Chapter 127: Inheritance
The salt - thick wind curled through the cracked windows of the van, threading its way between them like a whisper born from the sea. The road beneath them had long since lost definition, turning instead into something more ancient — something that felt less like asphalt and more like a vein pulsing toward an inevitable truth.
Selene kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting gently atop Aria's thigh. It wasn't a gesture born of calm. Her hand trembled against the fevered heat radiating off Aria's body. The girl — no, the becoming within her — lay coiled in the passenger seat, skin glistening as though she were drenched in light itself. Her breath came in shallow waves, and every exhale smelled faintly of crushed petals and blood.
Selene's lips still burned from the kiss they had shared. Not from desire, though that undercurrent never left. It was something stranger. Wilder. Her mouth felt seared — as if the touch had transferred something into her, or burned something sacred out of her.
"Aria," Selene whispered, her voice tight, reverent.
The name felt different now, like an invocation.
Aria stirred. Her head lolled gently to the side, and in the thin veil of moonlight slashing through the windshield, Selene could see them — the veins. Or what once had been veins.
They bloomed.
Delicate lines etched along Aria's neck, trailing down her collarbone and disappearing beneath the drenched fabric of her shirt. Not just blue or red. Not human. These were silver - edged, violet - hued vines, branching like ivy along her skin. They pulsed faintly, thorns that weren't thorns sprouting along their paths — beautiful, terrible.
Selene gasped softly, pulling the van to the side of the road.
She reached out, fingertips brushing one of the blooming veins at the hollow of Aria's throat. The moment she touched it, a vision flared behind her eyes —
Stone steps, soaked in rose - colored blood.
A throne carved from petrified bone and obsidian.
And a woman — no, a goddess — standing barefoot at the edge of a sea made of stars, eyes weeping flame and gold.
Aphrodite.
Selene staggered, her hand yanked back instinctively as if burned.
Aria whimpered. Her body curled inward, trembling harder now, as though something ancient was unraveling inside her — folds of memory or power or something deeper still.
"She's waking up," Selene whispered. "The blood. The inheritance…"
It wasn't just fever. Not illness. It was a blooming.
A daughter of divine desire, sired from love and war. Succubus blood thick with hunger. Mortal tenderness wrapped in mortality's fragility. And the vampire royalty — ice - blooded and eternal, a lineage that drank from the first night itself.
This wasn't just awakening.
This was a return.
Aria's body shifted, her breath catching mid - gasp as her back arched, just slightly. Selene moved instantly, unbuckling her seatbelt and sliding into the space between them, kneeling on the floorboards and pressing her palm to Aria's sternum. The skin was too hot. Not in the way of fever, but as though something was being forged beneath it.
"Aria — can you hear me?"
But Aria's eyes were shut. Her lashes trembled, and beneath her skin, the veins bloomed deeper, curling like ancient script down her arms and legs. The vines shimmered violet, silver, and crimson, patterns etched like myth — sacred, inherited, divine.
Selene swallowed, her own blood roaring in her ears.
Something primal echoed in her bones now. Like a melody only she could hear. She felt it in her teeth, in the pressure behind her eyes, in the rising beat of her heart syncing to Aria's.
She brushed Aria's damp hair from her brow, lips hovering above her ear.
"You are not dying," Selene said fiercely. "You are remembering."
Aria jerked suddenly, inhaling like a drowned woman breaking the surface. Her eyes snapped open — and for a second, they were not just hers.
Gold. Pale fire. Deep crimson threading the iris like ink in water.
Not one gaze, but three — all looking back through time.
Selene reeled back, instinct telling her to run even as every part of her refused to move.
"Selene…" Aria's voice came layered, like three tongues speaking as one. "It hurts."
Selene reached again, forcing herself to be steady. "I know, love. I know."
The skin beneath her palm seemed to vibrate. Not just pulse — but vibrate with something vast, something unearthly. Like the body beneath her fingers was not simply one thing anymore, but many truths converging.
Succubus blood, coiled with longing, coalescing into something scentless and instinctual. Desire not of seduction, but survival. The hunger to be seen, felt, adored — and feared.
Royal vampire, that cold clarity of predation, timeless and poised. She could almost hear the quiet lilt of languages long dead curling behind Aria's breath.
And divine, the daughter of a goddess no mortal temple could hold. The seafoam scent that clung to her. The mythic ache in her aura. Aphrodite's heir — love, ruin, rebirth.
Selene cupped her cheek and kissed her again, slower this time. Not to comfort — but to ground.
The vines bloomed across Aria's back now, curling over her shoulder blades like wings that had not yet unfurled. In the kiss, Selene felt a memory that wasn't hers:
— A cradle of marble and sea wind.
— A name whispered in a tongue that tasted like honey and salt.
— A promise, bound in blood and fire: She will wake, and the world will burn or bloom, depending on who dares to love her.
Selene broke the kiss, breathless, stunned.
The veins began to retract — no, not disappear. They folded inward, as though Aria's body had accepted the change. As though the bloom had been revealed and would now lie just beneath the skin, pulsing like a secret.
Aria blinked. Her eyes were her own again — green, rimmed in silver, glowing faintly in the dark.
"Selene…?"
"I'm here," Selene breathed, brushing her thumb over her lips.
Aria looked down at her arms. "They were… thorns?"
"Not thorns," Selene said. "Roots."
Aria's chest rose and fell, steadier now. The heat was still there — but contained. Controlled.
"I saw something," Aria murmured. "I saw her. She was weeping. Not out of grief. But out of love. I think… she knew I would be lonely."
Selene closed her eyes briefly, the weight of the truth anchoring her.
"You're not alone anymore."
Outside, the wind picked up. It howled low through the trees lining the edge of the road like it, too, had sensed the shift. The sea lay somewhere ahead — still distant, but Selene could feel its pull more acutely now. Not as a destination, but a summons. The kind a soul couldn't ignore.
Aria sat up slowly, her movements unsteady but fluid, like a fawn trying to walk for the first time. Her skin was still flushed with heat, and though the strange bloom of her veins had vanished beneath the surface, the faint shimmer remained, dancing beneath her skin like fireflies in water.
Selene helped her upright, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, though she knew it wasn't warmth Aria lacked. It was grounding. The fever had never been sickness — it had been a signal.
"You're stabilizing," Selene said, voice low. "Whatever this is… it's part of your nature."
Aria tilted her head, brows drawing in. "But why now?"
Selene hesitated, then spoke the truth that had haunted her for weeks. "Because something is waking in the world. Not just in you. It's all connected. The bloom, the sea, the girl in the water… your bloodline. It's not coincidence that you're feeling this now. It's time."
Aria's breath hitched. "What if I can't control it?"
"You will," Selene said firmly. "Because you already are."
A pause. Aria reached for her again, hand slipping into Selene's.
"And if I don't?" she asked.
Selene looked at her, not blinking. "Then I'll burn with you."
Silence stretched between them, thick and sacred.
Then Aria smiled — weak, cracked, but real. "You always say the worst possible thing in the most beautiful way."
Selene shrugged, leaning in until their foreheads touched. "That's what devotion sounds like."
Outside, the horizon began to bleed orange and indigo, a soft prelude to dawn. The sky itself seemed to hold its breath.
Aria's voice turned quiet. "The vision… I think it was real. Not just memory. It felt like a message. Like… she was telling me this power isn't meant to be contained. It's meant to be chosen."
Selene nodded. "And you'll choose who you are."
"No." Aria's fingers tightened. "I think I already have."
Selene pulled back slightly, meeting her gaze. "Then we get to decide what happens next."
The road ahead remained empty. But it no longer felt aimless.
Selene climbed back into the driver's seat, glancing at Aria, who leaned against the window now, eyes half - lidded but alert, like something ancient had finally gone quiet within her.
She looked at peace. Not because the war was over — but because she finally understood where it began.
Selene started the van. The engine rumbled back to life, but something deeper stirred beneath the noise — a resonance in the air, like a string pulled taut in the dark.
Aria closed her eyes again, but before she did, she whispered, "I'm not afraid anymore."
Selene glanced at her, and for the first time in weeks, her heart didn't ache.
Because the girl beside her was no longer just a girl.
She was the inheritance of blood, myth, and fury.
And she had begun to bloom.