Chapter 10: Bloodlines and Broken Oaths
1356 Words
Layla POV
Fire.
It always starts with fire.
But not the kind that burns.
This fire moves like water—liquid gold licking across blackened stone, casting shadows that twist into figures I almost remember. They rise like smoke around me, faceless and silent, robed in night. Their garments glimmer with scattered stars, constellations I don’t recognize but feel in my blood. They circle like vultures. Like priests. Like something in between.
One steps forward.
Her eyes are mine.
Or maybe… mine were hers first.
“You were not meant to be born,” she says.
Her voice isn’t a sound. It’s a weight, vibrating through the marrow of me. Deep enough to shatter bone.
“But the Pact was broken. And now, you bear the price.”
My throat tightens. I try to speak, to ask her what she means—but my lips won’t move. My feet are rooted in ash, soft and scalding. The scent of burnt earth clings to my nostrils.
Something hums beneath my skin—a low, thrumming pull.
I look down.
The necklace. The one from the attic. It glows like an open wound against my chest. The chain burns cold against my neck, pulsing with a rhythm I don’t recognize but instinctively fear.
The fire rises again.
Screams—thousands of them—split the dark sky above me. Not human. Not quite.
The sky cracks open like glass, revealing a deeper black beyond it.
And through it, I see him.
A figure walking through the flames.
Tall. Cloaked.
Eyes like silver storms—swirling, endless, consuming.
Not Kaelen’s amber eyes that tether me to something warm.
These… these belong to nothing. And no one.
He doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t have to.
I feel him.
Like ice threading through my veins.
A predator—
Dressed in patience.
The fire doesn’t touch him.
The screaming fades around him.
He walks toward me like I’m the only thing that exists.
He watches me like I’m already his.
And somewhere in the pit of my chest, something ancient stirs.
It curls back. Growls. Snarls.
A flicker of rage—or fear—older than me.
Run.
But I can’t.
My legs won’t listen. My body belongs to the dream.
“You are the last thread,” the woman says, stepping closer. Her feet don’t leave marks in the ash. Her hands are stained with something dark—oil or ink or blood.
“The Hollowed Pact was sealed in blood. If you do not bind it again…”
Her fingers touch my forehead.
“You will bleed in its place.”
Behind her, the sky splits again.
I see flashes—moments.
A broken blade in the snow.
A woman chained to a throne of bone.
A door—etched with runes—swinging open into nothing.
Then the fire twists into a ring around me—
Symbols carved in the ground begin to glow.
A jagged crescent.
A fractured line.
My breath catches.
And then—
The earth tilts.
The ash gives way.
Suddenly, I’m not dreaming anymore.
I’m falling.
I wake with a gasp.
Not the soft kind that fades like mist.
This is sharp. Ragged. Like I’ve been yanked back from drowning.
The room is too dark.
Too quiet.
The ceiling above looks strange—alien, stretched long by the shadows.
My sheets are twisted.
Sweat clings to my skin, cold and slick.
I shoot up too fast, my head spinning.
That feeling—
I’m not alone.
Not Kaelen. Not his warmth or steady gaze.
This is colder.
Older.
Wrong.
The necklace presses hot against my chest.
I lift it in shaking fingers.
It glows faintly—like a dying star pulsing in time with something just outside my comprehension.
A creak.
I turn.
The closet door—ajar.
Just a little.
Just enough.
Every muscle in my body locks.
The necklace pulses.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—stronger.
Then—
A whisper.
Close.
Right behind me.
Too close.
I spin—heart in my throat—
But there’s nothing.
No one.
Only the mirror.
And in it—
Not just my reflection.
Her.
The girl again.
Older now.
Ash-streaked skin.
Eyes sharp with knowing.
She stares at me.
Not cruel. Not kind. Just… expectant.
She doesn’t speak this time.
She just points.
Down.
I follow her gaze—
To my wrist.
A mark has appeared there.
Burned into skin.
Fresh. Red.
A jagged crescent.
A fractured line.
The same symbols from the fire. From the Pact.
A chill races through me.
I want to scream.
I want to pretend I’m not losing my mind.
I want Kaelen to walk in and laugh and say it’s all in my head.
But I know it isn’t.
I stagger back, heart hammering, breath coming too fast.
Then—
The drawer.
I cross to the nightstand. My hands tremble as I reach for it, the polished wood cool beneath my fingertips.
It had been exactly four days since she passed, and yet her presence still lingers in every corner, every shadow.
The funeral's tomorrow, but despite the impending closure, everything feels unfinished. The air feels thick with unspoken words, with whispers of things I can’t quite grasp.
Maybe there would be something—anything—that could explain all of this in the letters that had my name on them.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to read them.
Not until now.
The dreams have been getting worse since I found this damned necklace.
And it’s time.
I pull out a stack of old letters, tied with delicate twine, the paper yellowed and worn with age. My pulse quickens as I untie the knot, my fingers fraying the brittle cord.
Grandma’s handwriting greets me, her familiar looping scrawl now laced with the weight of secrets.
My dearest Layla,
If you’re reading this, the necklace has found you again. Or maybe it never truly left you. I always said you were born on a thunderclap—fierce, bright, and meant to shake the world.
You were six the first time the shadows whispered your name. You don’t remember—how could you? You woke crying from dreams you couldn’t explain, your hands dusted with ash, circles drawn on your bedroom floor. You hummed lullabies I’d never taught you. Called out names I swore I buried with my mother.
You were too young. Too soft. And it was already stirring.
So I hid it. The pendant. The pages. The truth. I asked the wind to forget you. I begged the river to swallow your name. But blood is a terrible keeper of secrets, my girl. It remembers what the mind forgets.
The marks on your wrist? The way mirrors flicker when you’re near? That ache behind your eyes?
They’re not sickness.
They’re a calling.
I kept you from it as long as I could. But protection is not the same as salvation. And the thing beneath the orchard—it’s watching again. Just like before.
If you feel afraid, good. Fear keeps your hands steady.
But don’t let it rule you.
You come from a long line of women who danced with darkness and walked away burning brighter.
You are not broken.
You are becoming.
And Layla—
If it speaks to you in the voice of someone you love… don’t listen.
You were never meant to be ordinary.
You were meant to rule it.
Gran
The words blur. My fingers grip the edge of the nightstand as I try to steady my breath.
The room is silent.
Too silent.
And then—
A knock.
Slow. Measured.
At the front door.
I freeze.
No one should be here.
Not this late.
Not tonight.
Another knock.
Harder this time.
The silence thickens.
Even the wind outside has gone still.
I stumble back a step.
The necklace flares—
A sudden, blinding light that throws jagged shadows across the room.
And then—
A voice.
Soft. Male. Calm.
Too calm.
“Layla…”
Too sure.
Too steady.
A lullaby with a knife beneath it.
“It’s time we talked… about the Pact.”
- Writer
