The Fallen Moon: Predestined Sin

Chapter11: The Blood Curse

"Victor Ashton died in the dungeon last night."

Irene Ironblade shut the door of the small meeting room, her council robes still carrying the damp, musty scent of the cells. "The coroner says his heart ruptured. There was a curse mark on his left chest—the Abyss Blood Curse, the exact same one Victor used on Cole. Only this time, he was the recipient. It has been there for at least fifteen years, with a trigger condition likely set to his arrest or the imminent exposure of a secret."

I fell silent for a long time. Outside the window, the rhythmic clanging of silver swords clashing on the training grounds was steady and distant. Victor was dead. The man I had hunted for six years to avenge my parents’ deaths was gone. Before he could stand trial, before he could confess his crimes in front of living witnesses, before the Hunter Council could proclaim him guilty—his ending had been stolen by a curse planted fifteen years ago. It wasn't my dagger, nor Caine's judgment, nor the vengeance of any of his victims. It was a silencing. I thought I would be furious, but what welled up inside me was something far colder—a profound sense of deprivation.

Someone had stolen my closure before I could even act, as if telling me: Your enemy is not yours to kill; he is merely a pawn discarded on a much larger board.

"Someone silenced him before the Council could act," Irene said.

"Or someone within the Council wanted him dead," my voice was calmer than I expected. "The switch was installed fifteen years ago, just waiting to be triggered the moment he was captured. It wasn't a rushed execution—this web was woven fifteen years ago."

Caine stood by the window, the bandages over his left shoulder slightly raised beneath his clothes. He offered no comment on Victor's death, asking only, "How much does the Council know?"

"At least six seats have received the preliminary report. But the details of the blood curse and its creator have only been disclosed to two of the elders I trust most. The inquiry begins in an hour."

After Irene left, Caine leaned against the window, his gaze resting on my face. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I should have killed him myself. And that those who are silenced are usually the closest to speaking the truth." I looked out the window at the young hunters on the training grounds. "I'm wondering if the person who planted that blood curse fifteen years ago is sitting on the Council right now, waiting to see how much I reveal during the inquiry before deciding how to deal with me next."

The door opened. The person who entered wasn't Irene. It was a tall man with a salt-and-pepper beard, a gold badge pinned to the chest of his hunting attire. His steps were steady, but his first look at me wasn't one of scrutiny—it was something far more personal, as if he were finally meeting someone he had only read about in files for years.

"Cedric Ironblade. Irene's brother. I have been in charge of foreign intelligence for thirty years." His voice was deep, and he gave a slight nod. "This morning, I personally retrieved the files that have been sealed for thirty years from the underground archives. Not all of them—some were destroyed fifteen years ago. The exact same year the blood curse was placed on Victor."

He drew a sealed leather cylinder from his coat, pulling out a single sheet of yellowed paper. Stamped in the top-left corner was a red "Top Secret" mark, dated thirty years ago. The title read: Preliminary Investigation Into the Whereabouts of Seville, the Rogue Pureblood of the Abyss Clan.

"This section mentions your mother. 'Following his defection, Seville contacted several carriers of the Moon Priestess lineage, including the betrothed of the Ashton family—' The rest is blacked out with blood ink. Only pureblood elders of the Abyss can brew this ink; once redacted, it can never be restored."

He pulled out a second sheet, his fingers hesitating for a brief second on the paper—and in that split second, a crack appeared in his composure. "This is the Council's first assessment report on you. Thirteen years ago, shortly before your mother passed. The report recommended 'placing Seline Ashton under protective confinement at an appropriate time.' The sponsor of this proposal... was me."

He looked up, and those gray-blue eyes no longer held the detached calm of a Council intelligence officer.

"At the time, at least three seats believed the Child of the Blood Oath should be destroyed before awakening.

Protective confinement was the best compromise I could secure. Your mother refused; she would not sign. Three days later, she handed the iron box to you. She didn't trust the Council; she wagered everything on you. Thirty years ago, she chose to remember the kindness of an Alpha rather than harbor hatred. Thirty years later, she chose to leave the evidence to her daughter rather than the Council. She always chose trust. And the Council..." He pushed the cylinder toward me. "...needs you to make the choices they will not."

He rose and walked toward the door, then paused.

"There are still three seats that want to harvest your blood to manufacture the next Child of the Blood Oath. Not everyone desires peace, Patriarch Ashton. Some profit from war." He paused. "I owe your mother an explanation. For thirty years, I failed to secure more for you within this Council. Now you stand here, having won the Matriarch’s token, the protection of the Bloodspear, and the support of six Council seats. There is little left for me to do. But should you face any resistance in the Council going forward, the Ironblade family will stand with you."

He left. Silence settled over the waiting room.

Caine picked up the redacted report, studying it under the light filtering through the window. "Only a pureblood elder of the Abyss can brew blood ink. Destroying the files, placing the curse on Victor, silencing the archivist, and redacting this report... if it isn't the same group of people, it's the exact same person."

"Before he died, Victor said, 'They will still come for you.' Before Cole died, he fell short of revealing my bloodline. If the people who destroyed the files fifteen years ago and those who helped Seville complete the ritual three hundred years ago are still alive... they have been waiting. Waiting for my awakening. Waiting for Victor to bring me back alive. Now that Victor and Cole are dead, their pawns are being taken one by one. They will grow more desperate."

The circular council chamber. Twelve stone pillars encircled the domed ceiling, with the twelve elder seats arranged in a semicircle. As I walked toward the center, someone in the third seat clinked a teacup lid against the rim—impatient, dismissive, and utterly undisguised. I did not turn my head, but the echo of my footsteps allowed me to hear exactly where they were whispering.

"Seline Ashton," the Speaker's voice echoed against the dome. "Please present all evidence regarding Victor Ashton's high treason."

"All evidence has been submitted by Observer Irene Ironblade. Victor conspired with the Bloodspear traitor Cole Greymane to murder my parents, framing the Bloodspear Pack in an attempt to seize power once the Child of the Blood Oath awakened. He is dead now, killed by a blood curse planted fifteen years ago. The one who cast it is connected to Seville, to the plot that caused my mother to go missing for a year thirty years ago, and to the person who destroyed the Council's archives fifteen years ago."

I pressed my hand against the hilt of the Bloodmoon Dagger.

"I did not come here today to beg for protection. I am here to notify the Council—the Ashton family will hunt down Seville's whereabouts, discover the identity of the one who cast the blood curse, and uncover every single redacted truth. Anyone who gets in the way of this investigation will be judged by me personally."

The circular council chamber fell silent for three full seconds.

Then, three cold sneers rang out simultaneously from the three directions where I had just heard the whispers. Two men and one woman. The oldest had a scar slashing across his face; when he laughed, the scar contorted, and his hand never left the hilt of his sword. Another thin, gaunt man didn't make a sound, his lips pressed into a tight line, his gaze studying me like a mathematical formula that needed recalculating. The woman was the youngest of the three, her gray hair bound in a high bun, her fingers covered in silver rings—the defensive weapons commonly used by the female heads of hunter families.

Irene did not laugh. Cedric did not laugh. The Speaker did not laugh.

She tapped her gavel lightly. Her ash-gray hair was coiled into the bun of an old-style hunter, and her face remained expressionless, but her gaze lingered on the sources of the three cold sneers for a split second. It was neither permission nor a warning—it was more like filing a record.

"The inquiry is concluded. The Council will issue its official response within one month."

As we stepped out of the chamber, the sun was setting behind the snow-capped peaks. Caine kept his pace in perfect sync with mine.

"The Speaker is not neutral," I said. "Nor is she weighing her options. She is waiting—waiting to see who slips up first."

"Those three who laughed?"

"More than them." I recalled the Speaker's gaze the moment she tapped her gavel—it had lingered on a spot between the third and eighth seats. Sitting there was an assemblyman who hadn't laughed, hadn't spoken, and hadn't shown a single trace of emotion from start to finish. He wasn't one of those cold sneers, but the Speaker hadn't looked at those who laughed. She had looked at the one who remained silent.

That night, at the first station on our return journey, as I helped Caine change his bandages, I discovered a thin, black thread-like pattern bordering the stitches on his left shoulder—it wasn't a blood vessel, nor was it a bruise. He was exceptionally quiet as I unwrapped the linen. It wasn't his usual restrained quiet; it was the quiet of a man holding his breath.

"When did you notice it?"

"This morning. In the waiting room. While Cedric was speaking, my left shoulder felt as if it had been pricked by a needle."

I moved my fingers close to the black lines, and my fingertips felt a tiny prickle of pain, like static electricity. "It is rejecting my Moon Priestess bloodline." The thread-thin lines had crawled from the edge of the stitches up to his collarbone. "This is not something a steel sword wound would leave behind. Someone tampered with Victor’s blade."

"A tracking curse," Caine muttered, looking down at the black lines. "It wasn't that Victor wanted to kill me. Someone wanted to find out... where the destined mate of the Child of the Blood Oath is."

Outside, the waning moon hung like a silver hook. I placed my hand on his right shoulder, careful to avoid the curse mark on his left. "We go back to Bloodspear territory and find the old witch-healer. She owes my mother a debt; she will find a way to break this tracking curse. And if she cannot... then we will be tracked together. No matter who is on the other end of that curse, when they find your location, they will find mine too. Tell them..." My fingers tightened. "...we are waiting."

His fingers slid through mine. Warm and rough. This wasn’t a brief touch of the backs of our hands, nor was it swift. For the first time in nine days, it was a true, unrestrained, unfeigned interlocking of our fingers.

Outside, the waning moon hung over the snow-capped peaks, illuminating a thin layer of frost resting on the station's windowsill. I looked down at our clasped hands, suddenly remembering that when my mother had refused to sign the confinement agreement thirteen years ago, some in the Council must have sneered at her as well. When she stepped out of the chamber, she had been entirely alone. But when I stepped out, the Alpha of the Bloodspear stood beside me. My mother had left the iron box to me. She had etched her trust into my very name. And now, under the waning moon, by the warmth of the station's hearth, I held his hand in my palm, telling him and myself—

The ones who planted the blood curse, the ones who sneered, and the silent assemblyman sitting between the third and eighth seats... they do not yet know that they are no longer dealing with a single woman who can be silenced. They are dealing with us.