Corrupted blood lord

The castle wall rose before Teclos like a massive black cliff, barring his entry.

Lanterns burned along the battlements, their golden light cutting through the night in slow, sweeping arcs. Knights moved above in organized patrols, fully armored with spears in hand and alert eyes. There was not even one lazy guard here. Everyone maintained full order and attention, which made Teclos grimace.

It made him realize that this would be a long, arduous night of constantly being on his toes, with his guard and stealth up.

Teclos crouched in the shadow of a narrow alley across from the outer wall. He pulled the darkness over himself like a second cloak, hiding him even more. The darkness spread throughout his body like ink, and wherever it passed, his presence dimmed until it was nonexistent.

Across the street, Ralph staggered into view.

He was laughing loudly, with one arm around the shoulders of another random man who looked like he would fall over any second with how drunk he was. They stumbled near the gate road, arguing about some debt, then Ralph suddenly shoved him, hard enough to make him crash into a stack of empty crates.

The loud crash split the night, and multiple guards on the wall turned their heads.

"Hey!" a knight called from above. "Move away from there!"

Ralph spread his arms wide and looked up with the most offended expression Teclos had ever seen.

"Oi! The road is free for anyone!"

"Tell those money-grubbing bastards..." the other man slurred as he lay upside down in the crates, fighting the urge to just sleep there.

Ralph looked ahead and saw two guards walking closer toward them.

Then he looked to the side and saw the man already snoring.

Within seconds, Ralph started walking away, not wanting to actually be caught, while mentally apologizing to the man who would probably be thrown into a dungeon now.

But the distraction worked nonetheless, and Teclos took his chance. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

The climbing hook flew upward, wrapped in his mana until it wasn’t noticeable anymore. It caught the edge of the wall with a soft scrape that was swallowed by the noise beneath. Teclos pulled once to test it, then ran.

He overcame the wall quickly with the help of the rope, but a guard was already walking toward him.

Teclos froze.

’Shit.’

The guard walked toward the edge, and Teclos pressed himself flat against the wall. Just in case, he poured more mana into his stealth and around the rope and hook. His presence was nonexistent, but if the guard by chance looked closer, he would have to stab him to death already.

The knight stopped just above him and looked around.

For one terrible second, Teclos thought he would look down. His hand shifted toward the short sword and he readied himself.

The guard luckily turned away and patrolled onward without noticing him.

Teclos hauled himself over the battlement, rolled silently behind a stack of covered crates, and pulled the hook free. The rope vanished into his dark dimension a heartbeat later.

He slipped across the battlements, moving only when the patrols turned their backs or when the lantern light shifted away from him. Twice, he had to hang from the outer side of the wall while knights passed close enough above him that dust fell onto his hood. Once, he nearly ran into a guard coming around a corner too quickly... he couldn’t even sense him, even though he always had his senses unfurled.

Teclos’s hand snapped up, dark fingers forming silently behind the man’s neck.

Teclos sank back into the shadows, across from his previous position before the man looked again.

The knight stared at the empty corner for a moment longer, then shook his head and continued on.

Teclos waited until his footsteps faded. Only then did he let himself breathe again.

Past the outer defenses, the main structure stood broad and pale in the moonlight, all towers, narrow windows, and carved stone. It was beautiful in the same way a drawn sword was beautiful. Cold. Sharp. Made to impress and dominate with authority.

Teclos crossed the courtyard across the wall with dark, spiderlike legs, and then hid under a carriage.

He moved with the black spaces between the lanterns, timing each step with patrol movements and distant sounds. No one saw him. No one even looked close enough to wonder.

Still, finding a way inside took longer than he liked.

For nearly half an hour, he circled the castle’s lower walls, searching for weak spots in their defenses. The front entrance was impossible. The side doors were guarded. The windows were narrow, many of them warded with faintly glowing runes.

Then he found the servants’ entrance.

It was tucked near the rear, beside a narrow kitchen yard where baskets, crates, and water barrels were stacked in neat rows. The door opened every few minutes as servants moved in and out, carrying trays, linens, coal, or baskets of vegetables. There were no knights standing directly beside it, only two patrolling nearby.

That made it the best option.

Teclos waited near the shadow of a storage shed.

A maid approached the door with a folded bundle of cloth in her arms. She walked quickly, her head lowered and her shoulders tense from a long day. Teclos studied the rhythm of her steps.

The moment she opened the door and slipped inside, Teclos followed half a breath behind her, matching the sound of her footsteps so perfectly that his own vanished beneath them. The door closed behind him with a creak.

Warm air hit his face.

The smell of cooked meat, soap, wax, and polished stone filled the corridor.

Teclos pressed himself against the wall as the maid continued forward, unaware that death had followed her inside, had she turned around.

He waited until she turned the corner, then exhaled and immediately realized he had another problem.

He had no map of the castle.

Falcon’s map had only marked old outer structures and possible guard routes. Nothing inside matched cleanly. Corridors split in places that should not have existed. Doors led to pantries, laundry rooms, storage closets, and servant passages that twisted like veins beneath the castle’s skin.

Within minutes, Teclos was lost.

Still, he did not panic and tried to keep a calm and collected thought process. Logically speaking, where would she be? The dungeon. So now all he needed to do was find a staircase leading to the lower floors.

He moved carefully, listening before every turn, feeling for footsteps through the floor, brushing his senses against the walls where he could. Servants were everywhere at first. Maids carrying folded linen. Kitchen boys with baskets. Older women whispering complaints to each other. A man pushing a cart full of firewood.

Teclos slipped around them all.

Sometimes he pressed himself flat against the ceiling beams, cloak hanging still beneath him while servants passed below. Sometimes he ducked into side rooms seconds before patrols turned corners. Once, two knights walked down the corridor ahead, forcing him into a narrow alcove behind a suit of ceremonial armor.

One knight stopped directly beside him.

"Did you hear something?"

Teclos’s breath hitched, and he instantly placed a hand on his sword.

The other knight sighed. "I didn’t hear anything besides the servants and rabid rats."

"My armor does not squeak."

"It does."

"It is enchanted."

"Then it squeaks expensively."

The first knight muttered something and walked on.

Teclos waited until their voices faded before stepping out.

The stealth itself came easier than he expected.

That almost made it worse.

Because sneaking past people was not enough. He needed to find where they kept prisoners. He needed a dungeon, a lower level, a staircase heading somewhere no servant wanted to go.

For a long while, he found nothing.

Only luxury.

Carpets soft enough to swallow footsteps. Painted ceilings. Silver lamps. Carved doors. Warm halls that smelled of flowers and wax.

Every beautiful room made his stomach twist.

Somewhere beneath all of this, Saldia might be bleeding.

Or worse.

He kept moving.

At last, near the western side of the castle, he found a corridor that felt different.

The servants avoided it.

The light was dimmer.

The air was colder.

Two knights stood at the far end, guarding a narrow stairway descending underground.

Teclos stopped in the shadow of a pillar.

There it was.

The way down.

But the path was not open.

Runes glowed faintly along the corners of the corridor, small and discreet, carved into the stone where careless eyes would miss them. Detection wards. Alarm wards. Something else he could not immediately recognize. Farther down, beyond the first two guards, the stairs turned and vanished into darkness.

Teclos pulled the small vial of rune dissolver from Falcon’s ring.

"Three or four runes," Falcon had said.

There were more than three or four.

Teclos cursed silently.

Then he climbed.

Dark hands carried him up the wall and onto the ceiling, where the shadows gathered thickest between the beams. He moved above the first pair of knights, slow and silent, every muscle locked under control. One drop of sweat slid down his jaw and fell.

He caught it with a thread of darkness before it hit the floor.

The first rune blocked the ceiling path just above the stairwell.

Teclos uncorked the vial and let one drop fall onto the carved mark.

The rune hissed softly.

The glow faded.

He moved on.

Down the stairway, the security only grew worse.

Knights stood at checkpoints along the path, never many at once, but always enough to make a fight dangerous. Runes marked the walls. Some were hidden beneath decorative iron plates. Some were carved beneath the lip of steps. Some crossed the ceiling itself, forcing him to stop, dissolve them, and move before the patrols shifted.

By the third checkpoint, the vial was half-empty.

By the fourth, almost gone.

Teclos clung to the ceiling above two knights speaking quietly below.

"Shift changes soon?"

"Another hour."

"Feels longer down here."

"It always does."

Teclos held the vial near the rune blocking his path and watched the last few drops cling to the glass.

If there was another checkpoint after this, he would have to kill.

Silently.

Quickly.

One knight first, throat cut before a sound left him. The second with a dark hand over the mouth and a knife beneath the ribs. Drag both bodies into shadow. Hope no one noticed the missing patrol before he found Saldia.

He hated how easily the plan formed in his mind.

The last drop of dissolver touched the rune.

The glow died.

Teclos moved on.

The stairs curved again.

No more checkpoints.

For once, luck did not spit in his face.

At the bottom stood an iron door.

It was massive, dark, and covered in runes so densely carved that the whole surface seemed to breathe with quiet light. Teclos stared at it, then at the empty vial in his hand.

No dissolver left.

He stored the vial and took out the enchanted lockpicks.

The lock itself was old, heavy, and cruelly complicated. The runes around it pulsed faintly when he touched the first pick to the keyhole. The enchantment inside the tool flared, interrupting the ward.

Thirty seconds.

Maybe less.

Teclos worked fast.

The first pick snapped after twelve.

He threw it into his dark dimension before the broken magic could flare and pulled out another.

The second jammed.

He twisted, felt the rune begin to wake, and yanked it free just before it cracked. Into the darkness it went.

Third.

Fourth.

His breathing stayed steady, but his heart beat like a war drum in his chest.

Then he heard footsteps.

Slow.

Coming down the staircase.

Teclos’s hands moved faster.

The fifth lockpick slid into place, glowing hot between his fingers.

The footsteps continued.

Closer.

Closer.

A turn in the stairs.

Metal shifting.

A quiet sigh.

The lock clicked.

Teclos opened the door just wide enough to slip through, stepped inside, and pulled it shut behind him without a sound.

He pressed his back to the inside of the iron door, knife already in hand.

The footsteps reached the other side.

Stopped.

Teclos did not breathe.

Someone stood there for several seconds.

Then the footsteps turned.

Slowly, they moved back up the stairs.

It was just a patrol a and nothing more.

Teclos waited until the sound faded completely before lowering the knife.

Then he turned around.

And froze.

His stomach lurched so violently he almost vomited.

Whatever he had expected to find beneath the Count’s castle, it was nothing like this.