watch it."
"And what of you?" Esther spat. "The great Witness. Will you just watch us? Or will you finally use that strength for something other than building bridges and burying the dead?"
Cassian looked up at the moon. He felt the "Growth" within him click into a new gear. He was no longer just a man who grew stronger with time. He was a creature who had absorbed the birth-pangs of a new race. He felt fast. He felt dense. He felt... ready.
"I'm not going to watch anymore," Cassian said. "I'm going to make sure that when your children eventually burn the world, there's someone left to sweep up the ash."
Cassian left the valley that night. He didn't follow the Mikaelsons, nor did he return to his stone cabin. He headed South, toward the Mediterranean.
He was 1,100 years old. His physical strength was now such that he could punch through a mountain if he put his weight behind it. His senses allowed him to hear the heartbeat of a bird in another kingdom. And his mind... his mind was a fortress of a thousand years of human history.
He was the "Zero" from which all supernatural power would now be measured. He was the First Immortal, the True Titan.
And as he walked, the earth itself seemed to bow. The trees leaned away from his path; the predators of the night went silent as he passed. He wasn't a vampire, a witch, or a werewolf.
He was Cassian. And the world was finally starting to get heavy.