Chapter 5 Ashes and Echoes

Aris had always avoided the attic.

Even as a child, when her father used to disappear up there late at night, she had never once opened the trapdoor. He said it was off-limits. Said it was full of memories that didn't belong to her.

But now that he was gone... everything did.

She climbed the narrow wooden ladder, heart pounding louder than her footsteps. The air grew colder with every rung, thick with dust and the scent of old smoke. Her fingers pushed up the creaking panel, and the attic opened like a forgotten vault.

Cobwebs clung to the rafters. Moonlight poured in through a cracked window. And in the far corner-half-buried under a moth-eaten tarp-was her father's old chest.

Not the decoy one he kept in the basement.

The real one.

She knelt in front of it, her breath fogging in the icy air. Her hands hovered over the latch, and for a second, she hesitated. A voice inside her whispered: Once you open this, there's no going back.

But the other voice - the louder one - said: It's already too late to pretend you're normal.

She opened the chest.

Inside were carefully wrapped weapons - silver-edged daggers, vials of preserved herbs, and a bundle of faded letters tied with red ribbon. Beneath them lay a book bound in black leather, its pages stiff with age.

She opened it.

And the first thing she saw was a sketch of the symbol from her dream. The one that had glowed on her palm.

Underneath, in her father's tight scrawl, were the words:

"The Blood Sign - born once every century. A vessel of balance. A curse in human skin."

Aris's mouth went dry.

She flipped through page after page-diagrams, markings, notes about werewolves and vampires, secret wars, alliances formed and broken. Her father hadn't just been a hunter.

He had been the hunter.

The only one both sides feared.

And he had known this was coming.

---

Outside, the night cracked with the sound of claws on pavement.

Aris rushed to the window just in time to see a massive wolf-snow-white, with glowing silver eyes-standing in the middle of the street, unmoving.

Watching her.

Then it turned and ran into the woods.

---

The next morning, Aris returned to school like nothing happened.

But everything had changed.

Kai was already waiting for her in the parking lot, leaning against a rusted-out motorcycle that looked like it belonged in another century.

"You're late," he said.

"You're early," she snapped.

"Dreams again?"

Aris didn't answer.

Kai nodded toward the scar peeking from beneath her sleeve. "It's growing, isn't it?"

She yanked the sleeve down. "How do you know what's happening to me?"

"Because it happened to the last one too."

She froze. "The last what?"

Kai's eyes didn't flinch. "The last Blood Sign. Before you."

Aris stepped back. "There was someone before me?"

He nodded slowly. "A girl. Half a century ago. She made her choice. But it destroyed everything."

"What happened to her?"

"She chose love," he said. "And the war burned the world around her until she begged for death."

The silence that followed was louder than any scream.

"So that's my fate?" Aris asked, voice shaking. "To fall in love and die while the rest of the world tears itself apart over my blood?"

"No," Kai said. "Your fate is to matter. What you do with it... that's your choice."

---

Later, during history class, the lights flickered.

The air turned sharp. Cold.

And Aris felt it again - that same pressure in her chest. Like she was being watched.

No.

Hunted.

She stood and stumbled from the room, ignoring the teacher's calls. Her heartbeat was thunder in her ears. She pushed through the side doors of the school, into the shadows behind the gym.

And there he was.

Lucien.

Leaning against the wall like he owned the moonlight.

"Missed me?" he asked.

Aris pulled the dagger from her bag.

Lucien chuckled. "You really think I'd hurt you?"

"You already are," she growled.

"I've barely touched you," he said, stepping forward. "But others will. The wolves think they can tame you. The humans think they can hide you. But me... I only want to unleash you."

"Why?" Her voice broke. "Why me?"

Lucien's eyes softened. "Because you were never meant to be either prey or savior. You were meant to end the war. By being the one who stands alone."

"I don't want to be alone," she whispered.

"Then you'll die like the rest of them."

---

When Lucien disappeared, Kai appeared moments later, panting like he'd run through hell to get there.

"Did he touch you?"

"No."

"Did he-"

"No, Kai!" she snapped. "You were right. He's not the worst part of this. Fate is."

Kai stepped closer, his voice quieter. "Then defy it."

She stared at him.

And something broke in her.

Not a scream.

Not a sob.

Just a decision.

"No one gets to decide my ending for me," she said.

And for the first time, her mark flared with power beneath her skin.

Not from fear.

But from choice.