The forest had fallen silent again. No wind. No rustle. Only her heartbeat though even that no longer sounded like her own. It thudded in slow, heavy waves that seemed to vibrate through the ground itself.
Elara pushed herself upright, her hand throbbing. The symbol under her skin burned faintly red, the lines moving as though alive. She pressed her fingers against it, but the heat only deepened, pulsing in time with that alien rhythm beneath the earth.
The words from her dream still echoed in her skull. The blood remembers.
Around her, the air shimmered. The mist clung low, heavy, carrying with it a faint metallic scent like rain before a storm, or blood before it dries.
She stood slowly, her legs weak. The reflection in the shallow puddle at her feet quivered, distorting. When she leaned closer, the surface steadied again but what stared back wasn't her face.
Her reflection looked older. The eyes darker, sharper. A faint smile curling where her own lips were still.
Elara staggered back. "No…"
The reflection tilted its head. "Yes."
The voice was hers, but lower. Softer. Woven with something else.
"What do you want?" she whispered.
"To live," said the reflection. "You gave me the blood. Now I can."
The puddle rippled violently. The reflection's hand pressed against the surface from the inside, distorting the water like glass.
Elara stumbled further back. Her palm burned hotter, veins glowing faintly beneath the skin. For a moment, she thought she saw shapes moving under it like something swimming beneath her flesh.
"Stop," she gasped. "Get out of my head."
Her reflection's smile widened. "I'm not in your head anymore."
The puddle went still. Then the reflection blinked a heartbeat out of sync with hers and its eyes rolled white. A whisper followed, carried on the wind that shouldn't have existed.
It begins again.
Elara turned and ran.
Branches tore at her sleeves, roots twisted beneath her feet, but she didn't stop. The manor's outline loomed through the fog ahead, black and immense. Every window was lit. Every light flickered red.
She slowed as she reached the threshold. The great door hung open, just as before, but now the air pouring from within was warm alive.
"Elara."
The voice made her freeze.
It came from inside.
Not Agnes's voice. Not the reflection's. This one was softer, almost kind. But she recognized it she had heard it in the vision.
"Corven…" she whispered.
Her brother's name felt foreign on her tongue, yet right. The air stirred at the sound of it.
"Elara," the voice repeated, coaxing. "You've seen what we did. You understand now. You don't have to fight it. You only have to finish it."
She took a cautious step forward. The floor creaked, and with each step, the walls changed shifting from decay to pristine stone, from ruin to beauty, as though she were walking backward through time.
Candles burned along the walls. Portraits glowed faintly with life. The manor pulsed with a faint heartbeat that matched her own.
At the end of the hall stood a figure.
He was exactly as she'd seen him tall, pale, his cloak dark with age. But his eyes were gentle this time, not hollow.
"Corven?"
He smiled faintly. "Sister."
Tears blurred her vision. She took a step closer. "How how are you here?"
"Because you called me," he said simply. "You opened the circle again. You woke what never slept."
Her hand throbbed. "I didn't mean to."
He extended his hand toward her. "Intent doesn't matter. Blood does."
For a heartbeat, she almost reached for him. But then, behind his calm, she saw it the faint shimmer of black smoke curling at his collar, the slight distortion at the edges of his figure, like heat above flame.
"You're not real," she whispered.
He tilted his head. "Does that matter?"
The question hit like a blade.
The house groaned, and the walls trembled. Shadows slid across the ceiling, forming shapes that didn't belong to any living thing. Her reflection flickered on the polished floor smiling again, whispering words she couldn't hear.
"Elara." Corven's voice softened. "It's lonely here. You can end it. The curse began with love it can end with it, too."
Her chest tightened.
"Come closer," he said. "Let me show you what you carry."
The mark on her palm flared bright red. Pain surged up her arm like lightning. She gasped, falling to one knee. The world twisted walls bending, air thickening and suddenly she wasn't in the corridor anymore.
She was in the great hall.
The circle was there again, glowing faintly beneath a layer of dust. The blood lines pulsed with each heartbeat, alive even after centuries.
Corven stood inside the circle.
"Do you remember the words?" he asked gently.
"No," she whispered. "I don't want to."
He smiled sadly. "But your blood does."
The runes flared brighter. The room darkened.
Her reflection appeared beside her, faint and flickering like a flame. "He's lying," it said. "He doesn't want to end it. He wants to return through you."
Elara pressed her hands to her head. "Stop... stop talking...."
"Listen," Corven said. "We can be whole again."
"Don't," the reflection hissed. "He's already dead."
"Then what are you?" Elara screamed.
Both figures looked at her mirror and brother and for an awful moment, they looked the same.
The runes beneath them brightened to blinding white. The sound of the heartbeat grew deafening, shaking the walls. The air thickened, every candle flaring and dying in an instant.
"Elara," Corven said, stepping forward. "You can't escape the blood."
Her reflection mirrored him, whispering over his words. "But you can choose what it becomes."
The two voices overlapped, fusing, rising, until Elara couldn't tell one from the other.
She screamed.
The mark on her hand split open. Light poured from it, crimson and gold, wrapping around her arm. The air convulsed, shattering every mirror, every shard of glass, until all that was left was that light pulsing, growing.
And then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, the world stopped.
Silence.
Corven and the reflection stood frozen in the light.
Elara's breath came shallow. Her arm burned. The blood on the floor lifted, swirling around her like smoke.
When she spoke, her voice wasn't entirely her own.
"I remember."
The light exploded outward.
When it faded, the hall was empty. The circle was gone. Only the faint echo of her voice lingered, reverberating through the manor.
Outside, the forest stirred. Ravens burst from the treetops, crying into the crimson sky.
Elara opened her eyes. She was lying on the steps of the manor again, the mark on her hand now black and cold. The reflection no longer appeared in the puddles nearby only in the faint sheen of her own eyes.
The heartbeat had stopped.
For now.