Chapter 59 59. Chapter
Elijah
The silence after Donovan’s confession was more suffocating than the gases of the swamp. Aurora’s body stiffened in my arms. I felt her skin turn ice cold. She stepped away from me and turned toward the stranger, but there was no love in her eyes. Only wild suspicion.
“You are lying,” Aurora spat. Her voice shook with anger. “The Clan keeps records of everyone. I knew the names and family lines. I have no brother. I have no one. This is just another trick from the Council to break me.”
Donovan did not move. He stood in the mud, his face still as stone, but in his eyes I saw a deep, ancient exhaustion that only comes from carrying secrets for too long.
“Elijah,” Aurora turned to me. Tears shone in her eyes behind the anger. “Tell him to leave. You said he was your friend. How can you let him do this to me?”
“Prove it, Donovan,” I said, stepping forward and blocking the space between them. My hand rested on the hilt of my sword. “I have known you for a hundred years. We fought on the Blood Red Fields. We drank together in exile. But not once did you ever mention a sister. Why should we believe you now, when the Clan wants our heads?”
Donovan let out a heavy breath and dropped his cloak to the ground. “Because until now, all I had to protect was my silence. But now that you have awakened her power, Elijah, hiding no longer makes sense.”
He took a step toward us, then stopped when the wind rose around Aurora’s hand.
“You want to know why they called you defective, Aurora?” he asked quietly. “Why your fire did not awaken when you were twelve? Because the Clan’s elemental magic demands pure bloodlines. But our blood is not pure. Our mother did not fall in love with a Hunter. She fell in love with a vampire. A Ruler who betrayed his own kind for her.”
Aurora’s face went white. “No. That is impossible. I am human.”
“You are a dhampir,” Donovan said firmly. “Just like me. We are the hybrids the Council fears. That is why they separated us. They kept me because the signs appeared in me earlier. They hid you among the so called defective ones, hoping the vampire part of you would never awaken.”
“You wanted proof, Elijah?” Donovan raised his hand. “I am the firstborn. I entered the world six minutes before she did. We are twins, even if our genders are different. Nature’s cruel joke. And because I was born first, I received what was left.”
Donovan closed his eyes, and the air around him changed. A small flame danced at his fingertips. Then the ground beneath his feet cracked, and a tiny funnel of dust formed. A moment later, the air vibrated, and a small sphere of water took shape in his palm.
“Four elements,” Donovan whispered, strain clear on his face. His skin flushed red, and veins stood out on his temples. “I can control all four, but only like this. A little of each, but none fully. This is the first half of the dhampir curse. Power spread too thin.”
The flame died. The water evaporated. Donovan dropped to one knee, breathing hard.
“But Aurora,” he continued, forcing the words out, “she is the secondborn. In her, the power did not scatter. Every element is there, whole and destructive. The wind you saw yesterday, Elijah, was only the first barrier. If she fully awakens, she will be the one who brings the world to its knees. She is the complete dhampir.”
Aurora only stared at him, at the man whose existence she had never known. The wind around her faded, replaced by a heavy, unnatural silence. She stepped closer to Donovan and touched his shoulder with a trembling hand.
“Six minutes?” Aurora whispered.
Donovan looked up at her, and a faint, sad smile appeared on his face. “For six minutes, I was alone in the world, Aurora. Every second since then, I have been searching for you.”
I looked at the two siblings and felt the wheels of fate shift for good. If Donovan was telling the truth, and his magic did not lie, then Aurora was not just a runaway Hunter at my side. She was the most dangerous being in the world. And I was the one who had pulled the trigger.
“If you are her brother,” I said quietly as I stepped closer, “then you need to know this. The Clan is already on the move. The Shadow Hunters were only the beginning.”
Donovan stood up and met my gaze. Now he did not look at me as a friend, but as an ally with the same goal. “I know. That is why I came. Of the four elements, wind is the easiest to awaken. If fire wakes in her next, this house will burn to ash. We have to teach her control, Elijah. This is no longer just about survival. It is about making sure she does not destroy herself.”