Echoes of Blood and Shadow

A man in a long black cloak and an oversized dark top hat knelt beside the corpse of the assassin shopkeeper. With a practiced motion, he uncorked a small vial and drew blood from the dead man’s arm.

Then, using telekinesis, he began drawing intricate circles around the body—layer after layer of ritual symbols etched into the floor in arcs of crimson.

When the array was complete, he detached a spherical crystal—about the size of a golf ball—from the top of his cane and placed it at a specific intersection within the bloody diagram.

Stepping back, he struck the ground sharply with the butt of his cane. The magic array blazed to life, pulsing with an eerie green glow.

As the light intensified, the concentric rings began to spiral inward toward the crystal. When they touched it, the orb lit up in a stark white glow. Echoes of roars and howls—inhuman and tormented—poured from it like the voices of the damned.

The mage didn’t flinch. He channeled more mana, his aura flaring. A rhythmic chant spilled from his lips—unintelligible, maddening, ancient.

Then, with deliberate finality, he spoke aloud in a calm, resonant voice: “I wish to have brief words with this man’s soul—in exchange for the soul of this beast.”

The howls ceased.

And from within the orb, a pale, translucent face emerged—the lifeless visage of the dead shopkeeper.

The mage’s eyes narrowed. He began at once.

“Your objective was to assassinate young Lady Audrey Westermoor?”

“Yes.” The soul’s voice was flat, empty.

“You and your lackeys killed the other customers who entered the boutique before her?”

“Yes.”

“You are part of the Inverted Society?”

“No.”

“Which secret organization do you belong to? Answer with just the name.”

“A—”

The ghost’s image shattered mid-word. A thin spiderweb of cracks spread through his face before it crumbled into smoke and silence. The orb dimmed. The glow of the array vanished.

The room fell into stillness.

The mage straightened his cloak and adjusted his top hat, murmuring to himself, “Soul contracts. We’re dealing with a powerful organization.”

A short distance behind him, a woman stood with a rapier at her side. She wore leather armor and the bearing of someone long accustomed to danger. Her eyes flicked to Lucian.

“Although we were unable to trace the group behind the attack,” she said, her voice clear, “your name is cleared, Grand Mage Lucian.”

Lucian inclined his head slightly. “Very well. I’ll leave the rest to you, Knight Helen.”

He turned to go, but paused. She was still looking at him—her expression unreadable, her lips parting slightly, as though words were trapped there.

“Is there something else?” he asked, without turning.

“No… Are you here to join the Academy?”

“Yes. But I hear the evaluation process is… strict.”

“I’m sure you’ll succeed.”

“Many thanks for the well wishes. I’ll take my leave.”

“Farewell.”

As Lucian passed through the exit, Helen’s knights instinctively stepped aside, parting like water before a ship’s bow.

The cold evening air greeted him with a bite. Lucian tilted his head up slightly, observing the sky. The crimson moon would be full in a few days.

He closed his eyes briefly, thoughtful.

“She was likely hoping for a Life Potion,” he muttered under his breath.

In this world, knights trained their bodies as mages trained their souls.

To surpass mortal limits, knights required Life Potions—concoctions distilled from the life essence of magical beasts.

The path of the knight was the oldest way of acquiring power for humans, dating back to before written history. In those times, warriors drank the raw blood of beasts. Crude, violent—and dangerous.

When mages appeared in the annals of history, they refined this practice. They learned how to extract pure life essence and created stable potions.

But too many potions from beasts can alter a knight’s essence. Some grew animalistic features. Others lost their minds entirely.

Life Essence from Mages is the better choice.

“Helen is close to becoming a Grand Knight. She needs the essence of a Grand Mage… but drawing that much blood can significantly weaken one of us. That’s why it’s so rarely done.”

He sighed.

“Still, it’s not my place to worry.”

Across the street, behind the frosted glass of a quaint little café, a middle-aged man in a fine business suit flipped through a newspaper. His gaze rose above the pages, landing squarely on Lucian.

The glass shimmered with condensation, but the man’s eyes locked onto Lucian’s with unnatural clarity.

The evening grew colder. February winds had chased away the last of the snow, but the chill lingered like a memory.

Lucian turned his steps toward Theodore’s Inn.

“I didn’t plan to get involved in this,” he murmured. “But if I hadn’t saved the little lady, they would’ve marked me an accomplice.”

As he reached the inn’s porch, the door swung open before he could raise his hand to knock.

Theodore stood there with his usual warm smile.

“Master Lucian, we’ve been waiting for you.”

Lucian nodded.

“There was an incident.”

“Come inside,” Theodore said, ushering him in. “We’ll talk over a warm dinner.”