Goran placed his hands on the table. They were scarred, large enough to crush a human skull with zero effort.
“I am Vor-Kahn,” Goran said. His voice was a deep rumble, vibrating through the stone table.
Dane frowned. “Vor-Kahn? That’s not in the history books.”
“You wouldn’t find us there,” Goran said. “We were forgotten before your great-grandfathers were born.”
He fixed Dane with his black eyes, his gaze steady and devoid of the jittery energy Varkyn usually carried.
“In the Old World—Vaelor—the masters were the Aetherkind,” Goran began, the word landing with grave significance. “They were beings of absolute light and shadow, creators and destroyers. But gods do not bloody their own hands if they can help it. They needed swords. Shields. Enforcers.”
He gestured to himself.
“They took the beasts of the wild—the wolves of the chaotic fringe—and they bound them with Deep Magic. They poured Aetherkind blood into animal veins. They carved away the weakness and left only loyalty and lethality. They created the Vor-Kahn.”
I felt a chill ripple up my arms. “You were engineered.”
“We were crafted,” Goran corrected, his tone lacking resentment. He offered a grim, humourless baring of teeth that wasn’t quite a smile. It pulled his lips back enough to reveal the truth.
His canines were distinct—thick, elongated, and far too sharp for a human mouth.
Dane stiffened, his gaze locking onto the man’s mouth. “Your teeth,” he murmured, hand drifting to his own jaw. “I only have those when I shift. When the transformation takes the bone.”
“Shifting is unnecessary,” Goran said, his rumble dropping an octave. “We are the weapon. The Hounds of the Dusk. Immortal and unbreakable. We lived to serve the High Lords.”
Dane had stopped eating. He stared at Goran with a look of horror and awe. “Slavery.”
“Purpose,” Goran countered. “To a Vor-Kahn, without a master, there is no sky. There is no ground.”
He looked down at his massive, scarred hands.
“But the Aetherkind… they were flawless beings with flawed hearts. They split. The Schism. Light-born against Dark-born. It tore Vaelor apart. And because we were their shadows, we were torn too.”
“You had to pick sides,” I whispered.
“We were ordered to,” Goran said. “The nature of the wolf is predatory. It calls to the dark. Most of the Vor-Kahn went to the Umbrael Sovereignty. They became the butchers of the Dark Court.”
He looked up, meeting Dane’s eyes.
“I did not. I chose the Luminaris. The Light. I chose to protect, not to conquer.”
“You went to war with your own kind,” Dane muttered.
“An endless slaughter,” Goran corrected. “When the world broke, we ran. A handful of us. Light-born, Dark-born refugees who saw the end coming, Vor-Kahn who severed their leashes. We came here. To Aurathen. A world of humans.”
Dane leaned forward. “So, we’re… what? Copies?”
“Echoes,” Goran said gently.
“We were few. Too few to sustain our numbers,” Goran explained. “The Aetherkind tried to keep their blood pure, but they failed. The Light-born faded into the Calysteri. The Dark ones into Umbrakynn.”
He pointed a thick finger at Dane.
“And the Vor-Kahn… we were soldiers without a war. We began to take human mates. The magic in our blood was diluted, generation by generation. The immortality faded. The size diminished. The blind, telepathic obedience to the pack leader shattered into simple loyalty.”
Goran’s eyes softened, just a fraction.
“The beast remained, but the godhood was lost. You call yourselves Varkyn now. But the wolf inside you? That is the remnant of Vaelor. That is the memory of the Vor-Kahn, screaming for a master it will never find.”
