Chapter Seven: Ghosts of the Del-ray Line
1696 Words
The forest didn’t breathe after the Shade vanished.
It just listened.
Every tree, every stone, every whisper of wind seemed to lean in—waiting for what I’d do next.
Kael stood beside me, tense and quiet. His eyes never left the empty space where the Shade had stood.
“Are they gone?” I asked.
“For now,” he said.
“But they’ll be back.”
He nodded.
I turned away, heart still pounding. “I don’t know if I can keep saying no.”
“You’ll have to.
He didn’t say it like a threat.
He said it like a prophecy.
We didn’t speak much as we moved deeper into the Hollowwood.
Kael led in silence, blades at his hips, coat fluttering behind him. He looked… heavier now. The usual cold calm in his face was cracked by something darker. Something conflicted.
Only when the trees thinned and the path opened into a clearing did he stop.
“There’s something here,” he said.
I felt it too.
The air shimmered, like heat rising from stone—but there was no fire. Only light… and something beneath it.
A circle of ancient stones, weathered and moss-covered, surrounded a patch of scorched earth.
The mark on my shoulder burned faintly.
My pendant throbbed with light.
“This place,” I whispered, “it remembers.”
Kael didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the center of the ring.
On the small, delicate bones rising from the soil like blooming flowers.
I stepped forward, drawn without thinking.
Each stone in the circle was etched with symbols I recognized but didn’t understand—curving runes like the ones in my dreams.
“Is this a grave?” I asked.
“More like a scar,” Kael murmured.
Then he added, quietly, “This is where Seraphina made her last stand.”
I froze.
“She fought here?”
“She burned here.”
He stepped beside me, kneeling down to brush his fingers over one of the stones.
“After the council turned on her. After the witches bound her magic and the wolves ripped apart her sanctuary. This is where she fell. Or where she chose to.”
“You mean… she gave up?”
“No. She made a choice. To protect what little she had left. To protect… you.”
I shivered.
The pendant around my neck pulsed harder.
“Why bring me here?” I asked.
“Because you need to understand what came before you. You’re not just cursed, Jewel. You’re inherited.”
I knelt too, staring at the bones—too small to be human, not animal either.
Fragments of something ancient.
Something that still remembered what flame once felt like.
And then… I saw it.
The vision hit like a wave.
Not a memory, not quite—but something deeper.
A resonance.
The world shimmered. Colors dulled. Sound fell away.
And there she was.
Seraphina Del-ray.
Standing in the circle of stone, flames rising from her skin like wings.
She was barefoot, hair unbound, her eyes molten gold.
She looked like me.
But older.
Harder.
Broken in all the places I was just starting to c***k.
And she was whispering something.
A name.
Jewel.
“Jewel!”
Kael’s voice pulled me back.
I gasped, stumbling out of the circle.
“What the hell was that?”
Kael steadied me. “A memory echo. The flame in your blood called it forward.”
“I saw her.”
“Seraphina?”
“She said my name.”
Kael frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible. Echoes aren’t conscious.”
“She knew me.”
He said nothing.
Because he knew, just as I did—this wasn’t just a haunting.
This was a message.
We camped in the hollow just beyond the stone ring.
Kael built a small fire, more for comfort than warmth.
I sat across from him, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tight around my chest.
“She wasn’t what I expected,” I said.
He looked at me. “What did you expect?”
“A villain. A monster. The girl from the stories.”
“She was all those things,” Kael said. “And more.”
“You knew her,” I said quietly. “Not just her legend.”
He hesitated.
Then nodded.
“I did.”
I studied him.
The flickering light cast his face in shadows, but I could still see the sharpness in his jaw, the tension in his shoulders.
“You were close to her, weren’t you?”
He didn’t look at me. “Close enough to see the truth.”
“Then why didn’t you stop her?”
His gaze finally met mine. “Because I loved her. And because I couldn’t.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
But something twisted in my chest—some mix of jealousy, fear, and aching empathy.
“You said she tried to protect something.”
“She did,” Kael said. “You.”
The fire cracked softly.
And then Kael said the thing I hadn’t been expecting.
“I’m the heir to the vampire throne.”
I blinked. “What?”
“My family—House Vireux—is the ruling line of the Night Council. My father sits at the head of it. When he fades, I inherit everything.”
“That’s why the wolves backed off,” I whispered. “They were afraid of you.”
He nodded. “They were afraid of starting a war they couldn’t survive.”
“And you never told me?”
“You were barely staying conscious most days.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
I stood abruptly.
“Why help me, Kael? You’re royalty. You don’t owe me anything. Hell, you should probably kill me.”
He didn’t move.
“I’m not Seraphina,” I went on. “But you don’t know what I’ll become. Maybe I’ll be worse. Maybe I’ll burn it all.”
Kael finally rose, crossing the fire.
He stopped a foot from me, voice low.
“I help you because I see you. And because I didn’t help her soon enough.”
“And if I turn out just like her?”
“Then I’ll stop you.”
He said it without hesitation.
But I felt the weight in his voice.
The truth.
He meant it.
And he hated that he meant it.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” he said simply. “Just prepared.”
I shivered and pulled my knees to my chest.
“How did you know I was in danger back at the School? Why were you there?”
He looked away.
“Because I’ve been watching you for months.”
The words hit me like a slap.
“Excuse me?”
Kael walked over and sat on a tree stump across from me.
“I was assigned to track you by the Vampire Council. After your blood was flagged in a database, the witches and wolves started sniffing around too. The Council knew something was coming. They just didn’t know who you were yet.”
“And when did you know?”
“The night you saved that girl from drowning. The lake turned violet. That was your power responding to someone else’s fear.”
“So… you were supposed to report me?”
He nodded. “At first. But when I saw what you were... I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
His eyes locked on mine.
“Because you're not just a prophecy to me.”
My breath caught.
We were quiet for a long time after that.
Finally, I said, “you said others were coming.”
“They will,” he replied. “Now that you’ve awakened your power, the world will feel it. The Flameborn isn’t a secret anymore.”
“Flameborn. Is that what they call me?”
Kael’s gaze was unreadable. “It’s what you are. The last of the cursed bloodline. Descendant of Seraphina Del-ray. Witch-born. Vampire-marked. Human-raised. The only one who can either reunite the supernatural factions… or end them entirely.”
I swallowed. “So no pressure, then.”
He smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Who else will come for me?”
“Witches who want to bind your power. Werewolves who think killing you will stop the prophecy. Vampires who want your blood as a weapon. And... there are others.”
“Others?”
“Hybrids. Rogue hunters. Shadow-bound assassins. Even humans who traffic in cursed magic.”
“Wonderful.”
I leaned my head back and stared at the stars. They looked peaceful. Distant. Untouched by the chaos I was suddenly drowning in.
“Why does everyone assume I’ll be the end of the world?” I whispered.
“Because power like yours doesn’t stay neutral for long.”
His voice was so quiet I almost missed it.
I turned to him. “And what do you believe?”
Kael didn’t answer right away.
Then he said, “I believe... the world has already been burning for a long time. Maybe you’re not here to end it. Maybe you’re here to rewrite it.”
My heart twisted.
Before I could say anything, he stood up and walked a few paces away. His shoulders were tense again.
“We have to move again before sunrise,” he said. “I know somewhere safe.”
“Another ancient ruin?” I teased weakly.
He cracked the barest smile. “No. An actual house.”
“Well, now you’re just spoiling me.”
But the moment of humor faded fast.
Because we both knew this was just the beginning.
I was no longer Jewel Del-ray, the strange girl with white hair and no past.
I was the Flameborn.
The hunted prophecy.
And whether I liked it or not, the supernatural world was coming for me.
And Kael…
He was the only reason I hadn’t fallen apart.
But even he wouldn’t be able to protect me forever.
Especially not from myself.
- Writer
