Chapter 9: The Hunt

The Crimson Wall held for nearly six hours.

Varen felt it collapse from miles away—a sudden absence in his essence, like a thread snapping under tension. The technique had drained him more than expected, and the corruption in his veins had risen by two full percentage points. A necessary cost, but one he couldn't afford to repeat.

"They're through," he told Jak, who had been setting a grueling pace through increasingly difficult terrain.

"How long do we have?"

"Depends on how cautious they're being. The wall's collapse will have scared them—they'll know what they're dealing with now." Varen paused to catch his breath, hands on his knees. "A few hours, maybe. Less if they push their horses hard."

"Then we push harder."

The mountain path had narrowed to a thread, winding along cliff faces that dropped away into misty oblivion. One wrong step would mean death—but speed was more important than safety now. They moved as fast as the treacherous footing allowed, trusting their reflexes to prevent fatal mistakes.

"The Bleeding Falls," Jak said as they rounded a particularly nerve-wracking corner. "That's our best chance. If we reach them before the Inquisition catches up, we might be able to lose them in the approach to College territory."

"Sera warned me about the Falls. Said not to drink the water."

"Who's Sera?"

"Someone I met in a dream. She claimed to speak for the Hidden College." Varen scrambled over a rock formation that blocked the path. "She said the Falls offer visions—but the cost is too high."

"Visions of what?"

"Past and future. She wasn't specific." Varen reached the top of the formation and turned to help Jak up. "She also mentioned an admission test. Something about blood demanding blood."

"Encouraging." Jak accepted the help, his silver daggers gleaming at his hips. "Did she say anything useful? Like how not to die in the next few hours?"

"Just to trust the grimoire. And to be ready."

They continued climbing, the path growing steeper and more treacherous with every mile. The air grew thin, making each breath a conscious effort. Varen's muscles screamed for rest, but rest meant death—or worse, capture.

*The Inquisition won't simply kill you*, the grimoire observed. *They'll want to study you first. A Natural with a genuine grimoire is too valuable to waste on a quick execution. They'll keep you alive, extract everything you know, and then begin the real experiments.*

"Not helping."

*Understanding the stakes often helps. Humans are remarkably resilient when they know what they're avoiding.*

---

They reached the Bleeding Falls at sunset.

The name was grimly appropriate. The waterfall poured from a cliff high above, but instead of clear water, it ran red—deep crimson that caught the dying sunlight and glowed like liquid fire. The pool at its base was the same color, steam rising from its surface despite the cold mountain air.

"Blood water," Jak breathed. "I thought it was just a name."

"It is blood." Varen's senses could feel it—the essence that saturated every drop, the memories and power that swirled in the crimson depths. "Or something that was blood once. The residue from the Crimson War, concentrated over three thousand years."

The grimoire vibrated with hunger. *Drink*, it urged. *The Falls contain knowledge beyond anything I can teach you. Memories of the greatest practitioners who ever lived. Power that could advance your training by decades.*

"Sera said not to."

*Sera is cautious. The Falls have risks, yes, but for a Natural of your potential, the rewards could be extraordinary.*

Varen stared at the crimson pool, feeling its pull. The water called to something deep in his blood, promising secrets, understanding, the answers to questions he hadn't even thought to ask yet.

"Don't," Jak said sharply. "I can see it in your eyes—something's tempting you. Don't give in."

"The grimoire says—"

"The grimoire isn't human. It doesn't understand what it means to lose yourself." Jak grabbed Varen's arm, pulling him back from the pool's edge. "Your dream-woman warned you. Trust that warning."

*He doesn't understand*, the grimoire insisted. *He can't feel what you feel. The Falls are meant for practitioners like you—*

"Enough." Varen shook off both the grimoire's influence and Jak's grip. "We need to find a way across. The College territory should be on the other side."

The Falls had created a natural barrier—the pool was too wide to jump, and the water itself seemed actively hostile. Tendrils of crimson reached up from the surface as they approached, grasping blindly at anything that came too close.

"There." Jak pointed to a series of rocks that jutted from the pool at irregular intervals. "Stepping stones. If we're quick and careful—"

"The water will grab anyone who hesitates."

"Then we don't hesitate."

Jak went first, demonstrating the route with the suicidal confidence of someone who'd spent his life taking impossible chances. He leaped from stone to stone, the crimson tendrils reaching for him each time but never quite catching hold.

Varen followed, his heart pounding with each jump. The blood water seemed to recognize him—the tendrils were more aggressive, reaching higher, grasping more desperately. He felt their touch several times, ice-cold despite the steam, leaving red marks on his skin that faded slowly.

*Come back*, the Falls seemed to whisper. *We have so much to show you.*

He made the final jump and collapsed on the far shore, gasping. Jak was already scanning the terrain ahead, his silver eyes alert for new threats.

"How do you feel?"

"Contaminated." Varen looked at his hands—the marks from the tendrils were still visible, faintly glowing. "The water left something behind. I can feel it trying to... integrate."

"Fight it."

"I'm trying." Varen focused his will, pushing the foreign essence out of his system. It resisted—the power of the Falls was seductive, offering comfort and knowledge if he'd just stop fighting. But he could also feel what lurked beneath that offer. Hunger. The desire to consume, to absorb, to add him to the collective memory of everyone who'd ever drowned in those crimson depths.

"No," he said aloud, and the word carried power. The marks faded completely, and the whispers fell silent.

*Well done*, the grimoire said, with something approaching respect. *Few resist the Falls so completely. You're stronger than I realized.*

"Or more stubborn."

*Often the same thing.*

---

The terrain beyond the Falls was different.

Where the approach had been wild and untamed, this landscape showed signs of cultivation. Trees grew in orderly rows. Paths were clearly marked with stone cairns. The very air felt regulated, controlled, like the inside of a massive greenhouse.

"We're in College territory," Varen said, his blood sense confirming what his eyes suggested. "I can feel the wards."

"Friendly or hostile?"

"Watching. They know we're here." He could sense the attention like a weight on his skin—invisible observers studying them, evaluating. "We should follow the path. They'll lead us where they want us to go."

The path wound through the manicured forest, occasionally crossing bridges over streams that ran clear rather than crimson. The order was almost unsettling after days of wilderness—it reminded Varen of the Academy's gardens, a nature carefully tamed to serve human purposes.

They walked for perhaps an hour before the path opened into a clearing. And there, waiting for them, were three figures in crimson robes.

"Varen Kross," the central figure said. It was a woman's voice, and with a shock of recognition, Varen realized it was the same voice from his dream. "You made it. I wasn't certain you would."

"Sera Nightbloom?"

"In person, this time." She pushed back her hood, revealing the face he'd glimpsed in the vision—pale, austere, with eyes that glowed the deep red of fully embraced blood alchemy. "Welcome to the Hidden College."

"Thank you for the warning. About the Falls."

"I see you took it." Sera's gaze moved to Jak. "And you brought a silver practitioner. Interesting. Helena Quicksilver's son, if I'm not mistaken."

Jak stiffened. "You knew my mother?"

"We trained together, once. Before she decided our methods were too passive for her tastes." Sera's expression was unreadable. "She was brilliant. Reckless, but brilliant. I was sorry to hear of her death."

"The Inquisition—"

"We know. We always know." Sera gestured to her companions, who moved to flank the clearing. "Speaking of which, you have pursuers. Forty Inquisition soldiers, perhaps six hours behind you. We need to decide what to do about them."

"Can you stop them?"

"Stop them? Child, we could annihilate them. The College has defenses that the Empire hasn't seen in three thousand years." Sera's smile was cold. "But that would reveal our location. Would sacrifice centuries of careful obscurity. So instead, we'll do something more subtle."

"What?"

"We'll make them forget you exist."

---

Sera's companions were specialists in silver alchemy, Varen learned. Their particular skill was memory manipulation—the ability to rewrite the past as it existed in someone's mind.

"It's delicate work," Sera explained as they walked deeper into College territory. "Memories are fragile things. Push too hard, and you destroy the mind entirely. But done properly, you can convince someone that events never happened. That people they were chasing never existed."

"You're going to erase us from the Inquisition's memory?"

"Just from the memories of this particular squad. They'll return to their superiors with confused reports of a false trail, a wild goose chase. Some will be punished for wasting resources. Others will simply be reassigned." Sera shrugged. "It's not a permanent solution—someone, somewhere, still knows you exist. But it buys time."

"Time for what?"

"For your training." They emerged from the forest onto a ridge overlooking a valley. And there, spread across the valley floor, was the Hidden College.

It was larger than Varen had imagined—not a single building but a complex of structures, towers, and plazas arranged in patterns that seemed to follow principles he couldn't quite grasp. The architecture was clearly old, dating from before the Crimson War, but it was also clearly maintained. Lights glowed in windows, figures moved along walkways, and the whole place hummed with a power that made Varen's blood sing in response.

"Beautiful," he breathed.

"It's home." For the first time, Sera's voice held warmth. "Three thousand years we've survived here, hidden from the Empire, preserving knowledge they tried to burn. Every blood alchemist you see below represents generations of careful teaching and protection."

"How many are there?"

"Students? Perhaps fifty at any given time. Faculty, another twenty. Support staff, researchers, archivists—maybe two hundred in total." Sera began descending toward the valley. "Small, compared to the Academy you fled. But every one of us would have been executed if the Empire found us. Quality has always been more important than quantity."

Jak had been silent since the revelation about his mother, but now he spoke. "And silver practitioners? Are there others like me?"

"A few. Silver alchemy is rarer than crimson—it requires a different kind of essence, a different temperament. Your mother was the last true master we trained." Sera's expression softened slightly. "If you wish to stay, to learn what she could not teach you, we would welcome you. Helena's son deserves the chance she chose not to give him."

"I didn't know she chose anything."

"She chose to protect you from this world. To give you a normal life, or as normal as a smuggler's child could have." Sera reached the valley floor and turned to face them. "She was wrong, perhaps. But her intentions were good."

Jak's jaw tightened, but he nodded. "I'll stay. Learn what I can."

"And you?" Sera's crimson eyes fixed on Varen. "You carry a genuine grimoire—one of the original texts, created during the War itself. That makes you valuable, dangerous, and interesting in ways most students never achieve. Are you ready for what that means?"

"I'm ready to learn."

"Learning is only part of it. You'll also be tested, challenged, forced to confront parts of yourself you'd rather not acknowledge." Sera gestured toward the College's main gate, where two more crimson-robed figures waited. "The grimoire-bearers of the past either became the greatest practitioners in history or fell to corruption more terrible than any normal alchemist could achieve. There's no middle ground for people like you."

"I understand."

"Do you? I wonder." Sera began walking toward the gate. "Welcome to the Hidden College, Varen Kross. Your education begins tonight."

*Corruption Level: 5%*

*Blood Techniques Mastered: 8*

*Location: Hidden College*

The gates opened before them, and Varen stepped into a world that had been hidden from the Empire for three thousand years.

Whatever came next, there was no going back.