The snow deepened as they descended into the old chapel grounds, once sacred, now desecrated by time and worse. The shattered stone arch bore no sigil, yet the energy that clung to the place made Elira's skin crawl.
The boy had led them only so far before Elira told him to wait beneath the trees. Safe—relatively.
Caelum stepped ahead, movements fluid and silent, like he belonged to the night itself.
Elira's fingers tightened around her dagger hilt. "You seem familiar with these ruins."
"I should be," Caelum murmured, eyes scanning the shadows. "They were built by your kind. Desecrated by mine."
A pause.
"I thought you killed witches," she said, watching him.
"I've killed many things," he replied evenly. "But I didn't kill yours."
Elira said nothing. She didn't believe him—not yet. But something in her bones stirred uneasily.
They passed beneath a collapsed archway. Vines, frostbitten and brittle, crawled up the stone like veins. Elira paused, brushing her hand against the wall.
Her vision blurred.
A flash — a fire-lit chamber, voices raised in warning, her mother's silhouette before a blood-soaked altar, whispering something ancient and desperate.
Then darkness.
"Elira?" Caelum's voice broke through.
She pulled back her hand, breath shaking. "I saw... something. A memory. But not mine."
"Echoes," Caelum said. "Places like this remember. And you… are beginning to remember too."
They reached the inner sanctum—broken pews, shattered stained glass, a ruined altar. Blood. Recent.
Elira knelt beside a dark smear on the stone. "They were here."
"They still are," Caelum said.
From the shadows, a hiss.
Figures emerged—cloaked, inhuman, with glowing amber eyes and elongated limbs. The Ashen Brotherhood. Half-turned vampires, cursed by ancient blood.
Elira rose to her feet slowly, dagger drawn.
Caelum stepped beside her. "Do not let them touch you. They feed on memory. On truth."
The Brotherhood didn't attack immediately. Instead, one spoke—a voice like rust scraping over bone.
"Daughter of Morvant. The curse awakens. You should not have come here."
Elira's pulse quickened. "You know who I am."
"We all do."
The creature stepped forward, its mouth splitting open too wide.
"You carry the blood that cannot die. And when the truth finds you—so will the flame."I'm
Before she could respond, they attacked.
Elira moved without thinking, magic bursting from her palm in a column of searing light. One of the creatures shrieked as it burned.
Beside her, Caelum tore through another with vicious precision, blood like ink spraying the air.
She fought, heart pounding, but those words echoed louder than the screams:
"when the truth finds you….so will the flame."
What flame?
What truth?
And why did her pendant now feel hot against her skin?