The world was quiet after the storm.
Too quiet.
Aria walked behind the stranger through the mist-drenched forest, her bare feet sinking into the wet earth. The scent of rain mixed with the distant smoke of what had once been her village. Each breath tasted like ash and memory.
She didn't ask where they were going. She didn't care.
Every step away from the monastery felt like a betrayal of the people who had died protecting her — her father, her neighbors, even the children whose laughter had filled the square that morning. Gone. Burned away because of her blood.
The man's cloak brushed the ferns ahead of her, dark as ink. He moved with the silence of a shadow, unhurried, unshaken. She hated that he could walk so calmly when her world had just ended.
At last she spoke, her voice hoarse.
"Do you have a name?"
The man didn't turn. "Kael."
The name hit her like cold steel. "House Kaelith… You're one of them."
"I was," he said. "A long time ago."
They fell silent again. The wind whispered through the trees like a warning.
---
Hours passed before they stopped near a half-collapsed watchtower. Its stones were blackened with moss, but it offered shelter. Kael set down his pack, lighting a small flame with a twist of his fingers — not magic, just flint, though for a heartbeat Aria expected otherwise.
She sat opposite him, staring into the flickering glow. The firelight made her silver bloodstain shimmer faintly beneath the bandage. She pulled her sleeve down quickly, ashamed.
Kael's eyes flickered toward it anyway. "You should keep that covered. If the wrong thing catches your scent—"
"The wrong thing?" she cut in bitterly. "Like you?"
His jaw tightened. "Worse than me."
Aria laughed, a sharp, broken sound. "There's nothing worse than you. Your people slaughtered mine."
Kael didn't answer. He stared into the flames, the shadows deepening around his face until his expression disappeared entirely.
After a while, he said quietly, "You think I don't know what they did? The purges were… an order I refused to follow. That's why I'm here instead of sitting on a throne of bones."
She wanted to scream at him, to throw the fire at his face, but her strength was gone. The ache inside her chest had hollowed into something worse — numbness. The kind that eats you slowly from the inside out.
---
The rain began again, light and steady. Each drop that touched her skin felt like the world trying to wash her away.
"What happens now?" she whispered.
Kael looked up. "Now you live. That's all that matters."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "You said my blood opened a door. What did you mean?"
He hesitated, as if the words themselves carried weight. "There's a barrier between our world and the old one — the place the gods locked away when they fell. The Forbidden Realm. For centuries, it's been sealed. Your blood carries the key that can break that seal."
"And that's bad?" she asked.
"For everyone," he replied simply.
Aria closed her eyes. "So I'm a curse."
"You're a consequence."
---
The fire crackled softly between them. Aria's mind drifted to her father — the way he used to smile when she mixed herbs for medicine, the way he called her "my little dawnlight." He had known something, hadn't he? The way he hid the dagger, the fear in his eyes whenever she bled.
Tears slipped down her cheeks, quiet and unwanted. She pressed her hands over her face, trying to hold herself together, but the sobs came anyway — raw, silent, shaking.
Kael said nothing. He didn't comfort her, didn't move closer. He simply let her break, and somehow that felt less cruel than words would have been.
When her breathing steadied again, she spoke softly.
"You said the gods fell. What does that mean?"
Kael stirred the fire with a stick. "Long before the empires, the gods ruled both realms. But power breeds hunger. Some sought to reshape creation. They used blood — divine blood — to twist mortals into weapons. The world bled for centuries until the strongest among them sealed the others away behind the Veil. That prison became the Forbidden Realm."
"And I carry their blood."
He nodded. "The blood of the exiled ones. You were never supposed to be born here."
The forest seemed to hold its breath.
Aria wrapped her arms around herself. "Then why was I?"
"Because someone broke the law of worlds," Kael said. "Someone brought that bloodline back — and hid it in you."
The thought made her stomach twist. "My father?"
"Perhaps. Or perhaps he only protected you from the truth."
She stared at the fire until her vision blurred. "You speak as if you knew him."
Kael's silence was answer enough.
---
The night deepened. Somewhere far away, a wolf howled — long, mournful. Aria pulled the tattered blanket tighter around her shoulders.
When she finally spoke again, her voice was thin. "How do you carry it?"
"Carry what?"
"The guilt."
Kael looked at her across the flames. "You don't. You let it carve you hollow until nothing's left to feel."
His tone was flat, but his eyes betrayed something darker — an old grief buried under layers of silence.
Aria turned away. "Then maybe that's mercy."
---
She didn't sleep. Each time her eyes closed, she saw the flames again — faces melting into ash, the smell of burnt wood and blood. When she finally gave up on rest, dawn was a dull gray smear across the horizon.
Kael was already awake, standing near the edge of the trees. The mist curled around him like ghostly threads.
"They'll start hunting at sunrise," he said. "We move north, toward the Veiled Mountains. There's a place there — forgotten by the temples. You'll be safe for a while."
Aria rose slowly. Her legs ached, her body heavy. "Safe," she repeated. The word sounded strange in her mouth.
As they began walking again, she caught a glimpse of movement through the fog — black birds perched on distant branches, watching. Ravens, perhaps. Or something pretending to be them.
Kael noticed too. "Don't look at them," he murmured. "They're messengers."
"For who?"
"For the ones that sleep behind the Veil."
Aria shivered. "You mean the gods."
"I mean the monsters they became."
---
By midday, they reached a river. Its water ran dark, reflecting the stormy sky. Aria knelt to drink, but when she dipped her hand in, the current shimmered faintly — silver spreading from her touch like spilled light. She snatched her hand back in fear.
Kael watched quietly. "The world responds to you now. The balance feels your existence."
She frowned. "Then why not kill me? Wouldn't that fix it?"
His eyes met hers, unreadable. "If death could undo blood, the gods would have died long ago."
The answer chilled her.
---
They walked until the trees thinned and a ruined bridge came into view — a skeletal structure draped in vines. Beyond it, mountains rose like jagged teeth, veiled in mist.
Aria stopped halfway across, staring down into the chasm below. The wind howled through it like a thousand lost voices.
"I could end it here," she whispered. "End everything before it begins."
Kael didn't move. "You could."
She looked back at him, expecting anger, maybe pity. Instead, his gaze was calm. "Would it bring them back?"
The question hit her harder than any blade could.
She turned away, gripping the railing until her knuckles turned white. Tears blurred her vision again. "I don't know who I am anymore."
Kael stepped closer but kept his distance. "You are the echo of what was lost. And echoes always return to their source."
"What does that mean?"
"That the Realm will not stop calling you. And one day, you will answer."
The wind tore through her hair, carrying the faint sound of whispers — ancient, soft, almost tender. She didn't understand the words, but they filled her with equal parts dread and longing.
When she looked up again, the sky above the mountains burned faintly red. Not from sunset — but from something deeper, hidden beyond the clouds.
Kael turned to her. "We're running out of time."
Aria followed him, though her steps felt heavier with every mile. Behind her, the air shimmered briefly — the faint outline of a doorway forming and fading again like a heartbeat.
Something on the other side had seen her.
---
That night, as they made camp in a hollow beneath the cliffs, Aria sat awake staring into the dark. The stars above looked unfamiliar — brighter, sharper, almost alive.
In the distance, a sound rose — faint at first, then clearer. A whispering choir of voices, calling her name.
Aria…
Her blood began to glow softly beneath her skin. She clutched her arm, whispering, "Please… stop."
But the light only grew stronger, pulsing with her heartbeat.
Kael appeared beside her instantly, his hand closing around hers. His touch was steady, grounding. "Breathe. Don't fight it — contain it."
"I can't—"
"Yes, you can." His voice cut through the panic like steel. "Your blood is power, not punishment. Learn to hold it, or it will hold you."
Aria squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly, painfully, the glow began to fade. When she opened them again, Kael had already stepped back, his face hidden in shadow.
She wanted to thank him, but the words wouldn't come.
He turned toward the mountains. "The door between worlds has begun to stir," he said. "And when it opens fully, everything you've lost will seem merciful."
Aria looked down at her hands, still trembling.
Somewhere deep inside her, beneath the grief and fear, something ancient stirred — not a voice, but a memory.
A promise whispered long before she was born.
When the blood of silver wakes, the gods will remember their heir.
And for the first time, Aria realized that her story had never been about survival.
It was about becoming what the world feared most.
The last child of the Forbidden Realm.