The Shattered Crowns

Sylvan stood watch outside the small, decaying house, his lantern carefully tucked away to avoid casting any telltale light. The alley was a secluded stretch, shrouded in shadow and mist. Word among the Silver-blood hunters was that a Tainted-blood prowled this forgotten corner of Franzisch, a monster that had already claimed the lives of multiple hunters. It was a King of Beasts, or so the whispers said.

The faint scraping of claws broke the silence, followed by the sound of ragged snarls echoing off the walls. Sylvan pressed himself against the crumbling stone, still as the night itself. He tracked the creature's movements, his gray eyes sharp and cold. The monstrous silhouette clung to the wall, its sinewy frame twisting unnaturally as it climbed. Seven furred appendages sprouted grotesquely from its back, writhing like serpents. Tendrils gripped a broken body, still dripping with blood, as the creature scaled the building and disappeared into its lair.

Sylvan's grip on the vial in his hand tightened as he caught a glimpse of the monster's grotesque maw. Its mouth cracked and split into four sections, a gaping nightmare of jagged teeth and pulsating sinew. With a sickening crunch, the creature devoured its prey, muscles convulsing as it consumed flesh and bone alike.

The people of Franzisch called this type of Tainted-blood the "King of Beasts" or "the Bloodied Dead," as though it were a singular entity haunting their streets. How little they understood. There were far more of these monsters lurking in the shadows than they dared to imagine. The streets of Franzisch were crawling with them, each as horrifying as the last.

Sylvan remained motionless, the vial steady in his gloved hand. He uncorked it and dropped in a few flakes of resin, the faintest popping sound emanating as the mixture began to react. With a practiced motion, he lobbed the vial at the creature. The glass shattered against its grotesque back, and the liquid seeped into its flesh. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then the monster screeched, tearing at the walls in a frenzy.

It burst from its lair in a blur of movement, landing with a bone-jarring thud on the cobblestone below. The air itself seemed to quiver under its rage. Blood dripped from its canine muzzle, its twisted form trembling as it hissed, "You dare interrupt my feast!"

Sylvan stepped forward, his voice even. "I don't care about your meal. I need information, and you're going to give it to me."

The creature snarled, its seven appendages flaring outward. "I'll eviscerate you, hunter. Your bones will decorate my lair."

Sylvan snapped his fingers, and the reaction from the earlier vial ignited, flames leaping across the creature's back. The fire roared to life, devouring flesh and fur alike. The monster shrieked in agony, its once-imposing form writhing on the rooftop like a dying insect. The scent of charred flesh and burnt blood filled the alley as Sylvan approached, pulling another vial from his belt. This one swirled with a smoky white liquid, volatile and deadly.

He crouched down in front of the creature, his boots clicking against the roof tiles. "You're going to talk now," he said calmly, "or I'll show you what this does."

The monster snapped its jaws, trying to lunge at him despite its weakened state. Sylvan uncorked the vial just slightly, letting the faintest whiff of its contents escape. The creature flinched, the acidic vapor eating into the air around them.

"This," Sylvan said, his voice low, "will decompose the blood in your veins. That precious, tainted blood you value so highly? It will become nothing but iron and air. Painful, messy, and irreversible. Shall we test it?"

The creature stilled, its bloodied fangs bared. "You Silver-blood hunters think yourselves gods," it growled, voice thick with loathing. "You kill what you call monsters, but you are the real monsters."

Sylvan arched a brow. "I'll take that as a compliment. Now, tell me what I want to know, or I'll make sure you regret the last breath you take."

The creature hesitated, its seven appendages twitching. Finally, it hissed, "Under the orphanages... they—"

Its words were cut off as its head exploded in a spray of gore. Sylvan barely flinched, wiping a splatter of blood from his cheek. "Damn it," he muttered, standing. Just like the others. Another Tainted-blood silenced before it could reveal anything useful.

He tossed the white vial onto the creature's remains, ensuring there would be no blood left for the other monsters to consume. The body bloated grotesquely as the reaction took hold, turning flesh to iron and air. Sylvan turned and descended to the cobbled street below, his thoughts already elsewhere. At least this one had given him something—orphanages. A lead, though a grim one.

The Lunar Storm mist clung to Sylvan's coat as he walked, its cold, otherworldly presence biting at his skin. The dense, alien fog whispered against his leathers, trying to pull at the moon-eye silk lining. He sighed and pulled a small vial from his belt, snapping his fingers to prime the reaction. He downed the concoction in a single gulp, coughing as its warmth spread through his body. The lethargy creeping into his mind receded, his senses sharpening once more.

The streets of Franzisch were eerily quiet, save for the distant creak of wood and the occasional drip of water from rain-soaked rooftops. This city, for all its beauty, was rotten to its core. Its rapid expansion had birthed disease, poverty, and corruption, leaving the people to fend for themselves in a place that cared little for their survival.

But why orphanages? Sylvan frowned, his thoughts circling back to the monster's last words. Orphanages were cesspools of Snake's Blood, their residents barely managing to scrape by. The hunters visited them often, screening the children for signs of Venadicta infection. Yet the Tainted-blood seemed to be using them for something. What could they possibly want with a place already so ravaged by misfortune?

As he walked, his hand drifted to the cisquedia at his side—a blade forged from karnen chitin during his years in Cordia. His fingers brushed its hilt, and for a moment, his mind slipped back to those frozen wastes.

The karnen. The Princes of Ruin. Monsters so vast and horrifying that even the Tainted-blood paled in comparison. Sylvan could still see their corpses, sprawled across battlefields, their enormous bodies crushing entire hills. Their pincers could shear through steel, their armored exoskeletons impervious to ordinary weapons. He remembered the makeshift weapons Cordians had forged from their remains—blades and arrows strong enough to pierce even a Prince's champion.

And then there were the Generals. Sylvan's grip tightened on the cisquedia. He had seen one once—just once—and it had been enough to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Enare, the Czar of Swords. A General of the Prince of Dreams. Its ethereal form was more armor than flesh, its chest a gaping void filled with a glimmering, glass-like heart. Blades bounced harmlessly off its impenetrable form, and those who looked into its glass heart were lost in their own desires, trapped in an endless cycle of wanting. It had taken everything—everything—to survive that encounter. And even now, Sylvan wasn't sure he'd truly escaped.

The orphanage loomed ahead, a dilapidated structure barely holding itself together. Sylvan wrinkled his nose as the catalyst from earlier began to wear off, fatigue creeping back into his body. He knocked on the wooden door, his knuckles rapping sharply against the rotting wood.

After a moment, a woman's voice called out, trembling with trepidation. "Who's there?"

"A Silver-blood hunter," Sylvan replied.

The door remained closed. "Go away," she snapped. "We don't need your kind of trouble here."

Sylvan sighed, already losing patience. "I'm afraid it's hunting business. I need to look around."

The door creaked open, barely wide enough for a woman's wary face to peek through. Her features were lined with exhaustion, and her eyes darted nervously to the mist swirling outside. The faint haze of the Lunar Storm clung to the threshold, curling into the room like ghostly fingers. It wasn't enough to cause harm—not yet—but enough to send a shiver through the uninitiated. She recoiled slightly at the sight of it, pulling the door closer to her body.

Sylvan refrained from pointing out how careless she was being. A door left ajar, even by the smallest crack, could be an invitation for death in the night. If he had been a Tainted-blood or a Venedicta, she and the children inside would already be dead. Still, he said nothing. It wasn't fair to judge the people of Franzisch too harshly. They didn't truly understand the dangers that prowled their streets under the veil of mist and darkness.

"I don't want trouble," the woman said, her voice brittle but laced with defiance. "The children are sleeping. Leave them be."

Sylvan gave her a cold, unflinching stare before stepping forward. She scrambled back, clutching the door as though it could stop him, but she didn't try to bar his way. Once inside, Sylvan surveyed the cramped room, his boots scuffing against the worn wooden floor. The orphanage was suffocatingly small for the number of children it housed. Row after row of cots, many of them empty or crudely patched together, lined the walls. The faint scent of damp wood and old straw filled the air, mingling with the lingering chill of the Lunar Storm.

The door shut behind him with a soft groan, and the woman hissed, her voice low but sharp. "The children are sleeping," she repeated, each word laced with irritation, a pointed barb aimed at the intrusion.

Sylvan ignored her, his eyes scanning the cots, pausing briefly on the frail shapes curled beneath threadbare blankets. Far too few beds for the number of children. His gaze lingered on the shadows shifting in the dim light, noting every detail. He could feel the woman's glare boring into his back.

"Enough of this—" she began, stepping forward to confront him.

Sylvan turned his head just slightly, casting her a glance over his shoulder. His gray eyes, hardened and cold, carried the weight of a thousand hunts, and the malefic light in them silenced her mid-sentence. She faltered, her words dying in her throat as she took an involuntary step back.

"Wake them up," Sylvan said, his tone even but resolute.

"I will do no such—" she started to protest.

"Either you do it," Sylvan interrupted, "or I will."

The sneer that twisted her face was venomous, but the fear lurking behind her eyes gave her away. She exhaled sharply through her nose, then turned toward the cots. "Come here, children," she called, her voice forced into a semblance of calm. "We have a guest."

Sylvan crouched down, sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor, his lantern resting beside him. One by one, the children stirred, their small faces peeking out from the safety of their blankets. The first child, a boy with unkempt hair and wide, fearful eyes, woke fully and shirked back at the sight of Sylvan. His presence, with his tall frame and dark leathers, was hardly comforting to the young.

Sylvan sighed softly and reached for the brim of his hat. With deliberate care, he removed it, letting the dim light catch his face. He wasn't handsome anymore; two jagged scars ran across his cheeks, marring what had once been a clean visage. His black hair was short and combed back, away from his gray eyes. Eyes that marked him as a hunter, both feared and mistrusted.

The boy's fear did not entirely dissipate, but he stopped retreating. It was a small victory. The other children began to rouse, rubbing their eyes and clutching at their blankets as they shuffled closer to the woman who ran the orphanage. She had taken a seat in an old rocking chair, her arms crossed tightly as she watched Sylvan with barely veiled disdain.

"What is it you wish to ask," she said, her tone biting, "now that you've gone and woken the lot of them?"

"I simply wish to make sure they're healthy," Sylvan lied, his voice steady and devoid of emotion.

The woman scoffed, clearly unimpressed. "And what care does a hunter have for orphans now?" she asked, her words dripping with venom. "Bold of you to assume any of them are well enough to lose sleep over such a foolish 'check-up.'"

The children, sensing the tension, did what children always did: they broke it. A small girl tugged at the woman's sleeve, offering a toothy grin as she scrambled into her lap. The others followed suit, clustering around her, laughing and clinging to her as though she were their anchor in the storm.

It was a smaller girl, no older than Irina, who surprised Sylvan by stepping forward. Her chin jutted out defiantly, her hands planted firmly on her hips as she declared, "You can check me first."

Sylvan turned his attention fully to her. His gaze softened, just slightly. The first signs of Snake's Blood infection always manifested along the collarbones and at the fingertips. A subtle discoloration, a faint hardening of the skin—it was a slow poison that claimed its victims gradually, creeping through their veins until there was nothing left of the person they had been.

He leaned closer, examining her carefully. To his surprise, there was nothing. No discoloration, no scarring, no signs of infection. She was completely healthy. It could have been a fluke.

"Next," he said, waving her away. The girl scampered back to the group, her small chest puffed out with pride.

An older boy stepped forward next, his shoulders squared as though bracing for a fight. Sylvan repeated the process, his sharp eyes scanning every inch of the boy's exposed skin. Again, there was nothing. No signs of Snake's Blood. No corruption.

The next child stepped forward, and the next, and the next after that. Each one was the same—perfectly healthy. No swelling, no discolored veins, no hardened skin. Nothing.

Sylvan's brows furrowed as unease began to creep in. It was impossible. Orphanages were breeding grounds for Snake's Blood. Poor sanitation, malnutrition, and close quarters made them ideal environments for the sickness to spread. He had never encountered an orphanage where not a single child showed signs of infection.

Yet here they were, one by one, standing before him without so much as a blemish. He glanced at the woman in the rocking chair, who now watched him with a mix of satisfaction and skepticism. She clearly took his silence as vindication.

"See?" she said, her tone sharp. "I told you there was no reason to wake them. Now, unless you have any real business here, I'd ask you to leave."

Sylvan ignored her, his mind churning. Something wasn't right. These children weren't just healthy—they were untouched. Unblemished. It didn't make sense.

"Impossible," he muttered under his breath.

The woman caught the word and narrowed her eyes. "What's impossible?" she snapped.

Sylvan rose slowly, placing his hat back on his head. His expression was unreadable as he turned toward the door. "Nothing," he said flatly. "Thank you for your time."

He left without another word, but his mind raced as he stepped back into the misty streets of Franzisch. Something was wrong, and he intended to find out what.