Chapter Five: The Flame in Her Veins
1157 Words
Elena
They say the Bloodhunt is tradition.
A rite of passage. A sacred game to test the young and weed the weak from the strong.
But that’s a lie.
The Bloodhunt is a warning.
And this year, the warning is for me.
I first heard about it through whispers.
The kitchen staff were hushed, knives pausing mid-chop, glances flicking toward the pantry where I stood hidden behind flour sacks. Even without my hearing sharpened by instinct, I would’ve known something was wrong. The air had thickened like storm clouds pressing against the roof.
“They’re doing it early,” one maid muttered. “Never before the solstice.”
“It’s because of her,” another spat. “Moonborn.”
“The council fears what she’ll become.”
I didn’t need to hear my name to know they meant me.
I pressed my palm against the doorframe to steady myself.
It burned.
A faint pulse of heat shot up my arm—a familiar warning now. My body had started betraying me since the kiss. Since him.
Damian.
He hadn’t come back since the night of the chapel. And maybe that was wise.
Because everything around me was about to ignite.
By noon, the summons arrived.
A letter, sealed in blood-red wax with the sigil of the High Council. It arrived on a silver tray, carried by a boy who wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I opened it with shaking fingers.
“Elena Ashmoor,
You are summoned to the Trials of Reckoning. You will present yourself at Raven’s Hollow by midnight under the full moon. Survival will mark you. Failure will unmark you.
By Order of the Blood Council.”
My fingers went numb.
The Trials.
A ceremonial term for the Bloodhunt. The ancient rite held in the heart of the cursed forest. Participants were cast into the Hollow, left to be hunted by half-shifted beasts bred for blood.
Most came out changed.
Some didn’t come out at all.
I dropped the letter.
And for a second, I forgot how to breathe.
That night, Mother stood behind me as I dressed.
She tied the cloak around my neck in silence. It was made of dark green wool, lined in a protective charm only she could sew—a row of wolf teeth stitched in with silver thread.
“You knew this would happen,” I whispered.
She didn’t deny it.
“Then why didn’t you stop it?”
Her eyes met mine in the mirror.
“Because I couldn’t. Because it has to happen. You have to survive this to become what you’re meant to be.”
“And if I don’t?”
She pressed a hand to my shoulder.
“Then the world will burn in another way.”
I arrived at Raven’s Hollow just before midnight.
The place lived up to its name.
It wasn’t just a hollow—it was a wound carved into the earth. Trees curved inward like fingers. Mist crawled over the moss, and the moon above looked more like an eye than a celestial body.
I wasn’t alone.
Five others stood in a line.
Young. Nervous. Some full-blooded wolves. Some half-blooded. One boy sobbed quietly into his sleeve.
I didn’t cry.
Not because I wasn’t afraid.
But because there was no room for tears inside the fire already rising in my chest.
Corvan stood atop the ritual stone, hood down, face pale and sharp like frostbite.
“Moonborn,” he called.
I stepped forward.
The other contenders turned to look at me. I saw it in their faces. Disgust. Awe. Jealousy. Hatred. One girl even crossed herself, whispering a prayer.
“You enter last,” Corvan said. “Because your end will be first.”
My voice was calm.
“We’ll see.”
He sneered.
The rules were simple:
Survive until dawn.
No weapons.
No allies.
No mercy.
The moment I stepped into the Hollow, the world changed.
The trees twisted into unfamiliar shapes. The ground whispered. The sky darkened despite the moon’s clarity.
Magic lived here.
Old magic.
It recognized me.
And it hated me.
I ran.
Not from fear, but from instinct.
I climbed a ridge and ducked under a fallen pine, breath heavy, eyes scanning.
Somewhere to my left, a boy screamed.
Then silence.
One down.
The air rippled.
A wolf-like creature stepped into view. Taller than me. Glowing eyes. Skin half-fur, half-rot.
One of the Forsaken.
Created by the Council.
Bred to kill.
I didn’t have a weapon.
But I had something else.
Fire.
My fingertips flared.
I pressed my palm to the earth.
A ring of heat burst outward, forcing the creature back with a shriek. It stumbled into the tree line, whimpering.
I didn’t follow it.
Because I wasn’t here to fight.
I was here to last.
The hours passed in fragments.
At one point, I scaled a cliff with bleeding hands.
At another, I watched two of the others die at each other’s claws.
By the time the sky began to lighten, only three of us remained.
Me.
The sobbing boy—whose name I learned was Theo.
And the praying girl, Linara.
We stood in a glade of silver-leafed trees, backs pressed together. The Forsaken circled like vultures.
“They’re going to charge,” Linara whispered.
“Then we stand,” I said.
“We can’t win.”
“We don’t have to win. We have to live.”
And just as the beasts lunged—
A horn blew.
High. Clear. Sharp.
Dawn.
The hunt was over.
We survived.
But the real test had only just begun.
As I stumbled from the Hollow, bloodied and shaking, the Elders stood waiting.
They looked disappointed.
Corvan stepped forward, frowning.
“We thought the Flame would consume you.”
I met his gaze.
“I learned to burn without turning to ash.”
Someone in the crowd gasped.
Then they parted.
And he was there.
Damian.
His cloak fell from his shoulders as he ran to me, wrapping me in his arms before anyone could stop him.
Corvan snarled. “You defy us again, boy.”
“She lived,” Damian said, voice loud, clear. “Which means the prophecy lives. And so do I.”
The crowd murmured.
And from behind the Elders, a new figure stepped forward.
A woman cloaked in violet. Eyes burning.
She bowed to me.
“The Flame rises.”
I didn’t sleep that day.
I sat beneath the chapel, staring into the ashes of an old fire.
Damian found me again.
“You did it,” he whispered.
“No. We did.”
He pressed his forehead to mine.
“I’d burn the world for you.”
I shook my head.
“We’ll have to burn more than that.”
And I meant it.
Because the Hollow didn’t just test me.
It awakened me.
The fire in my veins was no longer sleeping.
And Ravenhollow had no idea what was coming.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD