Chapter 5 Five

Ezra Raine stood at the edge of the summoning circle, arms folded, face carved from stone.

The chamber beneath the tower had been sealed for centuries buried under magic, blood, and silence. Even his father hadn't dared open it. Not after what happened to the last Warden who tried.

Now Ezra was about to wake something worse.

Lira Black paced behind him like a storm waiting to strike. "So, let me get this straight. You want to summon a cursed, ancient, potentially homicidal demigod who used to own your bloodline?"

Ezra glanced back. "He may have answers."

"Or teeth."

He smirked. "What's life without risk?"

She rolled her eyes. "Stable. Safe. Blood-free."

"We lost that luxury the day your sigil lit up like a flare."

She glared. "I didn't ask to be cursed."

"Neither did I. But here we are."

He knelt and pressed his palm to the carved stone at the center of the circle.

The runes flared red. Then gold. Then... black.

Magic rippled outward like a heartbeat.

Lira stepped closer, her voice quieter. "What do you plan to ask him?"

Ezra didn't look up. "How to kill the curse without killing us."

A slow hiss slithered through the room.

Then the circle ignited flames erupting like claws from the floor and the air turned to ash.

A figure rose from the shadows.

Not a man.

Not a monster.

Something in between.

The Warden.

It had no face only a crown of bone, and eyes like embers trapped in glass.

Its voice sounded like steel being sharpened.

"You wear my mark, heir of Raine. Do you seek power?"

Ezra stood. "I seek truth."

The Warden turned slightly. "You brought her."

Lira didn't flinch. "I'm not his. Not yours either."

The Warden's head tilted. "Yet you burn with the same flame. Cursed. Chosen. Unwilling."

Ezra stepped forward. "Tell me how to end this. The blood oath. The heir mark. The mirror seal. All of it."

The Warden's grin was a slice of shadow. "You cannot end what you did not begin."

Ezra's eyes narrowed. "Then tell me who did."

The flames pulsed once.

Then twice.

And the Warden whispered a name Ezra hadn't heard in years.

"Caliah Black."

Lira froze. "That's not possible."

The Warden's fire dimmed. "Your mother. Highblooded. Hidden. And the first to challenge the pact. She sought to control it. Failed. And passed the remnants into you."

Ezra turned slowly to Lira.

She looked like the world had caved in around her.

"My mother's dead," she said, voice flat.

The Warden laughed. "Only in body."

Ezra's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

But the Warden was already fading.

"You want truth?" it said. "Then awaken the mirror. But be warned every truth demands a price."

And with that, it vanished leaving only scorch marks and silence.

The elevator ride back to the upper floors was quiet.

Too quiet.

Ezra watched Lira's reflection in the mirrored panel. She didn't say a word.

Finally, he broke it.

"So. You never knew?"

She shook her head. "The people who raised me barely spoke of her. Said she was a 'wild thing.' Dead too young. That's all."

Ezra studied her. "She wasn't just wild. She was powerful. And dangerous enough to make a deal with the same being that cursed my bloodline."

Lira leaned against the elevator wall. "And she gave birth to me as a parting gift."

"That makes you more than just cursed, Black."

She smirked bitterly. "Let me guess. It makes me valuable."

"No," Ezra said quietly. "It makes you a threat."

Later that night, Ezra paced the mirror chamber alone.

The massive cursed mirror stood dormant, its black surface swirling faintly like smoke under ice.

He remembered the last time he used it when his brother had begged him not to.

He'd gone in. He'd survived.

His brother hadn't.

Ezra clenched his jaw.

He couldn't afford to hesitate. Not now.

He pressed his palm to the glass.

It didn't burn this time.

It welcomed him.

The curse recognized its heir.

Darkness swallowed him whole.

He stood in the heart of the mirror's realm.

A shifting void of shadows and memory. Echoes of the past floated like mist his brother's laughter, his father's roar, his mother's prayer whispered on wind.

And then Lira.

Or a version of her.

Younger. Bloodied. Alone. Running.

Ezra followed the vision down a corridor of fractured light.

He saw her mother Caliah Black kneeling in a circle of fire, binding her unborn daughter to a seal of protection. Not to save her from the curse but to make her anchor it.

The child would carry the mark.

But she would also hold its key.

Ezra reached out to touch the scene

And pain lanced through his skull.

A voice thundered through the realm.

"You seek to defy me, Raine. But your blood was forged in debt. And debts must be paid."

A thousand hands reached from the darkness.

Ezra roared and burned them off.

He wasn't here to bargain.

He was here to break the mirror from the inside.

He reached for the core a pulsing sigil of gold fire and gripped it with both hands.

Magic screamed.

Blood poured from his nose, his eyes, his mouth.

But he held.

And then he saw her.

Not Lira.

Her mother.

Alive.

Imprisoned.

Somewhere real.

Somewhere he could reach.

The mirror shattered around him.

Ezra slammed back into his body with a gasp, collapsing to his knees on the cold floor of the chamber.

Lira was already there, catching him before he hit the stone.

"Ezra!"

He gripped her wrist, eyes wild.

"She's alive."

Lira blinked. "Who?"

"Your mother. Caliah. She's not dead. She's trapped somewhere beyond the wards. Somewhere old."

Lira's face paled. "That can't be."

"It is. The mirror showed me. She's still connected to the curse. And she might be the only one who can end it."

She swallowed. "Where is she?"

Ezra met her eyes.

"The Hollow Citadel."

Lira stiffened. "That's..."

"Where the Warden was forged. Where the first pact was signed. And where she went to end it."

He stood slowly, brushing blood from his lips.

"If we want answers, we need to go there."

Lira didn't hesitate.

"Then we go."

But the curse had already moved ahead of them.

That night, an assassin broke into the tower.

Wards shattered like paper.

Alarms screamed.

Ezra met the attacker in the atrium shirtless, armed, eyes glowing gold.

The figure wore a silver mask.

A blood dagger gleamed in one hand.

Ezra blocked the strike with a flare of magic, but the blade hissed with cursed runes, slicing through his defense.

Lira arrived mid-fight hurling a bolt of magic that threw the assassin into the wall.

But the figure vanished before impact shifting into smoke.

Ezra cursed. "That wasn't a mercenary."

Lira's jaw clenched. "That was a Warden's blade."

He nodded grimly. "Which means they know we're coming."

By morning, Ezra had summoned his security chief an old ally named Varek, half-fae, with cybernetic eyes and no patience for politics.

"They sent a seether to your tower," Varek said. "First strike. Next one will be worse."

"We need transport to the Hollow Citadel," Ezra said. "Off-grid. Quiet."

Varek smirked. "You don't pay me to be quiet. You pay me to be lethal."

"Be both."

Varek tapped his comm. "I'll have the dragonspine skiff ready by sundown. But if we're going deep-hex territory, you better bring something bigger than a knife."

Ezra looked at Lira.

She was already strapping twin blades to her thighs.

He grinned. "Oh, I am."

That evening, as the skyline bled into twilight, Ezra and Lira stood on the platform above the tower.

The dragonspine skiff was sleek, dark, and warded against nearly everything short of divine judgment.

As they boarded, Ezra handed her a small, velvet-wrapped object.

She opened it.

Inside was a ring.

Gold, old, etched with runes matching the mirror.

"What is this?"

He met her gaze. "A key. It was forged by my mother before she died. It can open any lock made by a Warden's seal."

Lira stared at it.

"Why give it to me?"

Ezra's voice was low.

"Because if I don't make it... you will."

For once, she didn't argue.

She just slipped the ring onto her finger and nodded.

As the skiff took off, engines humming with magic and power, Ezra stood beside her on the deck, watching the storm roll in.

The Hollow Citadel waited beyond the wastes.

And with it the truth that could kill them both.