Chapter 2 – Marked Before Birth
The rain had eased, leaving the streets slick and glowing under the neon haze of Virelia. Aria sat on the edge of her small apartment bed, staring at the folder her hands refused to let go. Every page felt like a weight pressing against her chest.
Her father's life had always seemed ordinary, even quiet. But these papers contracts, ledgers, photographs told a different story. One of power, danger, and a promise she had been born into without knowing.
Kael's words from last night haunted her: "You've been marked since birth. Your bloodline… written before you took your first breath. And I've been waiting."
Aria traced the lines of the contract with trembling fingers. Names, dates, signatures each one binding her to a life she didn't ask for. Her father had been clever, powerful… and trapped her legacy in the shadows.
A photograph slipped from the folder. She froze. Her father, young and sharp-eyed, standing beside a man whose aura radiated danger. Kael's father. The man who had built an empire that now loomed over her like a storm.
Her breath caught. She realized the truth with a mixture of terror and inevitability: her life was never hers to live freely. She had been claimed marked before birth, bound by blood, and now walking into the flames of a destiny she could neither escape nor deny.