Vescrutia: Legacy

[Continued From Here ]

Khei awoke with the taste of iron on her tongue and a headache that felt like it had been forged in a caldera.
She groaned softly, burying her face into the plush fabric of the unfamiliar bedding. Her temples throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and every blink of her eyes sent tiny daggers of light ricocheting through her skull. "Ugh", she thought, "..how much wine did I drink?"

Far too much, apparently.

Fragments of the night before drifted back in pieces—Qarinah’s smirk over the rim of her glass, Zeik’s inscrutable expression as he listened, the quiet weight of what they had asked of her. What she’d agreed to.

She sat up slowly, wincing as the movement sent a fresh wave of nausea rolling through her. The room was dark, cooled by thick curtains that kept the morning sun at bay. Somewhere nearby, she could hear the faint crackle of candlelight and the rhythmic hum of power being drawn from ancient, unseen places.

Today was the day.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat there for a moment, elbows on knees, face in hands. The reality hit her in stages, like distant thunder rolling closer: she was leaving. Not just Steelhollow, or Edo, Muu or whatever dust-choked stretch of land Qarinah had settled her Castle upon. She was going off world. Her world.

And for what?

To join an interstellar legion of warriors and mystics? To master the eldritch monstrosity that clawing at her insides? To train alongside beings who could bend stars and sunder gods?

Yeh, She thought. No pressure.

Khei snorted faintly at the thought, rubbing at her eyes. But beneath the sarcasm, beneath the hangover and the wine-soaked bravado, there was something else.

Conviction.

She wasn’t doing this just to learn how to keep Ulduin at bay. She was doing it because she had to. Because the Horsemen were coming, and when they arrived, she’d need to be something more than a vessel with a temper. She’d need to be a weapon. A shield. Something worthy of standing on the same field as monsters that had watched civilizations razed to the ground.

Still… the nerves clawed at her. It was one thing to fight mercenaries and bounty hunters. It was another to leave your homeworld behind and swear loyalty to a force most people didn’t even know existed.

Khei rose unsteadily, dragging her fingers through her hair, her mouth dry and her bones aching from poor sleep and too much vintage. Her clothes from the day before were folded neatly across a nearby bench, and next to them, a basin of cool water and a fresh towel.
—After splashing her face and pulling herself together, Khei made her way down the long corridor, barefoot and silent, until she reached the chamber.

The door was already open, and the room beyond was aglow with flickering candlelight. Crystals hovered midair, suspended in perfect stasis, each one humming with quiet, arcane purpose.

Khei paused at the threshold, eyes tracing the sigils etched along the floor in chalk, blood, and something that shimmered like starlight.

Clearly ceremonial. Definitely powerful.

Khei took a breath before she stepped inside. The scent of ash, jasmine, and purpose curled around her like a whisper.

This was it.

No more running. No more hiding in border towns and pretending she was just another drifter with secrets. Destiny awaitied her. And whatever came next—tests, trials, gods, monsters—she’d meet it head on.

Khei exhaled, her gaze sliding toward Qarinah, who stood poised at the far end of the room, adjusting the alignment of a floating crystal.

"Geez, Q.. talk about overkill..” Khei muttered as she further expected the decor lining the floor and walls, the abundance of candles and crysyals. They were skull and Ouji Board away from a seance. “..What, no trumpet and orchestra?"

Qarinah snickered in response to Khei, but she didn’t miss a step.

She held a whisper of blood between two fingers, letting it fall into into the geometric symbol like ink bleeding through parchment. The suspended crystals that orbited the ritual ring responded instantly, their glow deepening to a low, resonant hum

“I was considering a parade..” she said without looking up, her lips curled into a smirk. “Perhaps a crowd of strangers to applaud as you embark on your perilous quest..”

She turned then—just enough for one of her golden eyes to catch the candlelight, reflecting its glow like a steel kissed by fire.

“This is not pageantry, darling. It’s not for your amusement, or mine.” Her voice dipped lower, more solemn now. “As glamorous as it is, this ritual is old. Older than I've cared to learn, but has been passed to me in the event I ever accepted the Conclave's invitation.”

She walked along the outer edge of the sigil with reverent precision, her gown trailing like spilled ink behind her. The floor responded to her steps, patterns pulsing faintly with every motion. The air smelled of sulfer, copper, jasmine, and myrrh—a pungent aroma that only thickened beneath the candlelight.

“The last time I performed these rites,” Qarinah continued, fingers brushing against a floating crystal as she passed. It flickered, responding to her touch like a creature attuned to her touch. “I stopped before the final seal. Chose to remain here, and sink my roots in blood, bone, soil and stone.”

She reached the last crystal and paused. Her fingers hovered above it, not yet touching.

Then she looked up—fully this time. Her gaze locked onto Khei’s, stripped of charm, of pretense.

“But you… you would dare to go further than I did.”

The silence between them was thick and humming.

“This is the point of no return, Khei. When the gate opens, you’ll be little more than a stranger exposed to a strange world.”

She placed her fingers to the final crystal and It flared in response with a deep, golden pulse, like a heartbeat awakening for the first time in centuries. Then it stilled. Waiting.

“If there’s even a shadow of doubt in you,” Qarinah said softly, “speak it now. Once I finish this, the door opens. And after you step through it… there will be no turning back.”

“God, you’re so dramatic.” She said from the edge of the ceremonial circle, arms crossed loosely over her chest, shoulders drawn taut despite her casual tone.

She exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand across her brow as if trying to press the tension from her skull.

“Yes, yes, I understand the implications of the dangerous portal,” she muttered. Her tone was breezy, dismissive even—but the faint tremble in her fingers as she lowered her hand whispered a quieter truth.

Khei had already spent the night dismantling her doubts, piece by piece. Picking through every question, and weighing every fear. By morning, all that remained was a quiet, hollowed-out certainty—brittle, but unshaken. Whatever sliver of hesitation that lingered had been buried beneath the weight of her resolve.

“..seriously.. this might be worst going-away party ever.”

The corner of her mouth tilted upward in a dry smirk, but her hands twitched at her sides, nerves rippling through the mask she wore.

Qarinah didn’t flinch at Khei’s sarcasm. She merely blinked slowly, like someone watching a storm from behind reinforced glass—admiring the spectacle, untouched by the fury.

“Oh, how I’ll miss your charm.”

Her voice was even, unhurried, each syllable precise. She drifted forward, stopping just shy of the ceremonial circle, the hem of her gown brushing the engraved runes like silk across frost.

“Upon your return—I will not be here to greet you.”
Her tone remained unchanged, but the weight of the words settled over the room like dust upon stone.
“I will be… resting. Preparing.”

She glanced back at Khei, her expression unreadable—save for the faintest flicker of something ancient and wistful in her eyes.

“But the castle will remain,” she continued. “And should you need it, so will its walls. You are welcome to stay as long as you like.”

A pause.

“Although.." her lips curled with the ghost of a smirk, “you don’t strike me as the sort to live in another’s fortress. I recall you once mentioned something about building your own.”

Without waiting for a reply, she lifted her hands. Her fingers danced through the air like a maestro conducting a silent, unseen symphony. The runes flared one by one—deep red, then violet, then black as void.

The floor groaned beneath them as the circle came alive.

“I invoke the Rite,” she intoned, her voice now threaded with power. “And shatter the Veil.”

The air split with a sound like tearing cloth, and the portal began to bloom—slow, spiraling, whispering secrets in a language not meant for the living.

Qarinah stepped back, regal and composed, her final words barely more than a murmur beneath the portal’s rising hum:

“Until we meet again, my dear. Do try to be careful.”

Khei didn’t speak at first.

She just stood at the edge of the portal, the swirling vortex casting strange, shifting light across her face—colors that didn’t belong to this world.

Her arms fell loose at her sides, but her fingers flexed unconsciously, like a soldier waiting for a war that hadn’t yet begun. She couldn't deny the anxiety and anticipation she had for awaited her on the otherwise. The challenges, the enemies, the opportunity to attain something beyond her wildest dreams.

But beneath that, she lamented what she was leaving behind.

"Until we meet again, my dear. Do try to be careful. "

She hated this part.
The stillness. The expectation. The sentiment wrapped inside something as fragile as a farewell.

Khei had never been good at goodbyes.

The Niyotomi had trained her to endure, to obey, to suffer in silence. Not to part. Not to be missed.
Born with Ulduin sealed inside her, Khei's life had always been forfeit—her death preordained and praised as sacred. A blessing. A burden. A quiet execution disguised as honor.

No one asked her how she felt about it.

That’s why she ran—before the ceremony, before they could bind her within the sealing altar, and drown her cries in chants.

No goodbyes. No last embraces.
And if she were honest, no one back then had earned one. Even her mother and father had chosen their fear of the monster over their child.

And now, here stood this woman—this vampire of all things—offering her a home, behind words that sounded dangerously close to love.

Khei didn’t know how to respond to that.

She wasn’t ready for it, and wasn't sure she'd ever be.

But she felt it anyway. The weight of it. The absurdity. The warmth of her kindness.

It sat in her chest like a smoldering coal beneath a blanket of snow—unseen, but searing.

She turned her head—just once. A glance back, toward Qarinah standing serene in the arcane glow, framed like a figure straight out of a dream.

Something tightened behind her ribs.
She exhaled—quiet and sharp, like pulling a blade from flesh.

Then, aloud—she said only this:

“I’ll see you when you wake up.”

And without waiting for a response, she stepped forward into the light, allowing the portal to snap shut behind her with a thunderous snap.