CHAPTER 16

Aria's POV 

That was my daughter. And someone had found her.

I had the words repeatedly in my head, again and again, like a drumbeat. I heard them in my dreams. I heard them in the silence between breaths. I didn’t say them out loud, not even to Elias. But I knew it.

Someone had found her. Someone knew.

And the world was about to bleed.

The first body was discovered by a Crimson scout near the eastern border—limbs twisted the wrong way, throat marked with strange black symbols that pulsed even after death.

“The blade didn’t kill him,” Elias said, frowning. “This… this looks like a curse.”

He glanced at me, then away.

I said nothing. My fists clenched by my side. We were standing on cursed soil now, and it had touched the edges of our home.

Three days later, the outpost fell.

A rider came in the night, bloodied and half-mad. His horse collapsed under him. His face was pale with fear.

“They came through the trees—silent, like ghosts,” he gasped. “We didn’t hear them. We didn’t see them. They didn’t bleed.”

Elias helped him down.

“They had masks. Bone-white. And something else…” the man’s voice broke. “They left a mark. On the wall.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out a torn piece of cloth. On it was a black spiral, surrounded by four jagged lines like teeth. The moment I saw it, my skin turned cold.

I knew that mark.

I had seen it in my dreams.

I didn’t ask. I *told* Elias I was going with the next patrol.

“No,” he said flatly. “This is not your fight.”

“Yes, it is,” I snapped. “They’re coming for me. They’ve already killed for it. I won’t wait here like a ghost while others bleed.”

Elias stared at me for a long time. Then he nodded, once.

“You’ll need a blade,” he said. “And the will to use it.”

“I have both.”

The patrol moved at dawn. Five of us on foot cloaks tight around our shoulders, weapons sheathed in silence. The forest beyond the eastern border was thicker than I remembered. Wet branches slapped at our legs. Mist clung low, hiding roots and shadows.

I walked beside Elias. He kept glancing at me, but I didn’t see his eyes.

Then the screaming started.

We ran toward it—with no hesitation. A second patrol had been ambushed near the cliff ridge. Blood painted the trees. Two bodies lay still, throats cut clean.

Then something moved in the mist.

They weren’t ghosts.

They were men. But not like any I had ever seen. Tall. Lean. Their faces are hidden behind bone-white masks shaped like snarling beasts. Blades curved like claws in each hand. They moved like smoke.

One charged me.

I didn’t think—I acted.

Steel met steel. My sword fell heavily in my hands. My heart pounded in my chest. He struck again—I dodged.

Then he grinned beneath the mask. He spoke.

“The King fears your child’s cry.”

What?

I hesitated.

And he lunged.

I screamed and drove my blade forward. It slid into his gut.

Hot blood splashed across my face.

He staggered back, falling to his knees. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

He reached out, bloody fingers trembling. “She wakes the old blood…”

Then he collapsed.

I’d killed him.

I stood there, frozen, until Elias came and grabbed me by the shoulder.

“Aria—more are coming! Move!”

I stumbled back, as my heart was still racing, and I followed him.

Later, we burned the bodies. The fire crackled in the dying light as the air smelled of smoke and iron.

I shifted back and sat with my knees, and pulled to my chest, staring into the flames.

“I killed someone,” I whispered. “I looked in his eyes. I finished him.”

Elias crouched beside me.

“You protected your people,” he said softly.

“I was terrified.”

“That’s good.”

I looked up, confused.

He placed his hand over his heart. “Fear is power if you guide it. It keeps your mind sharp. Your soul anchored.”

I didn’t reply. The blood was still on my skin. I could feel it drying, stiff, and dark.

Elias reached into his cloak and pulled out a small charm—a circle of braided thread with a single white stone in the center.

“I was training to be a spirit priest,” he said, his voice low. “Before the wars. Before everything changed.”

“You never told me that.”

“I don’t tell many people.”

He handed me the charm.

“It helps,” he said. “Not because it’s magic. But because it reminds you that healing begins here.” He tapped his chest. “Where the fear lives.”

I stared at the charm. My fingers closed around it.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

I stood alone on the cliff ridge, the moon full and high. Below, the forest stretched into darkness. I heard owls. A stream. The wind.

And something else. A presence. Watching.

I turned sharply—but saw nothing.

Then my eyes caught movement—high above, at the top of the ridge across from me.

A wolf.

Not an ordinary one.

Its fur shimmered silver in the moonlight, like starlight bound to flesh. It stood perfectly still, eyes fixed on me.

Unmoving. Unblinking.

A chill crept over my skin. My breath caught.

“Who are you?” I whispered. It didn’t move. Didn’t growl, and didn’t run.

Just watched.

Then the wind rose, carrying whispers I couldn’t understand.

When I looked back—

The wolf was gone.

Elias found me before dawn.

“We’re riding to the ruins today,” he said. “We found tracks. Someone passed through the old stone path last night.”

“Another assassin?”

“Maybe. Or someone else. But they’re heading toward the Hollow Tree.”

My blood turned cold.

That name again.

“I’m coming,” I said.

Elias looked at me. “You sure?”

“I’m done waiting.”

He nodded.

We rode hard. The path was narrow and broken. The wind picked up by noon, and clouds rolled in thick and heavy.

By the time we reached the ruins, the sky was darkened.

Elias raised his hand.

“Footprints. Here.”

I quickly jumped down from my horse and knelt beside him.

The tracks were fresh. Boots. Heavy. One set. Fast.

“Who runs toward the Hollow Tree?” I asked.

Elias didn’t answer.

Then we heard it.

A scream. Not human. Not an animal.

Something old.

The sky split open again—just like before. A jagged tear above the forest. And from that tear… something fell.

Fast and hard.

Straight into the trees below.

I grabbed Elias’s arm.

“What was that?!”

He didn’t answer.

I turned back toward the ruined trail—

And there, standing on the far ridge, half cloaked in mist—

Was a man.

Tall. Broad. Dark hair whipped by the wind.

His eyes locked with mine across the distance. He looked like a ghost.

But my heart knew the truth.

Kael.

I stepped forward.

He didn’t move.

Then the ground shook beneath us—just as the shadow in the forest began to rise from the crater it had made.

It wasn’t a man and wasn’t a beast.

It was looking for me.

And Kael was walking straight toward it.