Born to burn

4. LEAK. ________________________

THE CRACK IN THE SPELL

•

The Council chambers had no windows because windows indicated transparency. What they had were domes. Vaulted, opulent, cathedral-high ceilings carved from obsidian glass and inlaid with runes too old to name. The kind of runes that didn’t reflect light. They swallowed it. Silence reigned here. Not peace. Not stillness. But the type of silence that meant something terrible was always being planned. And then it broke. The hum. The vibration. The leak. A throb in the ancient floor, so subtle most mortals would never feel it. But to those attuned? It was like a scream rippling up from the bones of the world. Down below, in the Ministry’s Department of Magical Surveillance, alarms began to flare but not with sound. No, the Council hated noise. Instead, the great detection circle that wrapped the walls of the Central Divination Room bled light. Molten gold at first. Then red. Then something darker. The apprentice mage on duty, a junior no one knew by name, meant he was either too young to matter or too smart to be visible, froze. His fingers twitched over the hovering glyphs, gliding over coordinates he barely understood.

„Sir?” His voice shook. Klaus Ravenhart turned slowly. He was not a man to be rushed. Even now, his robes were pristine. Ivory with coal-threaded hems, marked in the language of dead gods. His silver ring glinted with blood opals. The look in his eyes? Worse than magic. Klaus Ravenhart looked like a verdict in human form. Tall, sharp-boned, and dressed in layered darkness stitched with runes no one dared ask about, he wore his age like armour. Refined, controlled, impossible to read. His hair, silvered but unbowed, swept back with detailed precision, not a strand out of place. Eyes like burnt mercury. Cold. Calculating. Patient as they scanned the world. Not for beauty, but for cracks in obedience. His voice, when it came, never rose. It didn’t need to. Silence obeyed him. A blood opal ring crowned his left hand, pulsing faintly like it remembered the screams of whoever last defied him. Everything about him, from the crisp press of his robes to the way shadows seemed to cling to his edges, whispered one thing. You don’t interrupt Klaus. You await his silence. And if he speaks? It’s already too late.

„Speak.” He barked at the apprentice.

„Unidentified surge, sir. Magical. Violent. Unstructured.” Klaus stepped forward, eyes narrowing.

„Where?”

„Edge of Seattle, sir. Rough coordinates locked. It… it didn’t register on the normal hex fields. We only caught it because of the temporal pulse. It bent the grid like a fault line in spellspace.” Klaus stared into the arcane map as it burned across the room. The pulse wasn’t just large. It wasn’t just sudden. It was wrong. This wasn’t just a burst of power. This was unshielded inheritance. A power being born or worse, unsealed. Unleashed.

„Get me Thornevale.” He said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

•

Ministry of Magic, The Council’s Hall of Doctrine.

•

Elowen Thornevale did not pace. She loomed. Even seated, she radiated the power that made other mages lower their eyes. She believed fear was stronger than faith. Devotion could waver. Loyalty could break. But fear? Real, soul-deep fear, the kind that turned breath to blades and silence to scripture, that was unshakable, and it was hers. Fear could be shaped, refined like obsidian, until it no longer resembled terror at all, but reverence. Worship. Order. To Elowen, power meant purity, and purity meant survival. Blood must remain clean. Lines must remain sacred. Because when the world forgot what it meant to kneel, it bred chaos. But when it bled in fear of her name? That was peace. That was control. That was legacy.

•

Her skin glowed faintly under the ambient spells of the chamber, evidence of continual enchantments. She hadn’t aged in three hundred years. Her veins ran with rites older than language. Elowen Thornevale looked like a law sculpted into a woman. Pale as frost and just as unforgiving, her silver-white hair curled like smoke against skin untouched by time. Eyes the colour of storm-washed marble held the weight of centuries. Calm. Unblinking. Merciless. Every inch of her tailored navy-blue robes whispered discipline, not fashion, and her posture? Spine straight. Hands still. It was less sitting than reigning. She didn’t move. She didn’t need to. The room obeyed her simply because it remembered what happened to those who didn’t. So obviously, when Klaus told her, she laughed.

„Nonsense.” She spat, eyes cold and cruel.

„No magical could make a crack like that. Not unless the bloodlines were ancient. Direct. Someone with royal blood? Impossible.” Klaus didn’t blink.

„Look at the trace, Elowen.” He slid the report, paper still steaming with freshly summoned ink, across the obsidian table. She read it. Once. Twice. And then she went quiet. When she finally spoke, her voice was iron under ice.

„Go. Find whatever did it and bring it to me.” Klaus bowed once. Not deeply. Just enough.

„Gladly.”

•

Moments Later, Post-Fire Ruins, South Seattle.

•

The car glided to a halt like a blade sheathed in velvet, and Klaus Ravenhart stepped out without waiting for the door to open. He wore a different robe now. Darker. Meant for fieldwork, though "field" was a joke. Klaus hadn’t gotten his hands dirty in decades. Not unless you counted signing execution parchments. Two agents followed. Silent. Hooded. Masked. Gravesingers. Traceless. The fire was out, but the magic still breathed. Ash coated the lawn. Burned remains of what once was a suburban nightmare now stood as skeletal memory. But Klaus? He felt it. The pressure still hung in the air like smoke that remembered its shape.

„Sir, sir, you can’t be in here!” He didn’t raise a hand. He didn’t need to. The warded amulet around his neck pulsed once, and the man’s voice collapsed.

„Speak.” He said instead, coldly, to the nearest detective. The detective blinked, as if waking from hypnosis.

„There was a fire. Around six this morning. The official cause is unknown, but firefighters say it likely started in the upstairs bedroom. The child’s room.” That was not even near the answer Klaus expected.

„Child?” He said, almost intrigued. The detective checked his notepad.

„Foster placement. Girl. Phoenix Fay Blackwood. Age sixteen.” The name snapped through Klaus like a strike of lightning.

„…Blackwood?” He almost whispered it, but his voice still hard.

„Yes, sir. According to Child Services.”

He looked around, newly interested in this piece of information.

„Where is she now?” Klaus asked, his attention narrowing.

„I believe their social guardian relocated the whole family yesterday afternoon. New housing. Out of our jurisdiction now, but I can check.” Klaus was already turning. Walking. The smell of scorched wood clung to his robes like prophecy. He stepped into the car and gave no order aloud, only a whisper.

„Find her.” The Gravesinger next to him bowed her head in silent knowledge. Klaus turned to the window, watching his reflection flicker in the glass. His fingers drummed once against the doorframe. He smiled. Small. Cruel. Certain.

„I’ve got you now, little Phoenix.”

•

A few moments after the fire site

Council’s Hall of Doctrine, Inner Sanctum.

•

The atrium doors hissed open, lined in gold leaf and enchanted obsidian. The guards didn’t speak. They bowed. Low. Always. Klaus Ravenhart entered like a curse spoken in reverse. His robes still smelled faintly of fire. Not from the house. From her. From what she left behind. And it wasn’t just smoke. It was the scent of awakening. He moved through the sanctum corridors. Long. Humming with ancient protections. Past murals of old purges disguised as treaties. Past etched marble that named every High Priest before him like they were saints instead of strategists. By the time he entered the Council’s private ward, the inner chamber, Elowen was already waiting. She stood by the scrying pool, veil lifted now. Her mouth was sharp with thought. Eyes narrowed to blade-thin slits.

„Klaus.” She said without turning. „That was not random.”

„No.” He answered.

„It wasn’t.” The pool stirred beside her. Flashes of runes shimmered, distorting the reflection of the High Circle’s emblem.

„I’ve walked through war zones less saturated in raw magic.” Klaus said, removing one glove.

„It was primal. Uncut. That fire was elemental and personal.” Elowen glanced at him now. Her brow arched with tempered dread.

„And the child?” She asked like a hungry wolf scenting prey. Of course, she already knew the truth. She had felt it on him. The magic still clung to his robes.

„She’s gone. Relocated before we got there. Her file was already buried in bureaucratic fog. Almost like…” He paused, eyes flicking to a high bookshelf at the edge of the room.

„Like someone scrubbed it.” Elowen finished for him. The air turned colder. Runes embedded in the stone near the pool pulsed once. A knock sounded at the chamber’s edge. Subtle. Coded. A sequence used only by high-level operatives. Elowen raised one hand.

„Enter.” The door whispered open. A woman stepped in, tall, gloved, face masked in ceremonial silver. Cloaked in dusk-toned robes with a Council crest stitched over her heart. Assassin class. A Singer. Elite. She knelt without flourish and extended a sealed folder bound in red wax and old blood, bearing the sigil of the Mandragora organisation. A thorned spiral twisted around an empty circle. No centre. No soul. They called it the Eye That Denies. It spoke what the Council would not. We had found you. We would end you.

„Report.” Klaus ordered. The weight in his voice wasn’t volume. It was authority calcified by ritual. A command the blood obeyed, even if the mind hesitated. The Singer didn’t hesitate. She stood taller, silver mask reflecting the glow of the scrying pool like a coin dipped in sin. Her voice was calm. Measured. Deadly exact.

„Her name is Phoenix Fay Blackwood. Sixteen years old. Birth undocumented. No surviving parental file under Council records.” She said coldly.

„That’s not possible.” Elowen cut in sharply.

„The Blackwood surname is tracked. Monitored. Catalogued. That name belongs to…” Her voice dropped low.

„The Alpha of the Moonblade Pack.” Klaus finished for her. His tone was unreadable. But his pupils narrowed. Predator sharp. The Singer nodded.

„Corbin Blackwood, sir. Confirmed. Still Alpha. Current age: forty-four. His territory spans eight states. No known mate. No legitimate offspring listed in the Bloodline Archives.” Elowen turned fully now, her veil lowered around her throat, her expression stripped of poise.

„If this Phoenix is his daughter, why isn’t she registered?” The Singer produced a second document. Singed at the edges. Bound in inhuman skin.

„Because she was never meant to be. This fragment was pulled from the remains of a sealed blood-binding record found inside the ruins of the child’s most recent foster home.” Elowen took it delicately, then paused. Her breath caught. Her eyes scanned the faded glyphs, each one designed to conceal, protect, and damn.

„What language is this?” She whispered.

„Elemental Kekkei Genkai sigils, madam.” The Singer answered.

„It’s ancient Fujiwara. Elemental mage dialect. Pre-clan split.” Klaus frowned, stepping closer.

„That’s a Japanese mage clan. Long extinct.” He whispered in disbelief.

„If the clan is gone, how can this fragment exist?” He was mesmerised and also stunned by the precision of the enchantments.

„Not extinct.” The Singer said.

„Erased.” She pulled a final scroll from her satchel. Thicker. Blood-sealed. Stitched with Council security glyphs.

„We found this, hidden in the Department of Disavowed Rituals. Marked for deletion. Classified Level One.” Elowen raised an eyebrow.

„Level One?” Her voice dropped, sharp with suspicion.

„Yes, madam. The highest clearance class.” The Singer confirmed.

„Reserved for threats deemed too dangerous to record. Forbidden rites. Forgotten bloodlines. Magic the Council denied even existed.” Her voice was steady, but the weight behind it pressed like a blade against silence.

„What was it doing there?” She asked, her white eyebrow arching.

„Covering this.” The Singer unrolled the scroll.

„Codename: Himari.” Klaus stiffened. Elowen didn’t blink.

„I know that name.” She said silently under her breath.

„So do I.” Klaus muttered. The Singer continued.

„Yes. Himari Fujiwara. Mage-class fugitive. Marked for hybrid-breeding offence. Purity Violation, Tier One. Executed in an off-record car crash in 2015. Child presumed dead.” The Singer read it and paused.

„But she wasn’t.” She said again. „Phoenix Fay Blackwood is the child. Her bloodline was hidden behind a cloaking rite of ancestral class. Bloodwoven. Matched to her heartbeat. Not even our systems picked it up.” Elowen’s hand closed tightly over the document.

„Her mother. Himari was…” Elowen’s eyes widened with fury and disbelief. This could not be happening.

„Yes, madam. She was a hybrid of four bloodlines.” The Singer confirmed.

„Mage. Demon. Siren. Unseelie Fae. And she mated with a Lycan.” Silence fell like a death sentence as Elowen pressed her temples hard and Klaus almost broke the window frame as he squeezed it. The words hung there. Thick. Sulfurous. Kekkei Genkai. Fujiwara. Moonblade. Five bloodlines in one girl. How could that slip under their fingers for sixteen years?

„No one is born with that much power.” Elowen whispered.

„She wasn’t born with it.” Klaus said darkly.

„She was made.” The scrying pool flared red for a moment. Brief. Violent. As if even the water could taste the corruption of what had returned.

„And the spell that hid her?” Elowen asked again. Tighter this time. Her voice didn’t shake, but her fingers curled white around the scroll.

„Who cast it?” She was looking at Klaus, still standing by the window.

„Not her mother, madam.” The Singer repeated. Calm. Cold. Like the gravity of the answer was already sinking in. „There’s a second signature. Interwoven beneath Himari’s protections. Subtle. Ancestral. Bound through blood rather than spellwork. Someone else from her lineage sealed her. And they did it well.” The information poured like rain onto them.

„Well enough to fool our systems for sixteen years.” Klaus spat as he began to pace by the window now. Back and forth in front of the frame, his coat sweeping the tiles like a guillotine’s whisper.

„Someone knows about her and protects her.” He muttered.

„Someone in the Fujiwara line knows what Himari had done. What she’d created. And they are protecting this abomination.” Klaus turned to Elowen.

„Not just protecting.” She said. „Hiding.” A hush thickened the chamber. Sacred silence. The kind that only ever meant something had slipped through the cracks and was now on fire.

„Possibility?” Elowen asked, low.

„The most suitable for protection and enchantments this advanced is Himari’s elder brother, the Elder Haruto Fujiwara.” The Singer replied.

„Former Head of Cloaking Rites for the Eastern Division. Disappeared eleven years ago.” Klaus stopped moving. Turned slowly.

„Presumed dead two days after Himari’s accident.” Klaus looked at Elowen, and the stare spoke for itself.

„No Fujiwara just disappears from the world.” He said. Elowen breathed in and out.

„Not unless they’ve done something worth dying for.” Her eyes narrowed to slits.

„Then we’ve been playing checkers on a board they started carving before Phoenix was even born.” Klaus stated coldly.

„She wasn’t meant to be found.”