Chapter 14 A Warning
ARIA'S POV
My mother stood in the doorway, very much alive.
For a heartbeat, I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't process what my eyes were showing me.
"Mother?" The word came out broken, barely a whisper.
But something was wrong. Her eyes glowed with the same golden light as mine, but brighter—too bright. And when she moved, it wasn't natural. She floated more than walked, her feet barely touching the ground.
"Not quite," she said, and her voice echoed strangely, like multiple people speaking at once. "I'm what she left behind. A memory. A warning."
Celeste shrieked and threw magic at the figure. Dark energy hit my mother—or whatever she was—and passed straight through her like she was made of smoke.
"You can't hurt me," my mother's ghost said calmly. "I'm already dead. You made sure of that."
"This is impossible!" Celeste backed toward the wall, fear replacing her madness. "I killed you! I watched you die!"
"You did." My mother moved closer to me, and warmth spread through my chest as she touched the altar. The straps fell away. "But Sanguine blood doesn't just fade when we die. It leaves echoes. Protections. I couldn't save myself, but I could leave something behind to save my daughter."
I sat up slowly, my mind reeling. "You've been here the whole time? Watching?"
"Not watching. Waiting." She turned to me, and despite the strangeness, I saw love in her eyes. "Waiting for you to be in enough danger that my magic would activate. And now..." She looked at Celeste with something like pity. "Now I can finally tell you the truth about what you've done."
"I don't care about your truth!" Celeste screamed. She raised the ceremonial blade. "If magic won't kill you, maybe this will!"
She lunged at my mother's ghost—and Sebastian burst through the door.
He'd torn it off its hinges. Kieran and Roslyn rushed in behind him, but Sebastian's eyes found mine first. Relief flooded through our bond so strongly it made me dizzy.
"Aria—" He stopped when he saw my mother. "What...?"
"A Sanguine echo," my mother explained. "I don't have much time. The magic holding me here is already fading." She looked at Celeste, who'd frozen at Sebastian's entrance. "The Void Gate isn't what you think it is. Morgana lied to you."
"Lied?" Celeste's voice shook. "She told me I could control what came through. That I could use it to—"
"To destroy the vampire realm?" my mother finished. "She was using you. The Void Gate doesn't release monsters that can be controlled. It releases the First Curse."
The temperature in the room dropped. Even Sebastian looked shocked.
"That's a myth," he said.
"Is it?" My mother turned to him. "You were cursed by a blood witch eight hundred years ago. Where do you think blood magic comes from? Where do you think the power to curse vampires originated?"
She gestured toward the window, where we could see the Void Gate pulsing in the distance. "The First Curse. The original source of all blood magic. It's been locked away for three thousand years because the last time it was free, it nearly destroyed both worlds. And now, thanks to Celeste's ritual, it will be loose in..." She paused, listening to something only she could hear. "Two hours and seven minutes."
My blood turned to ice. "How do we stop it?"
My mother's form flickered, growing fainter. "You can't. The gate is already open. But you can contain what comes through—if you're willing to pay the price."
"What price?" Sebastian demanded.
"A Sanguine bond, fully formed. Not the incomplete connection you share now, but a true soul-binding. It would give you power to match the First Curse, but..." She looked at me sadly. "It would tie your life forces together permanently. If one of you dies, so does the other. No exceptions. No escape."
Through our bond, I felt Sebastian's immediate rejection of the idea. He wouldn't risk my life like that.
But I also felt something else—the faint pull of the curse that had controlled him for centuries. It was weakening, yes, but not gone. And I suddenly understood.
"The First Curse is what powered your blood witch's spell," I said to Sebastian. "That's why it was so strong. And now that the gate is opening—"
"The curse is reactivating," Sebastian finished, his face going pale. He touched his chest. "I can feel it. Growing stronger. In two hours..."
"You'll die," my mother confirmed. "Unless you complete the Sanguine bond before midnight. It's the only power strong enough to counter the First Curse."
"Then we do it," I said immediately.
"No." Sebastian grabbed my shoulders. "Aria, you don't understand what you're agreeing to. A soul-binding is forever. You'd be tied to me—to a vampire—for the rest of your life. You couldn't leave. Couldn't choose differently. And if I fall in battle against the First Curse, you die too."
"I know," I said simply.
"You're twenty-five years old! You have your whole life ahead of you!"
"Not if the First Curse destroys both worlds," I pointed out. "Besides..." I touched his face gently. "Maybe I don't want to leave. Maybe I choose this. Choose you."
Sebastian looked at me like I'd stabbed him. Through our bond, I felt his love, his terror, his desperate desire to protect me—even from himself.
"There's one more thing," my mother said, her voice barely a whisper now. She was fading fast. "The soul-binding requires a sacrifice. Something you value more than your own life. Something you're willing to give up forever."
"What kind of sacrifice?" Kieran asked warily.
"For Sebastian..." My mother's eyes met his. "Your immortality. You'll become mortal, aging as Aria ages. You'll have a human lifespan—perhaps a hundred years if you're lucky."
The throne room burst back into the chamber as vampires and humans both crowded around the doorway, drawn by the commotion. I heard gasps as they processed what my mother had said.
Eight hundred years of life, traded for maybe a hundred more.
"And for Aria?" Sebastian's voice was hoarse.
My mother turned to me, and tears—real tears—ran down her ghostly face. "Your healing gift. You'll lose it completely. No more saving lives. No more easing pain. The power that defined you will be gone forever."
My heart stopped. My healing gift was everything. It was how I'd rebuilt my life after my stepfamily destroyed it. It was my purpose, my identity, my way of helping people who had no one else.
"The bond needs equal sacrifice," my mother explained. "A vampire gives up eternity. A healer gives up healing. Only then will you be strong enough to face what's coming."
She was barely visible now, just a shimmer of light.
"I'm sorry, my darling girl," she whispered. "I wish I could give you an easier choice. But this is the only way to save everyone you love."
"How do we perform the ritual?" I asked, my voice steady even though my heart was breaking.
"Don't!" Celeste shrieked. She'd been so quiet I'd almost forgotten she was there. "Don't you see? She's manipulating you! There has to be another way!"
"There isn't," my mother said, her voice fading. "And you know it, Celeste. You studied my blood for three years. You know what Sanguine bonds can do."
My mother's form dissolved into golden sparkles that drifted toward me. Her final words echoed in the chamber: "The ritual must be performed at the Void Gate itself. You have two hours. And Aria... I love you. I always did."
Then she was gone.
Silence filled the room.
Sebastian and I looked at each other. Through our bond, we didn't need words. We both knew what we had to do, even though it terrified us both.
But before either of us could speak, Celeste laughed—a broken, desperate sound.
"You're both fools," she said. She pulled something from her robe—a vial of dark liquid. "I studied blood magic for three years. Did you really think I didn't prepare for this?"
She drank the vial.
Her scream was inhuman. Her body convulsed, bones cracking and reshaping. Dark magic poured from her in waves that shook the palace.
"If I can't have my revenge through the First Curse," she gasped between screams, "then I'll become a curse myself!"
Celeste's transformation completed. Where my stepmother had stood now crouched something monstrous—a creature of shadow and blood, with my stepmother's face twisted into nightmare.
And through the window, we could see the Void Gate pulsing faster. Whatever Celeste had done was accelerating it.
"One hour," Kieran said, checking an ancient clock. "We have one hour until midnight."
The monster that was Celeste lunged at me with claws extended.
And somewhere in the distance, beyond the Void Gate, something ancient and terrible began to wake.