Chapter 52 Sacrifice
Lulu
Elaria stepped closer, ignoring the fire threatening to burn her from my hand. Her eyes shone with a sickening look of worship. I could still feel the leftover heat from my fire energy burning beneath my skin.
QCaspian stood beside me, his trembling hand still gripping mine, giving me strength when he barely had any left himself.
“You want to know what Ignith really is?” Elaria gave a small laugh, cold and sharp.
I tightened my grip on her cloak. “Tell me the truth. What did my mum do to me?”
Elaria stopped right in front of my face. Her breath smelled of chemical potions and old dust.
“Mary Ann saw me fail over and over again at Lorkgard Tower. Seventeen times we tried to fuse your blood with Cythium extract, and seventeen times the result was nothing but cold black ash. Your hybrid blood rejected all forms of human alchemy.”
She turned, looking at the pile of monster ash I had just destroyed. “She learned from Sapphire Bloodworth.”
Elaria spoke of the water sorcerer my mum had once told me about. Sapphire was a descendant of Fontayne Bloodworth, the legendary Hydros Archon of the magical world. When I was researching in the Sapphire Water pack library, I’d read an article about how she blew herself up when Dark Sorcerers attacked her home.
I thought she’d died in that attack, but Mum told me she actually had two sons, and one of them was now standing right beside me.
I never knew she’d faked her own death just to become a living shield for her son, Morpheus.
“But Mary Ann didn’t have noble water magic like the Bloodworth line,” Elaria continued, her voice lowering slightly. “She couldn’t pass on her magic bit by bit. So she performed a forbidden ritual. She used the MoonBound Casket to plant her heart inside you.”
My chest tightened. The name MoonBound Casket made something throb strangely in my heart. Mum had also told me she made a deal with Morpheus to use that vessel.
Wait. I felt like I was missing something. As I tried to piece it together, Elaria touched my chest, right where my heart was pounding. I flinched back, but my back hit Caspian’s chest.
“She tore out her own heart,” Elaria whispered. “The heart of a fire sorcerer, still beating with love and sacrifice. That heart is the only reason you survived the Cythium fire burning through your blood. She gave her life so you could become Ignith—a living fire weapon meant to destroy the Dark Sorcerers.”
I dropped to my knees. The cold stone floor was nothing compared to the cold spreading through my soul. Mum died because of me. She didn’t just protect me—she gave up the most vital part of herself so I could breathe.
One year after my supposed death, and this had been Mum’s true goal all along.
“Why?” My voice cracked.
“Because you and Sapphire’s child are the key,” Elaria said firmly. “The Dark Sorcerers want to perform a ritual that requires the hearts of the four hybrids that exist in this world. You’re targets because you’re anomalies—successfully perfected through the blood sacrifice of your own family.”
Elaria glanced at the monster’s ashes on the floor. She said she’d been forced to trap that creature here after discovering the plan she and Mum had once been part of.
And also to use it as a test subject for her experiment, which had been delayed while she waited for my werewolf side to reach my mature age.
Caspian stayed silent behind me, but I could feel how tense his body had become.
Then Elaria turned to Caspian. Her smile twisted into something far darker. “Speaking of Sapphire’s child… isn’t that right, Morpheus?”
My world seemed to freeze. I turned towards Caspian. His face was deathly pale, his sea-blue eyes—the same colour Elaria had just described—wide with fear.
“Don’t call me that,” Caspian hissed, his voice rough.
“You’ve been hiding behind this fake identity for far too long,” Elaria stepped towards him. “Every day you drink Identity Flux just to mask the scent of ozone and your water magic. You really think pretending to be a flashy Alpha werewolf can fool me?”
Caspian took a step back, his hand searching the torn pocket of his trousers. He pulled out a small bottle filled with liquid, the same kind Niobe had once given me.
“Sapphire sacrificed her magic so you could stay hidden,” Elaria sneered. “And now that she’s gone, you keep drinking that potion to suppress who you really are—Morpheus Bloodworth—so the Dark Sorcerers can’t track you down.”
I stared at the man who had protected me all this time. Caspian—Morpheus—looked at me with eyes full of pain. He was the child Sapphire had raised beneath the ground of Oakhaven. He was the reason Mary Ann waited twenty-four years for me to reach cellular maturity so I could receive MoonBound energy.
“Lulu, I…” Caspian tried to speak, but his voice broke.
“You’re the other key,” I said quietly. “Both of us… we’re experiments perfected by our mothers’ deaths.”
Elaria clapped once, the sound echoing through the damp basement. “Exactly. And now the Ignith experiment has fully awakened. With Mary Ann’s heart in your chest and an Alpha werewolf carrying ancient magic by your side, I’ll make sure the Dark Sorcerers regret ever hunting you.”
I slowly stood, feeling the heat in my hand flare back to life. The fear inside me turned into pure anger.
“We’re not your weapons, Elaria,” I growled.
Caspian swallowed the last of the liquid in his bottle, his face hardening as the disguise spell took hold again, hiding the faint blue glow that had shimmered beneath his skin. He stepped up beside me, ready to fight.
“We’ll see,” Elaria said calmly. “The Dark Sorcerers are already close, and I’m your only chance.”
I looked at the black dust on the floor. The real enemy was hunting us, and this newly revealed truth was only the beginning of a war that would burn everything to the ground.
“Do you also know I’ve only got a few months left to live?”
Elaria lifted her head. There was a brief crease in her brow.
“Mary Ann never told me that.”
I stepped closer, bringing my face level with hers. “You should know. Right now, we can still be useful to each other.”
I still didn’t fully trust Elaria, especially not with that ambition of hers.