Chapter 1
She remembered the taste of blood.
Not the kind from a scraped knee—but
Elaine curled up in the narrow space, her small body pressed tightly against the cold stone, peering through the gaps in the wooden boards as the world outside turned into hell overnight.
Her mother had just given birth. Silver hair clung messily to her cheeks, soaked with sweat and blood, strands sticking to her skin. Her usually gentle eyes were now wide open—not with fear, but with sharp, alert clarity, as if confirming Elaine was properly hidden… or perhaps seeing something beyond the mortal eye.
At the doorway, her father lay collapsed. Three arrows pierced his back, his blood pooling beneath him, one of his hands still stretched forward in a final, futile attempt to reach them.
“Found her.”
A man’s voice. Calm. Steady. Almost casual, as though he were commenting on the weather.
Elaine saw a pair of boots stop in front of her mother. Black leather, polished to a mirror shine. Flecks of blood dotted the surface, catching the candlelight and glinting a dark, viscous red.
Her mother did not beg. Did not tremble. She only fixed her gaze on the man, unflinching, and spoke each word with deliberate clarity:
“She is a descendant of witches. Her blood can kill—and it can save. You will need her.”
Silence stretched through the room.
The man said nothing for a long moment.
Then he crouched down slowly, lifting her mother’s chin with two fingers, as though appraising something delicate, something useful.
“Where is she?”
Her mother smiled.
That smile etched itself into Elaine’s memory forever—gentle, serene, and yet laced with a quiet, almost triumphant cruelty.
“You will never find her.”
The hidden compartment was small—no larger than a child’s bed—embedded within the stone wall behind the fireplace. It had been carved in secret by her grandfather, the old man whispered to have practiced witchcraft, on the final night before his death.
Elaine stayed inside for three days and three nights.
Time lost meaning in the darkness. She survived on silence and fear alone.
Outside, the house was stripped apart piece by piece. She heard drawers being yanked open, furniture overturned, the sharp crash of porcelain shattering against the floor. She heard her mother’s voice break into screams—then fall abruptly silent.
She heard her father’s body dragged across the ground, the dull scrape of something heavy and lifeless. Curtains were torn down. Floors were stomped upon. Voices barked orders, boots echoed endlessly.
Then came the command:
“Burn it all.”
Flames followed.
They crept through the cracks in the walls, flickering orange and gold, breathing life into the darkness outside her hiding place. Heat seeped faintly through the stone. Smoke began to curl inward through the seams of the compartment, stinging her eyes and throat.
The world beyond the wood became a shifting glow of fire and shadow—like another reality entirely.
Elaine did not cry.
She did not move.
She did not even dare to breathe too loudly.
Her fingers were locked tightly around the pendant her mother had forced into her hand before pushing her into hiding. It was made of copper, worn smooth by time, engraved with a strange symbol—an eye, or perhaps a flame. Her mother had told her, in a hurried whisper, that it had been passed down through generations of witches.
When one died, their memories would not disappear—they would remain sealed within the pendant.
In those three days, the pendant awakened.
Memories that were not hers began to flood her mind.
She saw a woman standing atop a cliff, robes billowing in the wind, chanting under a pale, ancient moon. She saw an elderly man lying on a deathbed, trembling hands pressing the pendant into the palm of his granddaughter.
She saw a woman bound to a wooden stake, flames devouring her body, her skin blackening, her hair turning to ash—yet her eyes remained open, fixed on the horizon, and her lips curved faintly upward.
“He will come,” she whispered through the fire. “He will come.”
Elaine did not know who “he” was.
But she remembered that smile.
Not fear. Not despair.
It was anticipation.
On the morning of the fourth day, the compartment was opened.
Light flooded in, harsh and blinding after days in darkness. Elaine instinctively raised her hand to shield her eyes, her vision swimming with white spots.
Through the glare, she saw only a tall silhouette standing against the light—black boots, a deep crimson robe that hung heavy and still.
Then a hand reached in and lifted her out.
“Give her to me.”
The voice was the same as that night.
Calm. Controlled. Indifferent.
Elaine found herself in his arms.
He lowered his gaze to study her.
And she studied him back.
He had a composed, refined face—straight brows, deep-set eyes, and faint lines at the corners of his lips that suggested habitual smiles. His features carried an air of kindness, almost paternal. His eyes were a deep, steady brown—warm on the surface, intelligent, reassuring.
The kind of man one might instinctively trust.
But Elaine saw something else.
Deep within those eyes, beneath the calm exterior, lay a subtle, measured light.
Not warmth.
Not affection.
But scrutiny.
The gaze of someone assessing an object—something newly acquired, something whose worth had yet to be determined.
“Don’t be afraid, little one.”
He extended his hand, palm open.
“I am your father. From now on, you will live in the palace. You will have fine clothes, warm meals, and people to attend to your every need.”
Elaine lowered her gaze to his hand.
For a brief moment, her thoughts drifted back to her mother’s final words.
“Survive. And kill him.”
She reached out.
Her small fingers closed around his.
The man smiled.
It was a gentle smile—warm, steady, almost kind.
But to Elaine, it felt like the quiet curve of a blade, already poised, waiting for the moment to fall.
“Good child.”
Augustus did not know that witches are born able to understand spoken words from the moment they opened their eyes.
He did not know that their memories are inherited, passed down not in fragments—but in full, living echoes.
And he did not know—
that the child he had just taken into his arms already remembered everything.
