The Red Heir

3rd of Midsommer, 968 A.D.

After the temple, after Gabriel, after the blade stopped mid-swing and Morric vanished in a cloud of mist - he ran. But not to escape. He ran because he still loved his brother. And that love - raw and unhealed - needed to mean something. Because the hunger inside him hadn’t left. The urge, the whisper of a god long dead still moved in his blood like a poison. He could not stop the urge to kill. He could not undo the curse. But he could choose what to do with it. And so he made a decision.

He would be the only one.

If Bhaal had left more Bhaalspawn behind, like Morric himself had become, then Morric would become their end. He would make the curse useful, satisfying his urge through the ones who believed the Red Heir their kin. He would use it to protect Gabriel. Even if it destroyed him.

It began in the quiet, far from cities. Hidden shrines, nameless hamlets, lonely stone halls where blood pooled before dead idols. He moved like a rumor through the woods and ruins, leaving behind no proclamations - only silence. The first Bhaalspawn he found was sleeping. The second was in prayer. The third was already murdering when Morric’s blade struck from behind. It wasn’t ceremonious, no great speeches or warnings. The blood that stirred in their veins simply had to be ended before it stirred the world.

Then one night, as he stalked the ruins of an abandoned chapel near the edge of the woods, he found a boy. Twelve, maybe thirteen. A ritual dagger still trembling in his grip. Blood on the stone. Fresh. Morric stepped into the firelight and saw the symbol drawn on the stone behind him - Bhaal’s mark. Too carefully etched for a child’s hand. The boy stared up at him.

“You’re him,” he said. “The Red Heir.”

Morric didn’t answer.

“They said you’d come. They said you’d teach me. That you’d help me control it.”

Morric moved forward, slow and silent. The boy didn’t run. He didn’t beg.

“I didn’t want to kill her,” the boy whispered. “She was just… there. I think she said my name.”

Morric stared. The child’s hand tightened around the blade. And for a moment, he looked exactly like Lionel had when Morric last saw him alive - a frightened little boy, not yet lost.

The boy said, softly, “Can you help me?”

Morric took the blade from his hands. And then, without hesitation, he slit the boy’s throat.

The Bhaalspawn killings didn’t stop. If anything, they sharpened. And through it all, the Red Heir hunted. But it wasn’t just Morric who was hunting - the others began too. Cult cells began collapsing from within. Bhaalspawn, those who had been seeded with the dead god’s will, turned on each other in fits of paranoia, rage, and madness. It was the beginning of something worse than war. It was a spiral of blood and prophecy that had no center. A single question burned in the minds of all Bhaalspawn - is this Bhaal’s will?

Cultists began to die in their temples - stabbed mid-ritual, choked in their sleep. Whispered prayers turned to screams. Across Vallyn, the spawn of Bhaal - the ones who called themselves heirs, prophets, chosen - began to fall. What began as one man’s crusade twisted into something bigger. The cults began to devour themselves. Paranoia bloomed. Followers accused leaders, and leaders turned on acolytes. And Morric followed the trail - city to city, ruin to ruin - not to fulfill Bhaal’s will. But to make sure no one else could.

Then he found Serenya - a Bhaalspawn who did not serve Bhaal. When Morric reached her, she was living in a crumbling lighthouse at the edge of the sea, surrounded by books and old trinkets. Her fingers shook when she moved, but she had not killed in months. She recognized him immediately, but she didn’t raise a hand. Just said -

“If you’re here to kill me, make it quick. But if you still dream in red… I’d rather talk before I die.”

They talked. They spoke of the urges. The noise. The unbearable need. She told him how she chained herself when the urge was worst. How she bit her tongue to keep from saying the old prayers.

“It’s not mercy, Morric,” she whispered. “It’s just longer suffering. But I still try.”

For a long time, he said nothing. Then he stood. Walked behind her. She stiffened, ready for the blade. He placed a hand on her shoulder. Gently.

“I know,” he said.

And killed her. Her body burned with the rest. And still the spiral continued.

As more Bhaalspawn turned on each other, the killings spread. Cities burned when cult leaders declared their kin false. Temples crumbled under infighting, whole sanctuaries collapsing into bloodshed as would-be heirs murdered their own acolytes mid-prayer. Armies formed and fell within days, driven by prophecy, paranoia, and divine whispers no one else could hear. One port town vanished overnight, its streets drowned in red, its bell tower still ringing long after there were no hands left to ring it.

Innocents were caught in the fire - villages trampled underfoot by passing cult armies, caravans ambushed in the name of old prophecies, families slaughtered simply for being in the wrong temple at the wrong time. Roads became graveyards, and rivers ran thick for days. They came to call it the Red Heir Crisis. Others called it the Bhaalspawn War. Whatever the name, its wounds ran deep. And in the center of it all, the Red Heir moved like a ghost - unseen, but feared.

One night, Morric stood in the ruins of a fallen sanctuary, blood thick around his boots. The corpses of Bhaalspawn lay scattered, their rites unfinished, their hands still clutching relics of a dead god. And then the world paused. It was like a breath held too long - a silence too still. Someone was behind him. He hadn’t heard footsteps. There was no sound, no shift in air. Just presence - sudden and total. Morric turned.

A man stood among the dead. Cloaked in red, spotless even as it dragged across the blood-soaked floor. His eyes were too bright. His smile was too wide. In his hands, he held a book - leather-bound, humming faintly, like a pulse. The stranger walked between the bodies, humming a tune that didn’t exist.

“Well,” he said, glancing around with mock reverence. “This is familiar. Altars overturned. Blood everywhere. I do love a renovation.”

Morric didn’t move. Didn’t speak. The stranger looked him over, amused.

“Cleaning up the old place, are you? I should thank you. All these little leftovers of Bhaal, scraped off the floor like mold.” He gestured lazily at the corpses. “They wouldn’t have followed me. They belonged to him. All those tiny voices, still whispering his name like he might come back.”

That smile again - sharp and lopsided.

“But here you are. Killing every last one.”

He stepped closer, slow and sure, until he stood nearly face to face with Morric.

“You’re cutting down Bhaal’s final breath. Tearing out his roots. Leaving me the only god of murder left standing.”

Morric’s stomach turned. He finally understood what he was looking at.

“You’re Cyric.”

That crooked smile widened.

“At last,” Cyric said, with a theatrical bow. “A little recognition.”

Morric’s jaw clenched.

“I’m not doing it for you.”

Cyric laughed.

“Oh, I know. You’re doing it for him.” His voice turned syrupy, mocking. “Your sweet brother. How noble.”

He leaned in, voice dropping sharply.

“Whether you mean to or not… you’re doing my work.”

Morric said nothing.

Cyric’s voice went lower still - barely more than breath.

“Keep going. You’re almost done.”

And then, with a flick of his wrist, he vanished, like a thought leaving the mind. The sanctuary was silent again, except for the blood dripping from Morric’s blade.

The last Bhaalspawn fell in ruin and blood. Some fought. Others begged. One simply knelt and said, “I thought we were kin.” Morric didn’t answer. He killed them like the rest.

Morric stood in the hills above a ruined chapel, overlooking the place where the last Bhaalspawn bled out beneath his blade. The wind was cold, and the sky gray. It was done. The world had gone quiet. The killings would stop. And yet -

The hunger still pulsed beneath his ribs. The urge still whispered in his blood. He pressed a hand against his chest and tried to breathe through it. It never left. It never would. He looked west, where the sun was setting. Somewhere beyond that horizon, Gabriel lived. Morric clenched his eyes shut. He couldn’t go back.

He knew what he was capable of. He had felt the moments where his hands moved before his heart caught up. He could still smell the boy in the chapel. Still hear Serenya whisper, “I still try.”

He didn’t trust what he’d do if he saw Gabriel again. He couldn’t let Gabriel see what was left. So he turned away from the sunset, and walked until the light faded behind him.

Life went on in the wake of the crisis. Shrines were abandoned and forgotten altars collapsed into moss and dust as the cults that once praised Bhaal faded, hunted or hollowed out. The Lord of Murder’s name faded into whispers. But not all of him was gone.

Not yet.

In the deep places of the world, his essence still lingers - a bloody blade that never dulls, a scream trapped beneath the earth. In some forgotten corner of the world, something waits. Something old and hungry.