Scion of blood, p.1
Scion of Blood, page 1
Copyright © 2026 Oleander Blackthorn
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Oleander Blackthorn
Cover font provided by: Dharma Type
Dedication
To all of the fluttering petals on the wind that I do not know the faces of. Should I dance amongst your vibrant hues for years, or should the winds carry you off tomorrow, I’m glad to have known you either way.
Content Warnings
Blood
Mild Gore
Mild and Infrequent Body Horror
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Content Warnings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Chapter 1
“Your Soul, It Bleeds”
Anima held his blade against his hip, a thin line of his own blood dripping down its glistening edge. This was his personal good-luck charm. Something he’d not tell a soul, not even his boss, Casus. Something had to give him an edge over the other assassins, after all. Something to make up for his lack of grace and gesture. And while he did not know it, this silent cutting of his thumb, as well as his whispered prayer to Lunaris, muffled his feet and honed his senses.
Anima was not an especially skilled assassin, though neither was he a bumbling barbarian. He was a nightblade, through and through, a proud dagger of Luna’s Open Hand. His marks died, that’s what mattered. While others carried the pomp and circumstance of harboring the honor of being a member of the Queendom of Sanguinus’ hidden assassination service, he merely cared for getting the job done. That was all he was good for, after all. Something he’d remind himself of every morning as he looked himself over in the mirror.
His mark for tonight was one of Sanguinus’ princes. Asphodel, orphaned prince of his father Vervain and mother Aloysia. Unlike most of the members of the various royal families of Sanguinus, he was an arrogant sort. To Anima, at least. He walked his palace alone, no guard in sight, Hell, Anima had not even seen any roaming the palace grounds as they would in any other noble’s home. Only a few by the entrance, and others by the servant quarters. Bastard either didn’t care to protect his own life, or thought highly enough of himself to not bother with it.
We’ll see if you truly can take care of yourself, your Highness, Anima scoffed to himself as he walked in the shadows behind the stone pillars of the grand entryway. That was another thing he noticed. The entire bloody place was dark! The guards and servants carried torches, but Asphodel, for whatever reason, preferred to saunter about the place whilst basking in the moonlight, his stained-glass windows seemingly purpose-built to let in as much of those soft, serene rays as possible.
Anima supposed the man was a lunaphile. That irked him for some reason he couldn’t quite place. He’s done in people with worse and weirder interests, after all. The noble that had a thing for dancers of the night dressed in the garments of the noble sisters of Lunaris came to mind before he shook the thought back out. Maybe it was the sight of him that caused his consternation. The way his irritatingly handsome mug basked in the sorrowful, sapphire light, for example. Or how his unkept, but still gorgeous, crimson hair caught and scattered that light into the darkness, hovering just slightly over his shoulders. Or perhaps it was that muscular frame hidden underneath his royal regalia, quietly telling the world that he was stronger than he looked, but still pretty and approachable like the rest of his royal ilk.
Anima took a step out from behind the large, ornate pillars, his willingness to strike innate in his blood, only delayed by having to find the right moment to strike. This was not the right time, however. He jumped back the moment he felt the air shift, Prince Asphodel’s eyes quickly darting from the moonlight he so admired to the darkness of the grand entryway. Seems he truly could take care of himself.
How? Anima thought as he cursed under his breath. At this distance he should not have been heard. And in darkness this thick, he should not have been seen. How, then, did Asphodel glean that there was another presence in the room? Was he so used to this darkness that his eyes were as adjusted as an assassin’s?
No, couldn’t be, Anima reasoned between thoughts of running, the fear gripping his legs to the ground. It’s better than an assassin’s. Not even the most skilled of Luna’s Open Hand could see a figure at this distance. And hear? Forget about it. Anima hadn’t a single mark even think they heard his footsteps until he was already but a few feet behind him. This Asphodel, there was something off about him. Far more than his handsome appearance would let on.
“Well, this is certainly interesting,” Asphodel called out into the room, his voice a low, rumbling growl as he fully turned away from the moonlight and gazed upon his entryway. “You might as well come out. I know you are in here somewhere.”
Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad idea. Holding onto the element of surprise at this point might be doing more harm than good, Anima figured. Though, despite now having a feel for the keen alertness of Asphodel, he didn’t have an idea of the prince’s intellect. When he stepped out of the darkness and into the faded moonlight, should he feign ignorance and hide his blade? Or should he take the moment he had right now and strike while he still had the chance?
Anima opted for the latter. His cloak and dagger was more just dagger, after all. Where other assassins could use their tact and silver tongues to pry open their targets, Anima knew he was only good for getting his blade into his prey with thoroughly-bred efficiency. He stepped out of the darkness with a commanding lunge, silver sword in hand, its thin blade barely reflecting any light. Even with Asphodel’s reflexes and the distance between them, Anima was sure his smaller, faster frame would allow him the microsecond he needed to land a decisive blow.
His blade did not meet flesh, however, as he had expected when he nimbly darted up the stairs to the landing Asphodel occupied. Rather, he had thrust his blade into the stained-glass window that was behind the prince, cracking the abstract form of the figure’s leg in the process. Asphodel, meanwhile, had jumped clean out of the way, landing on the connector between the grand staircase and the floor above.
“An assassin, I take it?” Asphodel asked in the same manner a lion would purr whilst playing with its food. “You have gorgeous eyes for someone hiding the bottom half of their face. Pray, why not let me see the visage of who is about to slay me? It would be a disservice if the last view I have of this world is that of someone hiding behind a mask.”
The eyes in question twitched at the prince’s teasing. Anima’s silver eyes were always a cause of anxiety for him, as it was an old saying in Sanguinus that silver irises were the bringers of calamity. That children born with the affliction were omens of times of strife for the family, leading his own parents to abandon him. They had long since been honed into piercing arrow tips, however, hardened by years of hatred and killing. Asphodel did not waiver in the face of this, however, his golden irises steadily glowing with calm confidence.
“I know you can speak,” Asphodel continued, taking a step forward, reaching out to Anima’s almost black, sapphire locks and lifting a set of neatly maintained bangs out of the way of his eyes. “I heard you mutter something under your breath earlier.”
Anima responded in kind with an upward slash, his medium-long hair jostling as he spun and took a step backward, readying his blade the moment he faced the prince again. Asphodel was not struck, however, even at such a short distance, as if he simply had a quicker reaction time than most humans. And if not that, then all humans. Anima was not one to hold much stock in the supernatural, but it was clear to him that he and the prince were not cut from the same cloth.
“Those that have the right call me Anima,” he grunted out as he undid his mask, the same hand reaching into his pocket and pulling out a sheet of parchment directed at the prince. “And I have been tasked with your Writ of Annihilation, dictated by the Court of Sanguinus, calling for the right and just taking of your head.”
That got the prince’s attention, his calm demeanor cracking for just a moment, their brow furrowing. Oh, who could want you dead, Asphodel? He was no doubt wondering the same thing, quickly going through the mental catalogue of his inner circle to suss out who the betrayer was. Not that it mattered to Anima. He was never told the caller of the hits he was tasked with. He only knew that they had to present their plea to the court officials, making a case for their assassination, usually because their target had hidden a crime they had committed that would normally result in a hanging. Perhaps the prince stole away with one too many wives. Certainly looked the type.
“I am not so ignorant that I would call myself a man without enemies,” he mused more to himself than Anima as his hand reached behind his back. “But, I do not think that any of the actions of my life would warrant such an extreme outcry. Do you not find it odd that a humble prince, a mere magistrate to the High Queen who has not delved into the depths of controversy would be issued a Writ of Annihilation? Or are you merely following orders, Dagger of Luna?”
Anima hesitated, his feet planting themselves further back as his body begged him to run. Not just because the air between them went cold, or because Asphodel showed not even a hint of weakness across his chest or wicked grin, but because he had hit Anima’s nail on the head. He had no ambition besides living. Besides getting the job done and drinking cold mead, not rising amongst the ranks like his fellow assassins. His life was following orders and chipping away at the invisible emotional debt between himself and Casus.
“It is not my business to question my orders,” Anima uttered as his voice trembled just slightly, a clear unease to his words. “A Dagger of Luna gets the job done, nothing more.”
Asphodel did his best to hide his laugh as he took yet another step closer, the moonlight reflecting off of Anima’s sword shining a beam of moonshine just over the prince’s eyes. There was not an ounce of fear in them. Hell, not even any doubt. Just the quiet confidence of a lion at home in his den, ready to tear into the unwitting prey that had stumbled in.
“The only thing worse than a man with too much ambition,” he began in his low, growling tone as he pushed Anima’s blade slightly out of the way with his finger, his golden eyes falling back into the darkness, “is a man with none. How have you survived so long in this business? Have you only been killing fattened nobles and bedridden, nepotist children?”
Anima did not know that his emotions were being played like the strings of a harp. His fault, he would suppose in hindsight, given that talking was never his strong suit. He had never conversed with a target before, let alone one with such a gilded tongue. As a result, he had let his anger cloud his fighting instinct, making him lunge forward with his blade aimed at Asphodel’s neck.
This time, his blade did find purchase, though still not in any flesh. Asphodel had revealed his own weapon; a thin sword of blackened silver, not of any make seen in this queendom. It was ancient, that much Anima could tell, a feeling of untold purpose emanating from within its length. Asphodel parried Anima’s attack with relative ease before pulling back, ready for a one-sided duel.
“What in the All-Sinner’s Hell are you?” Anima grunted out between breaths, heaving in and out from the stress of facing a veritable monster. “The way you move, the way you react, you’re not human!”
As Asphodel smiled yet again, he did more than just bear a sickening grin. This time, he opened his mouth, revealing not just his teeth, but gnashing fangs, his canines larger than any man ought to have. This was not the source of his strength, however, but a symptom of it. He was not inhuman, but, beyond human, perhaps. Beyond what a human could achieve. He had been born of calamitous blood.
“I had heard the rumors,” Anima quavered out before steeling his nerves with an audible gulp, his hands tightening on the grip of his sword. “The whispers in bars and the back of alleys that some men are simply born more than just men. They are touched by something. By Lunaris himself, they say. Moonblooded, it’s called. The beasts that walk as men call themselves Moonblooded. Tainted by Lunaris himself, though I suppose you fancy yourself blessed.”
At his words, Asphodel bared his fangs, not a lion in his den, but a wolf on the hunt. A feral, crazed lone wolf that would gnaw Anima’s flesh off of his bones, drinking of his blood and supping on his marrow. Anima would not let himself run, however. The job had to be done. Had to be, or he’d be nothing but a failure. An assassin that could not hit his mark was of no use to anyone.
“Call it what you will,” Asphodel offered as he brought a second hand to his blade. “But when I send you to Hell, know that I do so only so that I can continue living my life in peace.”
Anima searched the prince’s eyes for any sincerity. To see if Asphodel’s birth was the same as his own: an omen. If, like his silver eyes, this “Moonblood” was naught but a name whispered behind closed doors to rationalize a hatred of something otherwise innocuous. Couldn’t be, he eventually figured. If a corrupt man were born with that power, they’d all be subject to their rule. Hence why children suspected of the affliction were culled from the population without a second thought.
“My orders stand as they are,” he finalized, his body still as his heart raged, eyes hardened once more. “We’ll see whose resolve wins out in the end, your Highness!”
He did not make the mistake of thrusting forward once more, that motion being far too easily predicted. Instead, he thrust to the side, causing Asphodel to dodge right, giving Anima an opening to swing on him, one hit being all he would need for the unarmored prince. No matter how much “resolve” Anima had, however, he was woefully outmatched, simply ignorant to how far above a human a fully-realized Moonblooded was.
Asphodel parried the strike with an upward arc, holding his blade aloft for a moment as he stepped forward. Using the strength of this high stance, he then swung the side of his blade toward Anima’s head, hitting him just below the temple with a hard, but shallow strike. He followed up this maneuver with a forward lunge, choosing to attack not with his sword, but with his body, kicking Anima in the side and launching the assassin down the grand staircase.
Was it by mercy, or by naivety, that he lived? Anima could not help but wonder this as he coughed up the contents of his lungs, his vision blurring in and out as Asphodel slowly stepped down the stairs toward him, the moonlight pulsating at his back. He clutched the part of his body the prince had kicked, the pain searing unlike anything he had felt before. He lifted himself using the tip of his blade, quickly deciding that his blood was worth more than his pride before running for his life.
Chapter 2
“Your Blood, It Seethes”
A man does not feel the sting of his death as much as he feels the sting of his defeat. The aching in Anima’s side screamed with every hastened stride, small, but not insignificant drops of ichor falling from his temple. He did not take the time to wipe them from his vision. He was too busy heaving air in and out of his lungs for something so trivial. It was not the first time he ever felt fear, but the first time he felt it so vividly and true.
The rain came to wash away his blood, splattering it onto the roads of gray, concrete brick as he darted between the quiet homes of Sanguinus. Most of them were fully darkened, given the late hour, their miniscule windows vacant, their doors barred shut. Once he was sufficiently away from Asphodel’s palace, he swung into an alley and hugged one of these stone buildings, catching his breath as he sheltered from the sudden summer storm.
He wanted to chastise himself. To tell his aching bones that an assassin that fled from his mark was about as useful as a dagger without a hilt, but he could not summon the will to move, let alone return to Asphodel’s palace. Those eyes were what he remembered most. More than the dread, more than the paralyzing fear, he remembered how those golden irises glowed in the silent night, radiating a quiet confidence as well as a tiny glint of sorrow. What possibly could give a man like him pain? What weight could his heart be carrying?
Eventually, and slowly, Anima pulled himself away from the stone wall, the cloudburst letting up about as quickly as it had come. Times were turbulent, that much was for sure. Perhaps this rain, too, was an omen, same as him. A portent for things to come. He had heard that the weather often turned worse and worse as the Festival of the Bleeding Moon approached, though he was just a child the last time he had lived through one.
He checked his forehead now that he had the calmness to do so. He was still bleeding, though just barely, the schism of skin throbbing just underneath the pads of his fingers. The wound was excessively shallow, likely not even chipping his skull. The way he had swung his blade in that wide arc, it was all for show. A way to make his flat strike look terrifying when, in actuality, he had pulled his attack the moment he made contact with Anima’s skin, leaving him knocked and wounded but not in any danger of dying. Asphodel had shown him mercy.
