Chapter 8
1551 Words
When Calla woke, the sheets were cold beside her.
The scent of him still clung to the linen—spiced cedar and storm-soaked earth. But Ares was gone. The window was open, curtains rippling like whispers, and the morning light that spilled in was pale, as though even the sun feared touching the cursed corners of Devlin Manor.
She sat up slowly, the ache in her body a delicious reminder of the night before. But something was off. The air didn’t carry the quiet safety of a lover’s retreat. It carried a charge. A warning.
She reached for her robe, draping it over her bare shoulders as she padded through the corridor. The old wooden floors creaked beneath her feet. Her fingers traced the wall, following the same path she’d taken in her dream—only this wasn’t a dream now.
This was real.
And Ares was missing.
She reached the grand staircase when she heard it—two male voices. Low, urgent, strained.
She crept closer, crouching behind the archway that led to the drawing room.
“I told you not to touch her like that,” Cain said. His voice was sharp, slicing the air like a blade. “You’ve awakened it too early.”
“I had no choice,” Ares replied. There was pain in his voice. Guilt. Hunger. “She remembered, Cain. Not just dreams—visions. Fragments from the first life. If I hadn’t brought her back, we’d have lost her again.”
“You don’t understand what you’ve done.”
“I do. I chose her.”
There was a pause.
Then Cain spoke again, softer. “You’re forgetting the price.”
“I never forget the price,” Ares whispered.
And for a moment, Calla wasn’t sure if her knees would hold her.
They were talking about her. About this—whatever this was.
About a curse that had been carved through generations.
And a price that hadn’t yet been paid.
She stepped into the room. “Then maybe it’s time I finally knew what I’m paying for.”
Both men turned sharply. Ares’s eyes darkened with a thousand silent curses. Cain’s lips curled into something unreadable.
“Calla,” Ares began, striding toward her, but she raised a hand.
“No more half-truths. No more riddles. I’ve seen enough to know this isn’t just about lust or reincarnation or forbidden love. There’s something darker. Something you’re both hiding.”
Cain tilted his head, intrigued. “She’s braver than the last one.”
“Don’t,” Ares growled.
But Calla was done being silent.
“What happened in that first life?” she demanded. “What started all of this?”
Ares’s jaw tensed. The seal over his heart pulsed faintly through his shirt.
“She died,” Cain answered coolly. “At your hands.”
The room fell into silence.
Calla’s breath stopped. “What?”
Cain stepped closer, eyes gleaming like ice. “You were Céleste. A priestess sworn to the Moon Temple. And he—Ares—was your protector. Your lover. Your ruin. You were caught in a war between bloodlines. The Devlins were cursed to eternal power but no freedom. The Reyes blood was sacred—capable of breaking that curse.”
Ares closed his eyes. “I never meant for her to die.”
“You were ordered to kill her,” Cain said. “And you obeyed.”
The words shattered against Calla’s chest.
“No,” she whispered. “That’s not possible.”
“I remember it,” Ares said, voice raw. “Your screams. The look in your eyes when my blade touched your skin. I remember falling to my knees beside your body. Begging whatever god was listening to let me undo it.”
Calla staggered back. Her entire world tilted.
She had lain with a man who’d killed her in another life.
Cain watched her unravel with a predator’s patience. “You see? You were never meant to survive him. That’s the curse.”
Ares turned on his brother. “Enough.”
But Cain didn’t flinch. “If she stays, the cycle continues. She lives. She dies. You grieve. You fall again. You destroy everything. And I’m the one left to clean up the blood.”
Calla looked between them, her heart a hurricane.
“Then how do we stop it?”
Cain smiled. “We don’t.”
---
That night, Calla wandered the halls of the manor alone. Her feet guided her like memory did—pulling her down stone steps into a hidden part of the estate she’d never seen before.
The door was carved with ancient symbols.
Her hand trembled as she opened it.
Inside, the air was cold. Ancient. Lit by candlelight.
The chamber was a vault of secrets—books, scrolls, relics. And at the center, a mirror.
But not an ordinary mirror.
When she stepped in front of it, it didn’t show her reflection.
It showed Céleste.
Clad in moonlight silk. Eyes the same shade of stormwater. Blood on her hands.
Calla reached out. The mirror pulsed.
And suddenly, the world twisted.
She was pulled through.
---
The memory wasn’t a dream. It was a possession.
She stood in a courtyard of stone and flame, the Moon Temple in ruins, bodies scattered like discarded petals.
Céleste—she—was running. Her heart thundered. The priestesses had fallen. The rites had been broken. The pact had been severed.
And Ares stood before her, sword in hand, armor cracked, eyes red with tears.
“You don’t have to do this,” she pleaded.
He was shaking. “I do. The curse… It won’t lift unless…”
“Unless you kill me?”
His grip faltered. But behind him, dark figures loomed—elders, warlocks, judges.
“Do it,” one growled. “Seal the bond in blood.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I know.”
And the blade fell.
---
Calla woke screaming.
Ares was beside her in an instant, holding her, whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She beat her fists against his chest. “You killed me!”
“I didn’t want to!” His voice cracked. “They would’ve destroyed us both. I thought—gods, I thought I’d save you somehow. That I’d bring you back.”
“You did bring me back!” she sobbed. “Just so I could suffer it all over again?”
“No,” he said, his grip tightening. “This time I won’t let it end the same way.”
She pushed away. “Then stop hiding things from me!”
He looked into her eyes, haunted.
“There’s one way to end the curse,” he said. “But it requires something darker than death.”
“What?”
“My soul.”
Calla stared at him, horrified.
“You want to die?”
“I’m already dead,” he whispered. “Every time I lose you.”
She cupped his face, trembling. “There has to be another way.”
“There might be,” he said. “But it means confronting the source.”
“What source?”
“The Blood Altar,” Ares said. “Where the curse was born. Where it can be undone.”
“Then take me there.”
His eyes widened. “Calla—”
“I’m not afraid.”
“You should be.”
But she only stepped closer.
“I’d rather face death than live without knowing what we could be—without this pain between us.”
He kissed her again.
Not like a man desperate.
But like one who knew this might be the last time.
---
Three nights later, they stood before the altar.
The Devlin grounds had a hidden garden deep beneath the estate—overgrown, lost to time, wrapped in thorns and bones.
The altar was made of obsidian, etched with runes that pulsed like veins.
Cain stood behind them, watching.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.
Ares nodded. “If we break it now, we change everything.”
Calla stepped onto the platform. Her bloodline shimmered in her veins, reacting to the magic.
Ares followed.
The seal on his chest began to glow—brighter, hotter, like a dying star.
Their hands met. Skin to skin.
And the altar responded.
A shockwave of light exploded outward, ripping through time.
Calla screamed. Ares bled. The curse surged to the surface.
And then—
Everything went still.
The altar cracked.
The seal broke.
And the moon above them turned red.
---
Cain stared, stunned.
Calla collapsed. Ares caught her.
But something was wrong.
The seal hadn’t just broken.
It had transferred.
From Ares—to her.
Calla opened her eyes.
They glowed with power.
Cain took a step back. “No…”
“She’s the vessel now,” Ares whispered.
Calla stood, trembling. “I feel it. All of it. Every life. Every death. Every lie.”
Cain hissed. “You’ve doomed us all.”
But Calla only smiled, faintly. Darkly.
“No,” she said. “I’m finally free.”
And somewhere in the shadows, a new force awakened.
Something older than the Devlin curse.
Something that had waited for her return.
- Writer
