# CHAPTER 59 – "The Weight of Blood"
## POV: Vanessa
The books are old. Really old. Pages yellow like autumn leaves and smell like dust and forgotten secrets. Damien's got them spread all over his kitchen table like some kind of twisted family reunion.
"You need to see this," he says for the third time. Been trying to get me to look at these records for an hour but I keep finding reasons to put it off.
"I'm looking."
"No you ain't. You're staring at the wall behind my head."
He's right. Been avoiding this moment since we got back from the temple. Since I claimed the Heart of Unity and felt something change deep inside me. Since the artifacts started whispering things I don't want to understand.
"What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?"
Damien opens the first book. Handwritten pages in different inks. Different handwriting styles. Like multiple people worked on this over many years.
"Family trees. Death records. Birth certificates going back two hundred years."
