Entry 5: January 4th
I still don't know how long I stood there, staring at them.
Veyrix. The masked ones. The cold, empty world behind the Iron Gate. It was like the air itself had changed once I crossed it thicker, slower, like even time obeyed different rules here.
No one moved. No one spoke. Not even me.
Then Veyrix tilted his head, just slightly. "You came."
I didn't answer. I think I was afraid that if I said anything out loud, it would all become real.
He stepped forward not quickly, not threatening. Just close enough for me to see the soft white mist of his breath in the cold, and the shimmer of something ancient in his eyes.
"Do you know why you were called?" he asked.
"I don't even know who you are," I whispered.
He looked over his shoulder at the chapel ruins. "That will change."
And then, as if my voice had unlocked something, the masked figures moved. Slowly. Purposefully. One of them, the one wearing the serpent mask, stepped forward and reached into their dark cloak. They held out a small, worn object wrapped in black velvet.
Veyrix took it gently and turned back to me. "This belonged to your mother."
My stomach turned.
He unwrapped it carefully. It was a pendant that was silver, tarnished with age, in the shape of a crescent moon curled around a thorned rose. I'd never seen it before. But somehow... I knew it had touched her skin.
"It's not just an heirloom," Veyrix said. "It's proof. Of blood. Of belonging."
I stared at the pendant, my throat tightening. "Why now? Why after all these years?"
He hesitated, just briefly. "Because the House has stirred. The bloodlines are waking. You were always part of it, Eira. But now the others know."
"Others?"
"There are Houses beyond yours. Some will want to guide you. Others will want to claim you. And some... will want you dead."
I felt the frost crawl deeper into my skin.
Veyrix held the pendant out to me. "Take it. And choose."
"Choose what?"
"To remember. Or to run."
I don't know what came over me, but I reached for it.
The moment my fingers touched the silver, something pulsed like the beating of a second heart inside my chest. I stumbled back, gasping, visions flashing behind my eyes. A woman screaming. Red cloaks. A great hall drenched in candlelight. A face like mine, but older, and not entirely human.
Then it was gone.
Veyrix caught me before I fell. His hands were cold, but steady.
"The blood remembers," he said quietly. "Even when you don't."
I didn't say anything after that.
I just held the pendant in my hand and let the weight of it sink into me.
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Entry 6: January 4th
I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to. Not after what I saw. Not after what I felt.
I'm back in my room now. The pendant is beside me on the desk, coiled like it's still alive, like it's waiting for me to make a decision I don't know how to make.
It's not just a necklace. It pulses faintly with warmth like it remembers where it came from. From her. From my mother. And maybe from the House before her.
I've spent most of my life trying not to think about her. She died when I was six. I barely remember her face, just the shape of her voice when she sang. Now I wonder how much of her I never really knew. What she hid. What she ran from.
Veyrix said there were others. Houses. Families like mine like hers. Vampires, obviously, though he still hasn't used the word. But I'm not stupid. The eyes, the fangs, the cold that clings to him like a second skin it's all there.
And if they're real, then what am I?
He said "choose." As if I have any idea what either option means.
What happens if I remember? If I claim whatever legacy this is? Will it change me? Will I become like them? Or worse will I discover I already am?
And what if I don't? If I pretend this never happened, bury the pendant in the woods and walk away?
Would they let me?
There's something else something I haven't written yet because even now it feels like a dream.
When I touched the pendant, I saw her. My mother.
She was in a place I didn't recognize. A tall stone hall, lit by red-glass chandeliers, with high windows draped in black velvet. She wasn't screaming like in the first flash I think she was singing. But the sound twisted and bent like wind through broken glass. And her eyes… they weren't hers. They glowed the same wine-red as Veyrix's.
What did she become?
Did she choose the House?
I need answers.
But I'm afraid to ask the wrong questions.
I've never believed in fate. But tonight… tonight I think it believes in me.
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Entry 7: January 4th
The sky outside is starting to shift, just slightly the black softening into blue. The snow's falling again, gentle this time. Silent.
And I'm still wide awake, staring at the ceiling like it holds the answers I need.
I keep replaying the things Veyrix said. The way he looked at me not like a stranger, but like someone he'd been waiting for. Like I was supposed to show up, like my arrival was part of a plan set in motion long before I was born.
That scares me more than anything.
Because if all of this was fated... then how much of my life was never really mine?
He told me to keep the pendant close. "It will guide you when you're ready." That's what he said. But he didn't explain how, or what I should be ready for.
And then he left.
No dramatic exit. No vanishing into mist or shadows. He just turned, gave me one last look, and disappeared into the ruined chapel as the wind howled behind him. The masked ones followed in silence.
I thought maybe I'd imagined them. Until I got home and found this tucked between the pages of the notebook I keep by my bed.
A second letter.
Not from Veyrix. The handwriting is finer, more elegant. Female.
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To Eira Thorne—Heir of the Forgotten Line.
The House awakens. The blood stirs. The veil thins.
You are not alone.
The Hollow Court watches. Choose your path before the moon wanes.
Your mother once stood where you now stand.
She chose silence.
Will you?
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There's no signature.
But at the bottom, there's a symbol. Not drawn in ink—branded into the page like it was burned there.
A crescent moon cradling a rose of thorns.
The same shape as the pendant.
And that's what I don't understand.
If my mother chose silence, then why did she leave the pendant behind?
Why preserve something so clearly tied to the House? Why let it find its way to me at all?
Unless... she was never fully silent.
Unless her silence was forced, or fractured, or temporary.
Or maybe leaving the pendant was her way of speaking—quietly, secretly, to me and no one else. A message only blood would answer.
I don't know. But the contradiction sits heavy on my chest.
And still, despite all the fear and doubt and frozen breath in my lungs... I feel something else too.
Curiosity.
The kind that doesn't go away. The kind that burns beneath your ribs when the world offers you a locked door and a key soaked in blood.
I'm going to find out what happened to my mother.
I'm going to find out what the House remembers.
And if that means stepping into the darkness....
Then so be it.
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Entry 8: January 4th
I didn't expect to sleep, but I must've passed out after writing. When I woke up, the pendant was gone from my desk.
For a second, I thought I'd imagined all of it. The chapel. The masked figures. The letters. Veyrix.
But then I saw it resting neatly on my windowsill, glinting faintly in the pale winter light like it had moved itself. Or been moved.
I live alone. The windows were locked. I don't remember putting it there.
I touched it again. No visions this time. Just a chill that settled in my bones, like the pendant had been waiting.
Watching.
I've started carrying it with me. Tucked inside my coat, just beneath my collarbone. It feels right there. Not comfortable, but necessary.
I don't have answers, but I have instincts. And they're telling me something is coming.
When I got to the university this morning, I noticed something else: people were looking at me differently. Like I was made of glass or maybe something sharper. Some of them avoided my eyes entirely. Others lingered too long.
And then there was him.
A boy I've never seen before, though somehow I knew instantly that he wasn't just anyone.
He stood by the old archway near the west courtyard, half in shadow, wearing a dark wool coat and gloves. Hair as black as ravens. Skin too pale for the sunlight.
He didn't approach. Just watched me walk by.
But as I passed, he spoke. Quietly, just enough for me to hear.
"It runs in the blood."
I turned to look at him. Gone.
No sound. No footsteps. Just empty air and an odd pressure in my ears, like I'd been somewhere else for a second without realizing.
I asked around. No one else saw him.
Another vision? Another warning?
Or maybe another messenger.
I don't know why this is happening now, all at once. Why my mother's secrets are unraveling after so many years of silence. But I can feel the pace quickening. Whatever the House is... it's not sleeping anymore.
I want to dig deeper. Find records, history, anything. But I don't know what I'm looking for. The only names I have are Veyrix and Thorne. The House. The Hollow Court.
Even the phrase "Forgotten Line" feels like a riddle wrapped in rot.
I wish she had told me something before she died. Anything. Even a lie would've been better than this… emptiness.
But maybe that's what the pendant is for. Maybe she left it because she knew she couldn't speak openly.
Maybe it's her voice, carried in metal and memory.