Covenant of Condoriah
✠ Kaelith ✠
Voice of the Hollow Star – Arakhan
The air shimmered faintly around him—heat rising from stone, or perhaps from him alone. Kaelith's approach was not heralded by drums or banners, but by the parting of the crowd in reverent unease. The Voice of the Hollow Star walked with controlled steps, as befit his station and sacrament.
His ceremonial armor bore lacquered bloodsteel, dark and volcanic, shaped with jagged etchings like veins carved by fire. Crimson runes glowed softly at his throat and down each forearm—no artifice, but living ink, drawn and sealed in rites too old to explain quickly.
He stopped precisely one pace from the Sky-Sent woman.
A scientist. A healer. Perhaps a dissector. Perhaps more.
Kaelith regarded her with stillness. And then, gently, he looked to the vial in her hand—the one that shimmered faintly gold with Solarborn blood.
His voice, when it came, was smooth obsidian.
“Does it sing to you, Sky-Sent?”
A pause.
He stepped forward, a careful, respectful half-step. His voice remained steady yet crowd around them fell silent there was tension among the golden folk of Doriah and this representative of Arakhan - Kaelith of Vulkhaar's Ash, spokesman for the Cholerkin.
“Do you know the name of the blood you’ve taken?”
There was no accusation in his voice, even so the Solarborn near the Chiss medic watched him closely.
Kaelith paid them no heed. Old grudges were slow to heal, memories of blood linger. The ashen-skinned, raven haired noble offered insight from his people, even if the Dorians were mistrusting.
“It glows because it remembers. You have placed a memory in a bottle. That blood you draw without name was born in the crucible of our wars. It is not only life. It is judgment. Record. A ritual made flesh, passed from father and mother to son and daughter in times of peace - and returned to the land from the fallen in times of war.”
He gestured subtly to his own arm, where a line of scarred marks ran like a ledger—each wound deliberate, ritualistic, purposeful.
“Among my people, blood is not taken lightly. It is offered, or taken with consequence.”
His eyes flicked toward her tools. Then back to hers.
“But I know your hands do not mean desecration. You seek understanding. As do we.”
He withdrew something from a pouch at his hip—a folded cloth of black and bronze, which he opened slowly to reveal a small, chiseled orange crystal with a sharp edge. Upon it he slit his hand, cutting single line which sizzled upon contact with the orange crystal implement. The blood of Kaelith collected at the top of the ritual knife like salt crystals in oversaturated water, pulled from his palm in scarlet rivulets. A gemstone - an amalgamation of the glowing powdered crystals formed where the his blood gathered on the blade. Mineral from his own bloodstream, amassed to small shimmering crystal, orange-red in color.
“This is my offering. Not to your tools. To you.”
Kaelith extended it with both hands, a rare gesture of honor from a Cholerkin priest.
“Let this speak between us. My blood carries memory of five trials, two judgments, one absolution. You will find it… reactive.”
Only now did he soften, just slightly.
“I do not ask that you cease. Just that you see. That you come to know what power hums beneath the surface here. If your science is your faith—then let it be tempered by reverence.”
His eyes narrowed faintly.
“And if it is not faith, then let it at least be caution.”
Then, more gently:
“We—I—would see your knowledge shared. But not at the cost of awakening what sleeps beneath old rites.”
He did not expect her to understand all at once. That was the point.
He was not here to win her favor.
He was here to earn her respect—and perhaps, in return, offer his.
