Chapter 5: Monster Wrapped In Gold
1183 Words
The sirens in Ashthorne Academy only ring when someone will die.
Aria sat bolt upright in bed. The lights turned red. Flashing. The walls shook.
Leon was already at the window. His back was straight. His hand still had the black stain where he had wiped her blood an hour ago.
"Perimeter breach. Many," he said. He wasn't talking to her. He was listening to something inside his head. "Ashthorne territory."
Aria's legs were weak. The black lines on her arm had gone back inside, but her bones still ached. Cold sweat was on her skin.
"Leon, wait—"
He pulled on his jacket. His eyes flashed gold.
"I have to go. Now."
"What about me?"
"The wards around the Academy are still on. Nothing can come in while I am gone." He came to her fast and held her face. His hand was too hot. "Stay in your room. Do not go out. Promise me, Aria."
More sirens started. Howls rolled in from the forest.
"You can't leave after you said there is a cure—"
"I know," his jaw was tight. "But if Ashthorne falls, nothing else matters. Lock the door. I will be back before morning."
Then he was gone. The door closed. The lock turned from the outside. Click.
Aria stood there, listening to his steps go fast down the hall. Listening to the sirens.
She looked at her arm. This morning, thick black blood had come from her nose and mouth. Smelling of rot.
She couldn't sit here and wait to cough it up again.
The window was the only way out. Second floor. Ivy-covered wall.
She tied her hair back, put on her boots, and opened the window. Cold air came in.
The moment her boots hit the tree line, the world changed.
The sirens became muffled, like heard under water. The trees were huge. Three people could not hold one. The floor was soft black moss. No insects. No birds.
The trees were marked. Long, thin cuts at head height. Fresh. White sap wept from them. A single black drop fell and hissed on the moss.
She found the hollow oak because it was the only thing not trying to hide. Inside, a candle burned with a white flame that didn't flicker. Inside, a woman sat on a root shaped like a chair. A black cloth tied around her eyes.
"Granddaughter of Alric. Little star who bleeds black."
Aria stepped inside. "Are you the Seer?"
"Come. Let me see you."
Aria knelt. The Seer's hands were cold, dry. She touched Aria's face — eyebrows, cheeks, jaw.
"So young. So bright. And so eaten."
"Open your mouth."
Aria obeyed. The Seer inhaled.
And recoiled. Her chair-root cracked. The white flame flared.
"No! That cannot be inside a child!"
"What is it?" Aria fell back.
"They call it the Blackwood Curse," the Seer whispered. "Whatever lives inside you is ancient... and it is killing you."
"How do I stop it? Leon said there might be a cure—"
"There is only one cure."
"Tell me."
"Find the First Vampire."
Aria stared. "The First Vampire is only a legend."
"Legends are usually memories people are afraid to remember."
The Seer's head snapped toward the north. Her blind eyes spun with grey mist.
"He is already moving. The First Vampire."
"When he wakes, kingdoms fall."
Aria ran.
She didn't stop until she was back in the Academy courtyard, her boots caked in black moss, her wrist bleeding where the Seer had grabbed her.
Her room was still locked from the outside. She broke the spare-key stone and slipped inside just as the sirens stopped.
The door handle rattled a minute later.
"Aria!"
The lock clicked and Leon pushed inside. His jacket was torn at the shoulder, his shirt soaked with blood that wasn't all his. A cut ran along his jaw. His gold eyes were wild until they landed on her.
"You left. You went to the forbidden woods."
"I found her," she said. "The Blind Seer."
Leon's body went rigid. "What did she tell you?"
"She said they call it the Blackwood Curse. That it's ancient and it's killing me. And she said there is only one cure — I have to find the First Vampire."
Leon's face went pale.
"The archives mentioned something older than the first packs," he whispered. "I thought it was only a forgotten legend. I never had the chance to finish reading before the sirens."
That was the truth — he had only managed to glimpse the ancient page before the emergency pulled him away. He had known there might be a cure, but never what it was. Only the Seer had named it.
Before Aria could answer, three sharp knocks hit the door.
"Alpha Heir Leon Ashthorne. Report to the War Room. Rogue incursion at the North Ridge. You are to lead the border patrol."
Leon's forehead dropped to hers.
"Listen to me. The rogues aren't random. Something is driving them. If I'm going north anyway... I'm going to search the northern ruins while I'm on patrol. The oldest history is buried there."
"It's too dangerous."
"You are my territory. My pack. My everything. There is nothing in those ruins that will keep me from coming back to you. No matter what."
He kissed her, desperate and deep, then forced himself to let go.
"Lock the door. I will be back."
Then he was gone.
Aria walked to the window, watching him cross the courtyard with his patrol, his fist over his heart like always.
He never made it to the gates.
A low, powerful roar ripped through the air — not an animal, an engine. So deep it rattled the glass.
Conversations stopped.
Even the patrol wolves became strangely silent.
One by one, every student turned toward the Academy parking lot.
A sleek, jet-black luxury sports car was gliding through the front gates. Polished to a mirror shine, completely out of place among the mud-splattered jeeps.
It came to a perfect stop in the center of the lot.
The driver's door opened. Slowly.
A young man stepped out.
Tall, lean, black hair, breathtakingly handsome in a way that didn't feel real. He wore a black wool coat, black trousers and polished leather shoes untouched by the mud of Ashthorne.
His molten amber eyes swept across the courtyard without interest.
Students.
Teachers.
Patrol wolves.
Then his gaze drifted toward the far wall. Toward the old, sealed church that stood beyond the Academy grounds, on the edge of the forbidden forest.
Then his gaze paused.
For a heartbeat, his brow furrowed.
A scent had reached him on the wind. Faint. Impossible. Buried under fear and young wolf blood.
Black blood.
His expression didn't change. But something ancient stirred behind his eyes. He stared, confused, at the girl in the second-floor window for one second too long — not with fascination, not with recognition, but with sharp, cold confusion, as if he had just heard a sound that should not exist.
Then the expression vanished.
He continued walking toward the Academy doors.
- Writer
