The red thorn

Chapter four

The witch dragged Elora through the narrow, twisting alleyways behind Oakhaven’s butcher shop, out through a drainage culvert, and into the shadow of the valley’s steep granite cliffs. Behind them, the sounds of panic tore through the town—screams, shattering wood, and a terrifying, inhuman roar as the vampire recovered from the blast.

Elora stumbled over a tree root, falling to her knees in the damp dirt. She gasped for air, staring down at her trembling hands. The skin on her palms was red and blistered, smoke still curling lazily from her fingertips.

"My mother..." Elora choked out, tears finally breaking through the shock and burning down her soot-stained cheeks. "She's dead. He killed her."

"She protected you for nineteen years," the witch said, standing over her, her iron staff planted firmly in the earth. "If you surrender to your grief right now, her sacrifice becomes nothing more than a footnote in Dracula’s survival."

Elora looked up, her blood boiling with a sudden, searing rage that felt entirely foreign. "Who *are* you? And why did that... that *monster* say Dracula sent him?"

"I am Vanya, of the Coven of the Pale Moon," the old woman replied smoothly. She leaned down, offering a gnarled, leather-gloved hand to pull Elora to her feet. "And he said it because it is the truth. The man who ordered your execution is the creature who built the nightmare you call history. And the woman you called mother was not your biological mother—she was a former handmaiden, bound by honor to hide you when your father committed his final sin."

Elora pulled her hand away, stepping back. "My father?"

"A vampire of Dracula's core bloodline," Vanya said, her pale gray eyes scanning the treeline above them. "A monster who violated a human woman, breaking the ancient laws of his king. But nature does not allow such abominations without a balance. You are the product of that crime—and the subject of an ancient prophecy."

Vanya reached into her robes and pulled out a small glass vial filled with a dark, shimmering liquid. She held it up between them.

"Dracula knows you exist, Elora," Vanya continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He knows that blood of his blood, born of human suffering, holds the power to end his immortal life. He has dispatched his hounds to hunt down every child born in this valley over the last two decades. You were the last one on his list."

A sharp, whistling sound sliced through the forest canopy above them. A raven dropped from the branches, landing on Vanya’s shoulder and cawing urgently into her ear.

Vanya’s face hardened. "The hound has rallied his thralls. They are tracking the scent of your burned skin."

"Where do we go?" Elora asked, her voice shaking, though she hated herself for showing weakness.

"To the Sunken Woods," Vanya said, turning toward the dark, twisted forest. "To my sisters. You have inherited a power you do not understand, Elora. You can either let us teach you how to turn that blood into a blade... or you can stay here and let Dracula's children bleed you dry."