The child led him through twisted pines and over moss-covered ridges until the thin trail opened into a shallow dell. A small cave mouth gaped in the hillside, half-hidden by hanging vines and the smoke that curled lazily from within. A fire burned low inside—Elias could smell it now, woodsmoke and something sharper, like herbs drying.
The child stopped at the entrance and pointed again, this time at Elias himself, then at the cave. A clear instruction: go in. Alone.
Elias hesitated. "You're not coming?" could be a set up.
But from a child? The child had not even spoken a word to him.
"Are you sure?" Elias asked again.
The child shook their head once, solemnly. Then turned and vanished back into the trees as silently as a deer.
He watched the spot where the small figure had disappeared, then took a steadying breath and stepped into the cave.
It was definitely a set up but Elias still went in.
Warmth hit him first, chasing the chill from his bones. The space was larger than it looked from outside—high enough to stand, wide enough for a man to lie full length. A fire crackled in a ring of stones near the back. Shelves had been carved into the rock walls: bundles of dried plants, clay jars, a few worn books bound in cracked leather. A bedroll lay unrolled beside the fire, and on it sat an old man.
He was broad and scarred, one eye milky white, the other sharp as a hawk's. Gray hair and beard spilled wild down his chest. He wore patched leathers and a cloak the color of dry leaves. A longsword leaned within easy reach against the wall.
The man looked up as Elias entered. His good eye narrowed, then widened.
"Well," he rumbled, voice like gravel under boots. "The serpent finally wakes."
Elias froze just inside the entrance. Water dripped from his rags onto the stone floor. He shivered.
"You… know what it is?"
The old man rose slowly, joints creaking. He was tall even stooped, and moved with the balance of someone who had fought many times and won most. He stopped an arm's length away and studied Elias's face, then the torn sleeve that revealed the lower coils of the tattoo.
"I know what it was," he said. "And what it means now that it's chosen you at last."
He gestured to a flat stone beside the fire. "Sit. You look half-drowned and fully dead. Both true, I'm guessing." he chuckled.
Seeing Elias's flat response, he tried to shrug it off.
Elias sat, legs folding under him more from exhaustion than obedience. The heat of the flames soaked into his skin. The old man handed him a tin cup filled with something steaming and dark.
"Drink. Slowly." he instructed. His single gaze homed on Elias for a while "I promise it's not poisoned" he placed it on Elias outstretched hand.
It tasted of roots and iron, almost like a potion. Strength seeped back into his limbs almost immediately.
"I'm Thorne Blackroot," the man said, settling across the fire. "Once sworn sword to King Aldric Thorn. Now just an old exile waiting for a ghost."
Elias's head snapped up from the empty cup. "Thorn?"
Thorne's mouth twisted in something not quite a smile. "Aye. Same blood, boy. Though you've been kept ignorant of it longer than I thought possible."
The Zythos stirred, a low thrum under Elias's skin.
"Listen well," it whispered. "This one speaks truth."
Elias fought not to roll his eyes. So Zythos doesn't just rest.
He set the cup down. "They poisoned me, I think. I mean I know, it told me. Every day. Tea from… from my mother." His voice cracked on the word. "To keep me docile. To keep this—" he lifted his tattooed arm "—asleep."
Thorne nodded slowly. "Wolfsbane and Widow's Tea, brewed slow. Old trick of the Shadow Council. Suppresses bloodline gifts. Keeps a powerful vessel useful but harmless." His good eye darkened. "They've been bleeding power from you for years, drop by drop, to feed Darius Varyn's rituals."
Blood? Ritual? How??
"Bleeding power?" Elias leaned forward "I don't understand. What is even this?" He pointed at his arm
"You're a living leyline, lad. Born of the old royal line—the Serpent Kings. Your blood sings to relics. That tattoo isn't just decoration. It's the Zythos itself, bound to you since your father's disappearance. They couldn't remove it without killing you, so they caged it. And you with it."
Elias stared into the fire. Images flashed: endless scrubbing, the fog in his mind, the woman—his mother—pressing the cup into his hands day after day. Love and poison in the same gesture.
"She died for me," he said quietly. "Held them off so I could run. Kael Varyn cut her head from her shoulders."
Thorne's face hardened. "Lirael. I knew her. Brave woman. She hid you in the one place they'd never look—right under their noses."
Silence stretched, broken only by the crackle of flames.
Then Thorne leaned forward. "You died tonight, didn't you?"
Elias met his gaze. "Yes. Dagger to the brain. Fell into the sea."
"And you're sitting here breathing."
"The serpent… pulled the blade out. Healed me. Brought me back."
Thorne exhaled slowly. "Then it began. The cycle turns. Each death will make you stronger—venom purer, scales harder, rebirth faster. But it takes something each time. Memories. Pieces of who it had served. That's the price, merging all life time in one mind."
Elias touched the imaginary scar at the base of his skull. "My father , did it serve him? I can handle his memory."
"Not so simple, Elias Thorn. When you gain another memory, you lose some of yours. You will," Thorne said grimly. "And you'll miss them when they're gone."
He rose and fetched a small bundle from a shelf—clean clothes, rough but dry. Threw them to Elias.
"Change. Eat. Sleep. Tomorrow we start teaching you what it means to carry the Zythos."
Elias caught the bundle. "Why help me?"
Thorne stared into the fire for a long moment.
His previous zeal was shifted, almost gone; like a mirage. What was left was an uncertain man that seemed surrounded in guilt and secrets.
"Because" Throne paused " Because I failed your father once. Watched Aldric fall to Darius's plot and betrayal. Swore I will not fail his blood again." He looked back at Elias, eye fierce. "And because Elyria bleeds under Varyn's grip. Someone has to make them pay."
The serpent coiled tighter under Elias's skin, warm and eager.
"Yes," it hissed, soft as silk over steel. "Make them pay."
Elias smiled. He could almost see it, the vision of the payment.
He slowly stood up and began to take off his wet clothes. He turned back to see Throne turn away. It wasn't me like the man could see with his barely working eye
"I will kill them all" Elias grunted as he dropped his damp shirt to the floor "I will wipe the whole family and even if one escape, I will haunt the generation to come and wipe them out"
His gaze locked with Throne's, the one good eye staring, searching into Elias's mind.
"I will not leave survivors in the first place" Elias said.
As he heard Throne leave the place, he fully began to undress. The sorrow that was once in his heart had gone, now filled with nothing but undiluted rage. For the first time, he felt the shape of a future.
And it tasted like vengeance. They must all pay.