The morning sun came reluctantly, like it too was unsure of what had happened in the night.
Seraphina sat at the edge of her bed, her hands wrapped tightly around a steaming mug that she had no intention of drinking. Her thoughts ran in loops—slow, persistent, suffocating. The whisper still echoed in the corners of her mind.
"Awaken."
It wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't have that kind of weight. Dreams didn't leave the air cold long after you'd woken up. And dreams didn't leave the shadows curling unnaturally along the edges of your room.
She turned toward the nightstand. The book sat where she left it—The Mark of Vale—silent, innocent, deadly. Somehow, it felt heavier this morning. Like it knew she wasn't going to be able to ignore it anymore.
The bookstore was unusually quiet. Not slow—silent. No customers. No mail. No noise from the street. Even the bell above the door had stopped chiming with the breeze.
Seraphina dusted the shelves more aggressively than usual, stopping every few minutes to glance at the clock and then at her phone. Rowan hadn't called. Hadn't texted. It had been twelve hours since he left her standing in the middle of the store soaked in silence and half-truths.
She tried calling him twice. Voicemail. She tried his apartment. Nothing.
By the time noon hit, she gave up pretending she was calm and ripped the store's front door sign to CLOSED.
Back at her apartment, she locked the door, closed all the windows, and pulled the curtains tight. The book sat on her coffee table, as still as ever.
"Alright," she muttered. "You want my attention? You've got it."
She sat on the floor, legs crossed like a child in detention, and opened the cover.
The pages had changed.
Where once were indecipherable symbols were now… phrases. Words. In English. Not all of it, but enough.
She scanned the first few lines:
"In every age, a Vale is born, bound in silence, hidden from the fall. She who bleeds stars shall awaken the line. She who remembers shall tear the veil."
Her fingers grazed the page.
It felt warm.
Her pulse quickened. She flipped to the next page and gasped.
It was a drawing.
A woman. Wild-haired. Eyes like fire. Standing in the middle of what looked like a battlefield, arms outstretched, creatures of smoke and light circling her.
Below the image, two words were written:
Seraphina Vale.
"No," she whispered. "That's not possible."
But even as she said it, some part of her knew—it had always been possible.
She turned the page again.
And this time, it spoke.
Not aloud—but inside her. Words that flooded her skull like a tide, surging from nowhere.
"You were hidden for your own safety. But the bloodline does not sleep forever. The world shifts. The hunt begins again."
She slammed the book shut.
A knock echoed through the room.
She startled. Another knock—louder.
She approached the door cautiously, heart hammering.
"Who is it?"
"Rowan," came the voice. "It's me. Please open up."
She yanked the door open.
Rowan stood there, drenched again, eyes wild. "We have to go. Now."
"What? Where?"
He looked behind him as if expecting something to leap from the shadows. "They know you've Awakened. You opened the book. You heard the name. That means they can find you now."
"Who? Who are they?"
Rowan grabbed her wrist—not hard, but urgently. "I'll explain everything. But if we stay here, you won't survive the night."
They drove.
Fast.
Out of the city, through back roads she didn't recognize, into woods that looked like something from another century. Seraphina tried to ask questions, but Rowan kept his jaw tight, his eyes on the road, knuckles white against the wheel.
Finally, after nearly an hour, he pulled into a gravel drive that ended at a crumbling stone house tucked into the forest.
"I don't care how haunted this looks," she muttered. "You're explaining everything before I step foot inside."
Rowan cut the engine.
Silence.
Then: "Your name… it isn't just a name. It's a key."
She blinked. "A key to what, Rowan?"
"To a bloodline that was supposed to die out centuries ago."
He turned toward her, expression unreadable.
"You're not just Seraphina. You're the last descendant of the Vale Line. And that makes you the only living heir to the Veiled Court."
The words hit her like cold water. "You're insane."
"No. I wish I was."
He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a small pendant—silver, in the shape of an open eye. Inside the eye, a single drop of red stone shimmered.
He held it toward her.
"It's yours."
She stared at it. Something deep in her chest responded. Not memory—instinct. Like her body recognized it before her brain did.
She reached out slowly. The moment her fingers brushed it—
FLASH.
She saw a woman screaming in a circle of fire. A man with horns standing over her. A baby wrapped in blood-soaked silk. Eyes—so many eyes—watching from the trees.
She jerked her hand back.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Memory," Rowan said quietly. "The pendant stores ancestral echoes. That was your mother."
Seraphina's breath caught. "My mother died in a fire. When I was two."
"No. That's what they told you. But she died protecting you. From them."
He looked at her, eyes dark.
"From the same ones who are coming for you now."
Inside the house, everything smelled of age and incense. Dust motes danced in shafts of fading light through stained-glass windows. Candles flickered on their own. The air was thick with something that didn't quite feel like magic—but wasn't normal either.
Rowan led her into a library lined with worn books and strange weapons.
"Sit," he said.
She did. Because her legs were shaking and standing was becoming optional.
"There's a war that never ended," he began, pacing. "Between those who serve the light of the Veil, and those who want to tear it open. The veil separates our world from... the Below."
"You mean hell?"
"No. Worse. A realm where nightmares come from. Where gods go to die. Your ancestors were the guardians of the gate. The Vale Line held the Seal."
"And now?"
Rowan stopped. "Now, you're the last one left. And the Seal is weakening."
Seraphina leaned back, feeling the weight of it all press down on her chest. "Why didn't anyone tell me? Why let me live a normal life?"
"Because normal kept you hidden. Until someone betrayed us."
A silence stretched.
She knew what he was going to say next before he did.
"Julian," she whispered.
Rowan nodded. "He was one of them. A Watcher. His job was to get close. Gain your trust. Find out if you were truly the heir."
Seraphina stood abruptly, fury lighting her veins. "So I was just... some target? Some mission?"
"You were more than that," Rowan said softly. "He wasn't supposed to fall in love with you."
She froze.
"What?"
"He did. That's why he hesitated. Why he warned you—remember? Why he said I'm sorry before everything fell apart."
She stared at him, heart a knot of rage and sorrow. "So he loved me... and still let her do what she did?"
Rowan looked away. "Love doesn't mean loyalty. Not to their kind."
Later, Rowan showed her a wall of drawings and glyphs, tracing her bloodline back through queens and warriors, witches and kings. Every Vale had power. Every Vale died young.
"You're the first in five generations to survive past childhood," he said quietly.
"Why?"
"Because your mother bound your powers. Hid them. It nearly killed her."
Seraphina touched the pendant again. "And now?"
"Now you're awakening. And there's no going back."
That night, she couldn't sleep.
She sat in the cold library wrapped in a blanket, staring at the fire. Thinking.
Every part of her life was a lie.
Julian. Her parents. Her memories.
And yet, the strangest part was... none of this felt completely foreign. Deep down, something inside her wasn't afraid.
It was ready.
As she drifted into uneasy sleep, she felt the weight of a presence settle beside her. Not threatening. Familiar.
Rowan.
He didn't speak. Just sat there, watching the flames with her.
"You said you'd protect me," she murmured.
"I will."
"No matter what?"
Rowan looked at her then, truly looked. "Even if it kills me."
She didn't reach for him. Not yet.
But she didn't push him away either.
And somewhere, in the woods beyond the house, something watched them with eyes made of bone and smoke.
It smiled.