The Prince of Black Blood

In the Realm of Valkathia, power was never granted. 
It was taken—seized by the throat. 
Often with a blade of ice.

Prince Kaelen Varrick stood before the towering mirror in his private sanctum, a monolithic slab of polished obsidian crystal that reflected more than the surface.

It reflected the soul of the Frost itself. He adjusted the high, stiff collar of his midnight-blue tunic, fingertips brushing the silver embroidery that marked his royal blood. 

His skin was pale as moonlight striking a glacier, flawless and unmarred by time. No wrinkle would ever crease that brow; no scar would ever mar that jawline. 

Perfection wasn’t an aspiration for Kaelen—it was his baseline. His hair, the color of spun starlight, fell loosely around a face carved from sharp angles and cold aristocracy. 

But it was his eyes that branded him a predator—piercing, glowing azure, so deep and cold that looking into them felt like stepping into a storm without a coat. 

He was the third son of King Malakor. By the laws of succession, he should have been insignificant. 

Yet every whisper in the Court of Winter carried his name. He was the storm everyone feared, and he reveled in it.
“You look like a King already, my Lord.”
The deep, gravelly voice rumbled from the arched doorway. 

Kaelen didn’t turn immediately. He took a moment longer to admire the cold symmetry of his own features, tilting his head slightly. Finally, he turned with deliberate slowness, every movement fluid and precise. 

Leaning against the frame was General Torian, Commander of the Obsidian Guard. Torian was a mountain of a Fae—scarred from the Goblin Wars, shoulders broad as fortress gates. 

“My father has not named me heir yet, Torian,” Kaelen replied, his voice smooth velvet wrapped around razor glass. “Until the Crown of Ice sits upon my brow, I am merely a prince surrounded by ambitious disappointments.” 

He crossed the sanctum to a weapon rack carved from the rib of an ancient dragon. Magical staves and gleaming wands lay displayed, but Kaelen bypassed them without hesitation.
Magic was finite.
Steel never lied. 

He reached for Winter’s Edge—his sword, forged from meteor metal that had fallen into the frozen wastes a millennia ago. Its runes hummed with a low, hungry vibration, purring at his touch. 

“He will choose you,” Torian said with a tusked grin. “Prince Vorian is a brute who thinks with his hammer and drinks until he forgets his own name. 

And Prince Lysander… a snake who whispers poison but fears the bite of the wind. You alone have mastered the Absolute Zero technique. By right of power, the Crown is yours.”
A smirk touched Kaelen’s lips—arrogant, sharp, and utterly devoid of warmth.
“I know,” Kaelen said softly. 

He didn’t hope for the throne. He expected it. As surely as the sun failed to rise in Valkathia, Kaelen rose above his kin. 

“Strength alone does not win the throne,” Kaelen murmured, sliding the sword into its sheath with a satisfying click. “If it did, my father would have been overthrown centuries ago. 

No—the throne is won by inevitable dominance. By giving the King what he desires most before he even knows he desires it.” 

He stepped out onto the obsidian balcony overlooking the capital.
The sky above Valkathia was a bruised swirl of purple and black nebula. There was no sun here—only the bioluminescent glow of ice structures and the eternal auroras that danced overhead. 

Below, the banners of the five rival High Houses—Drakos, Viper, Crag, Wraith, and Valerius—snapped violently in the relentless blizzard. They bowed to House Varrick today. 

But Kaelen knew the truth. 
They were wolves waiting for a limp.
Let them wait, Kaelen thought, looking down at the city like a god inspecting an ant farm. 

I will never limp.
I will never bleed.
“Tonight is the Night of Ascension,” he whispered into the icy wind.
“Tonight, the world acknowledges what I have always known.” 

                                                                      ♦♦♦ The Throne Room ♦♦♦ 

The throne doors were massive, hewn from the ribs of an ancient leviathan. Kaelen pushed them open with a single gesture, not bothering to check if the guards were ready. 

He strode in, his white wolf-fur cape unfurling behind him like a banner of winter. The hall was a cavern of ice and shadows, packed with the High Lords and Ladies of the five families. 

The air crackled with ozone—the scent of raw magic—and the metallic tang of fear. Hundreds of immortal eyes tracked Kaelen as he approached the dais. 

He felt their envy prickling against his skin. Their hatred. He breathed it in like perfume. His brothers stood at the foot of the throne like bad omens. Prince Vorian—the eldest—looked swollen in his armor, his face flushed from wine long before noon. 

He offered Kaelen a lazy, dismissive nod. Prince Lysander—the middle brother—was tall, thin, needle-sharp, draped in emerald robes, the colors of House Viper. His smile was a thin, venomous line that never reached his calculating eyes. 

“Fashionably late, brother,” Lysander hissed.

“Preparing your concession speech?” Kaelen didn’t even slow his stride.
“I was sharpening my blade. You should try it, Lysander. Far more useful than sharpening your tongue.”
Lysander’s smile twitched, venom flashing— But then the temperature in the room plummeted. King Malakor had arrived. He sat upon the Frozen Throne, carved from a single, colossal diamond.

 A terrifying figure—skin translucent as cracked ice, eyes entirely white, devoid of pupils. He radiated sub-zero pressure that made frost bloom wherever he looked.
He was no longer fully Fae— He was an elemental forced into flesh. 

“The time has come,” Malakor announced.
His quiet voice shook the icicles on the ceiling. “The Crown of Ice is heavy. It demands immortality. It demands a vessel capable of holding the Astral Heart without shattering.” The King rose. 

The movement was stiff—unnatural. He was dying, Kaelen realized with a clinical detachment. The old lion was losing his teeth. Malakor lifted a withered hand and pointed straight at Kaelen.

 “Kaelen. You claim strength. But strength alone is wind. To rule, you must bring me the essence of the Pure Lineage.” A collective gasp rippled through the chamber. The Pure Lineage—humans with eyes glowing with the raw power of the Ancients. Nearly wiped out in the Great War. 

Their magic was the last hope of restoring the fading Royal Bloodline. 
“The spies of House Wraith found a remnant,” Malakor continued.
“A family hiding in the Human Realm. Go. Harvest their eyes. Bring me their power. Do this, and the kingdom is yours.” 

Lysander stepped forward, voice oily with false concern.
“Father—why send him alone? The human realm is unpredictable. Purity magic is volatile. Perhaps I should accompany him to ensure—”
“Silence!” Malakor roared. A shockwave of cold hurled Lysander back.
“If he fails, he is unworthy to rule. Kaelen goes alone.” Kaelen bowed, concealing the smirk threatening to break his composure. 

It wasn’t a test. It was a coronation procession. “I will return before the moon sets, Father,” he vowed. “With the power you desire.” He turned away, ignoring Lysander’s hateful glare. He did not care about his brother's schemes. An eagle does not concern itself with the plotting of snakes. 

                                                ♦♦♦ The Human Realm — Northern Border ♦♦♦ 

The dimensional breach tore open reality, hurling Kaelen and his elite squad into a blinding blizzard. The Human Realm felt muted compared to Valkathia.
Colors dull.
Air lifeless.
Magic scarce.
It smelled of dirt and mortality.
But the cold… 

The cold welcomed him like an obedient servant. “There,” a soldier shouted through the storm. A small wooden cabin stood in the clearing, smoke rising weakly from its chimney.
Fragile. Forgettable. A pile of rotting wood in the middle of nowhere. But the scent drifting from it— Sweet as ozone, sharp as lightning— Purity magic. 

“Leave them to me,” Kaelen commanded, his voice bored.
“Guard the perimeter. No one enters. No one leaves.” The soldiers vanished into the treeline.

 Kaelen walked toward the cabin—not running, not hiding—moving with the unhurried dominance of a predator who knew the prey had nowhere to go. Snow cracked under his boots. Humans were not just cattle. They were insects. Short-lived. Breakable. Disgusting in their fragility. 

To harvest them was not murder—it was hygiene. He reached the wooden door. He didn’t bother with the latch. He simply kicked it. The hinges shattered. The wood splintered like dry bone. A man and woman huddled by the hearth—frail, exhausted, insignificant. But their eyes— Their eyes glowed violet, lighting the hut like captured starlight. 

“Take the gold, the food—just leave us be!” the man begged, gripping a fire poker with trembling hands. Kaelen stepped inside, wrinkling his nose at the smell of fear and woodsmoke.

“I do not need your gold,” he said coldly, stepping over the debris of their door.
“I require your essence.” The woman clutched a bundle of blankets to her chest—a baby.
“You… you’re one of them,” she whispered. 

“The Monsters of the Ice.”
“I am Prince Kaelen Varrick,” he corrected, offended that she would group him with common monsters. 

“And your lives are required for the stability of my kingdom. Be honored.” The man roared and charged, swinging the poker. It moved in slow motion to Kaelen’s eyes. Pathetic. Kaelen didn’t even draw his sword. He simply sidestepped, caught the man's wrist— A single twist—a single scream. 

A single thrust of Kaelen’s dark-glass dagger ended it. The man collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. The woman did not scream. She placed the baby behind her and rose, violet eyes blazing. “You will not take her.” She lunged—fast, fueled by grief and magic. 

A silver knife flashed in her hand. Kaelen saw it coming. He could have frozen her instantly. He could have decimated the entire cabin with a thought. But he paused. He paused because the idea that this fragile, mortal creature could harm him—a High Fae Prince—was laughable. 

That arrogance was his mistake. The silver blade cut his palm. A shallow wound. Insignificant— Except to a Fae. Silver was poison. Silver disrupted magic. Silver unmade. His hand smoked, the skin turning black around the edges. Kaelen stared at it, more insulted than hurt. How dare she?

 He struck instinctively. His armored backhand slammed into her, throwing her into the stone wall with a sickening crunch. Her body slid down, motionless. “Filth,” he muttered, examining the wound with a sneer. He retrieved the Absorption Crystal and knelt. The crying infant whimpered beneath the blankets. 

“Sanguis ad Glaciem. Vita ad Potentiam.” Violet mist rose from the dead—writhing, furious, seeking a vessel. It should have been drawn to the crystal— But the silver wound on his hand was open. Unprotected. The magic sensed it. It rushed into Kaelen. 

He screamed as his blood boiled, ice magic burning away as the Purity forced itself into every vein. His body convulsed, vision blurring, essence collapsing. 

He saw only the bundle of blankets—wriggling. The child. He had to kill the heir— Darkness swallowed him. The Prince of Ice fell, defeated not by armies, but by his own certainty that he could not fall. 

Four Days Later — The Royal Infirmary Consciousness did not return gently. It struck him like a hammer to the skull. Kaelen gasped and lurched upright on the silk sheets, a raw, ragged scream ripping from his throat. The sound echoed off the obsidian walls, foreign and weak. He clawed at his chest, his eyes wide with terror. 

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
There was a drum inside him. A wet, violent pounding against his ribs. What is that? Get it out. Get it out! A High Fae’s heart beat once every ten minutes—a slow, powerful thrum of magic. But this? This was chaotic. Fast. Frantic. Like a terrified bird trapped inside a cage of bone, smashing itself against the bars. He tried to take a breath, but the air felt thin. 

He was choking. And then, he felt the moisture. A cold, oily film slicked his forehead and trickled down his neck. Kaelen touched his face, his fingers coming away wet. He stared at the moisture in horror. Fae did not sweat. 

Their bodies were perfect, immutable, preserved in ice. To leak fluid like this… it was a sign of rot. Of decay. I am melting, he thought, panic rising like bile. I am rotting alive. “He wakes,” a cold, razor-edged voice announced. Kaelen froze, blinking against the haze clouding his vision. Everything was too bright, too loud. 

The rustle of sheets sounded like thunder. By the window stood King Malakor, his back rigid. By the iron door stood General Torian, but the giant Fae refused to look at him. Torian’s eyes were fixed on the floor, as if looking at Kaelen would soil him. 

“Father…” Kaelen began. He stopped. His voice. It wasn’t the velvet baritone that commanded armies. It was dry. Scratchy. Cracked. It was human. 

“Do not call me that,” Malakor said quietly. He still did not turn.
“Not until I know what you are.” Confusion crashed over Kaelen, fighting the deafening rhythm of the drum in his chest.
“The hunt… the cabin…” he whispered, his throat burning. 

Memory returned like blades— The woman. The silver knife. The violet mist is forcing its way into his veins, violating his sanctity. He looked down at his body. It felt heavy. Crushingly so. Gravity, once a suggestion he could ignore, now clamped him to the mattress like iron chains. 

His limbs ached. “I am… thirsty,” Kaelen whispered. The admission burned his tongue. Torian quickly poured water into a goblet and handed it to him, keeping his distance. Kaelen snatched it, drinking greedily, water spilling down his chin. He felt repulsive. Animalistic. 

“Leave us,” Malakor commanded.
“My King, he is unwell—” Torian began.
“LEAVE US.” The room shook. Frost raced across the windows. 

Torian bowed deeply and exited, the heavy door slamming shut. The noise made Kaelen flinch. A Fae Prince never flinched. Malakor turned. His face was a mask of pure wrath. “You failed,” the King said.

“You went to harvest the Purity—and you let it consume you instead.”
“I was ambushed,” Kaelen lied, his mind racing, trying to find the strategist he used to be. 

But it was hard to think over the thump-thump-thump of his heart. “The woman… she had a silver blade. It was a trap.” “Lies.” Malakor’s voice cracked like ice under pressure. “You returned empty-handed. And worse—you returned broken.” 

He stepped forward and seized Kaelen’s arm. The grip was brutal.
“I am healing,” Kaelen insisted, trying to pull away.
“I will recover before the Ascension.” “Will you?” Malakor drew a ceremonial dagger—obsidian, sharp enough to slice moonlight. “Father—wait—” Malakor didn’t wait. 

He slashed Kaelen’s forearm. Kaelen cried out as pain—real, searing, blinding pain—shot up his arm. It wasn’t the dull ache of magic exhaustion. It was fire. He stared at the wound, breath hitched in his throat. 

He expected the thick, black ichor of the Highborn—the substance of night and eternity. Instead… Red. Bright. Vulgar. Crimson. It bubbled up from the cut and slid down his pale skin like mud. Kaelen gagged. 

The sight of it made his stomach lurch. It was the color of mortal weakness. The color of the insects he had crushed beneath his boots. “No…” he choked, his eyes watering. “No, no, no…” He tried to summon his ice. To freeze the wound. To hide the shame. Freeze, he commanded.

 Nothing. He strained harder. His veins bulged. More sweat—that disgusting, oily sweat—popped out on his brow. His heart hammered faster, thump-thump-thump, a countdown to his doom. A pathetic puff of white frost drifted from his fingertips. 

It dissolved instantly in the air. The wound bled on. The red pool on the sheets grew larger.
“You are empty,” Malakor said, wiping the dagger on the silk, staining it.
“You are a brilliant mind trapped in a dying, rotting husk. A human.” 

The word hit Kaelen harder than the knife. In Valkathia, humans were slaves. Food. Cattle. And now, he was one of them. “Your brothers will kill you when they see this,” Malakor continued coldly. “Vorian will smash your skull just to hear it crack. 

Lysander will peel your skin off to see if you bleed red everywhere. And I will not stop them. A human cannot sit on the Frozen Throne.” Kaelen stared at his father. 

For the first time in centuries, he felt a coldness that had nothing to do with winter. Fear. Primal, shaking, paralyzing fear.
“You… you would let them kill me?”
 “I would kill you myself,” Malakor replied.
“Better a dead son than a mortal one.” Kaelen’s mind reeled. 

The panic threatened to swallow him whole. He was drowning in his own racing heart. Think. Think. You are Kaelen Varrick. You are the Predator. But he wasn't. He was the prey. “The child,” Kaelen blurted out.

It was a desperate grasp at a fraying rope. Malakor paused.
“What?”
“The baby in the cabin,” Kaelen gasped, clutching his bleeding arm.
“I didn’t kill it. The magic struck me before I could finish.”
“The offspring survived?” “Yes. 

The magic seeks balance,” Kaelen lied—or perhaps it was truth? He didn't know. He just needed to live. “I absorbed the parents. The cycle is incomplete. If I find the child… if I harvest its eyes… I can reverse the flow. Purge the mortality.

” Malakor studied him—long, silent, merciless. Finally, the King spoke.
“You have until the Winter Solstice. One month.” He leaned close. 

He smelled of pure ice. Kaelen smelled of sweat and copper blood. “Find the child. Drain it. Restore your blood. If you return to me with red veins…” Malakor’s lip curled in disgust. “I will throw you from the Black Spire myself.” 

The King turned and walked to the door. “And clean this filth,” he said, gesturing to the blood on the sheets. “You reek of meat. It sickens me.” 

The door slammed. The lock clicked. Kaelen sat in the dark, surrounded by luxury that suddenly felt like a tomb. He stared at the bright red blood soaking the sheets. At the frantic, fragile beat of his heart.

 Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
He was dying. Every beat was a second lost. Tears stung his eyes—another human weakness. He wanted to scream. But Kaelen Varrick did not scream. He forced himself upright, his legs shaking under the crushing weight of his new body. 

He stumbled to the basin, scrubbing the red stain from his arm until his skin was raw. He lifted his gaze to the mirror. The face was the same. The bone structure, the hair. But the eyes. His once-blazing azure eyes were fading. Dulling. 

Becoming ordinary. He bared his teeth at his reflection—feral, desperate, terrified. “I will find you, little human,” he whispered into the empty air. His voice shook. “I will hunt you to the ends of the earth.” He grabbed Winter’s Edge. 

The sword felt heavy in his hand now. It didn’t hum for him anymore. It felt dead. 

“I will make you trust me,” he swore, the tears finally spilling over, hot and humiliating on his cheeks.
“I will make you love me.” A vow. A curse. A prayer for salvation.
“And then,” he breathed,
“I will tear your heart out to start my own.”