113. Scarlett
Scarlett
T he hallway was too long. Too quiet. The walls waiting for me to scream.
Brielle walked ahead like she’d been here a hundred times. I kept waiting for her to turn around and smirk, or say something cruel just to twist the knife a little deeper. But she didn’t. And her silence unnerved me more than anything.
I kept my footsteps even. Controlled. But my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, even when I curled them into fists to hide it.
We reached the doors—tall, black, carved with the same veiled eye crest id seen on the gates. Only now I noticed the sword below it.
Brielle pushed them open without knocking.
The room was dark and gold, all low lighting and heavy wood. A fire crackled in a stone hearth, too clean to be comforting. Books lined one wall. Weapons lined another. It smelled like cigars, cedar, and something sharp underneath. Power. Memory. Blood.
And then I saw him.
He didn’t look like a villain. That would’ve made this easier. He wasn’t cold or withered or monstrous. He looked… composed. Strong. Mid-forties, maybe. Hair blonde, short, no gray. Sharp jaw. Green eyes that looked exactly like mine.
My heart tried to crawl up my throat as he stood slowly. “Scarlett.”
Hearing my name in his voice was worse than hearing it from a stranger.
I stood there, letting the light cast shadows across his face.
He studied me like I was a painting he hadn’t seen in years. Not with softness. With precision. With hunger. Like he was trying to recognize the pieces of himself inside me.
“I thought you might come eventually,” he said.
I found my voice, brittle and shaking. “I was told you were dead.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“You let me think that.”
“No,” he said. “Your mother did.”
I blinked hard. “And you let her.”
“I made a deal to protect you. Your mother’s price was silence. I kept my distance so you could grow up without this world touching you.”
I laughed. It was hollow. Ugly. “That worked out real well.”
Something flickered in his expression, but it vanished quickly. “I didn’t expect you to come here with Brielle. That was… a surprise.”
“I didn’t come because of her. I came because I’m done being lied to.”
He stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “You look like her. But you’re mine.”
I flinched. “Don’t.”
“I mean that as a truth, not a claim. But we are the same, Scarlett. I can feel it. You’re not a girl anymore. You’re something else now. And I’ve been waiting for you to remember that.”
I hated that part of me wanted to understand what he meant.
I looked around the room—this place of shadow and legacy and quiet control. “Why now? Why not come for me?”
“Because they would’ve killed you. The Hollow Order isn’t the only threat, and you’re not just anyone.”
My stomach dropped. “Then who am I?”
His voice was quiet. “You’re the bloodline they fear.”
I stared at him, my heart pounding like it wanted out of my chest. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you were never just a daughter,” he said. “You’re a prophecy. A return. A knot that was never supposed to tighten again.”
I didn’t understand. Not fully. But I felt it. In my skin. In the air around me. The way the floorboards creaked like they remembered me.
“The Codex called it the Severance Knot,” he continued. “A bond split across three bloodlines—one to burn, one to break, and one to bind.”
“You think I’m the one who binds them?” I asked, voice thin.
His eyes darkened. “You already are.”
He looked at me, studying my face even more.
“There were always whispers about the bond,” he said, quieter now. “Warnings. A prophecy hidden in one of the oldest Codex pages—long before you were born. Someone told me it would follow you. That it was your fate. That if it found you… it would break everything I’d tried to protect.”
He exhaled slowly, the mask of control slipping just enough to show what was underneath.
“That’s why I hid you. Why I let your mother raise you far from this. You were never supposed to remember.”
My throat tightened. “And the Hollow Order?”
“They knew someone from my line survived. Suspected there was an heir out there. But they didn’t know it was you. And they sure as hell didn’t expect a bond.”
His eyes darkened. “Especially not with their bloodlines.”
I felt it then—like ice down my spine.
“You mean Trace. Alden.”
He gave the smallest nod. “They think they’re protecting you. But they don’t understand what they’ve started.”
He stepped forward again. Slower this time.
“You were meant to undo the Severance Knot, Scarlett. Not tighten it.”
I swallowed hard, my voice thinner than I wanted it to be. “So what now? Does everyone know?”
He tilted his head slightly. “Not yet. But they will.”
My chest tightened. “Then what the hell does that mean for me?”
His gaze sharpened, the weight behind it almost unbearable. “It means you’re no longer a secret. The moment the bond anchored, the magic remembered you. The old bloodlines did too. And they’re not all thrilled to see you back on the board.”
I blinked. “You’re saying people can feel it?”
“Not people,” he said. “Orders. Bloodline keepers. The ones who study the Codex. The ones who profit off keeping power divided. You changed something the second you bonded. And it didn’t go unnoticed.”
I stepped back, the room tilting around me. “So this world—the one you kept me from—it’s not just shadows and weapons and cryptic rituals. It’s… alive.”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s built on old magic. On blood. On balance. And you just tipped the scales.”
My chest caved in.
The bloodline they fear.
The words echoed louder than the fire, louder than the silence that followed them. I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t breathe around the truth he just dropped like a weapon at my feet.
I wasn’t just someone they were watching.
I was someone they were preparing for.
I turned back toward the window, the glass now fogged with breath.
Below it, I saw the courtyard. The garden wasn’t delicate—it was wild, overgrown, violent with bloom.
Vines climbed the statues like they were trying to pull them down.
Thorns curled through everything. Even the roses had teeth here.
Just like this place. Just like me.
“How long have you known?”
My voice was calm.
My body wasn’t.
He didn’t answer right away. When he finally spoke, it was quiet—measured. Like he knew he couldn’t put the truth back once it touched air.
I turned around, eyes stinging, throat tight as he said.
“Since before you were born.” He went on.
“Before you even existed, there were rumors. Whispers in the old lines. That a child born of both bloods would be the undoing of every oath written in ink and ash. A Severance Knot. One soul who could tether bloodlines that were never meant to coexist.”
I turned slowly. “And you believed it?”
“I didn’t want to,” he said. “But then your mother got pregnant. And the moment you opened your eyes, I felt it.”
“What?”
“The magic. The pull. You were quiet, but the air moved differently around you—even the silence knew something ancient had returned.”
“And what about the bond?” I asked, voice sharp. “You said it was prophecy. You said you knew.”
“There were warnings,” he said. “One of the old prophets in the Red Veil saw it in her final vision—three bloodlines tied by fate. One to burn. One to break. One to bind. She said the girl would be born of both legacies. And she’d be drawn to her opposite like flame to air.”
My blood ran cold.
“You mean Trace.”
“I mean all of them,” he said. “You weren’t just bonded to one. You pulled two heirs into a knot they can’t untangle. One from my line. One from theirs.”
I blinked. “Two heirs?”
My voice cracked around it. “What the hell do you mean?”
He stepped closer. “Alden is one too.”
Brielle stepped in. “That’s not possible. Trace is the heir—he’s always been the heir.”
“No,” my father said evenly. “Trace is one heir. The Order hasn’t had a single bloodline in decades. Leadership fractured after I left—Different families rose. Different boys were chosen. You think they sent him in alone?”
My pulse pounded in my ears.
“They sent Alden too,” he said. “Two heirs. Two bloodlines. Bound to the same dying legacy. Raised as brothers. Trained as soldiers.”
I could barely speak. “And they both bonded to me.”
“You were always going to bind the broken,” he said. “That’s what the prophecy meant.”
I wanted to scream. Or laugh. Or fall through the floor and pretend this wasn’t my life. “So what? I was marked before I was even born?”
“Not chosen. Marked.”
My throat burned. “Marked by who?”
“The Codex. The bloodlines. Fate. Take your pick.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I snapped.
“No one ever does,” he said. “But you don’t get to unmake what you are.”
I backed away, rage prickling hot beneath my skin. “You think I care about prophecies and fate? I was living—I was trying to breathe, to survive, and you—you just sat here while they lied to me.”
He tilted his head. “And yet you still found them. Trace. Alden. You didn’t need to be told who they were. You felt it.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think,” he said, voice low. “I tried to stop it. That’s why I made your mother hide you. Why I buried every record. You were never supposed to remember.”
“And yet here I am,” I said, laughing bitterly. “A little late for erasure.”
His expression didn’t shift. “They only bonded to you because of who you are.”
I felt like the floor might crack beneath me. “Then why didn’t they tell me?”
“Because they were afraid,” he said. “Because love is the most dangerous lie of all. They weren’t supposed to fall for you.”
I felt every word like glass under my skin. “But they did.”
He didn’t answer.
“And now I’m just supposed to pick a side?” I asked. “Play the game they built while I was kept in the dark?”
“No,” he said. “You’re not here to play the game. You’re here to end it.”
The fire behind him crackled louder. The air in the room pulsed.
“Trace is the Order’s crown,” he said. “Alden is their anchor. But you—” his eyes locked onto mine “—you’re the blade.”
A tremor rolled through my chest.
“You can sever them,” he said. “Or bind them forever. The Severance Knot isn’t just a myth. It’s a weapon. And right now, it’s you.”
My voice was quieter this time. Rough. “And if I don’t?”
He didn’t respond.
“If I don’t choose a side,” I pressed. “If I don’t sever the bond. If I don’t bind anything—what happens?”
His gaze flicked to the fire, jaw hardening. “Then the knot tightens.”
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
“It means you keep bleeding into each other. The bond doesn’t just disappear. It festers. It pulls. It consumes.”
I swallowed hard. “All of us?”
He nodded. “You. Trace. Alden. Eventually, it destroys what it can’t claim.”
My stomach twisted. “So I destroy them?”
“Or they destroy you,” he said. “That’s how it always ends when a Severance Knot is left to rot. It doesn’t break clean—it devours.”
I looked at him, barely breathing. “You’ve seen this happen before?”
He stepped forward. “No ones seen it, stories have been passed down. Warnings buried in pages no one was meant to read.” His eyes met mine, “A long time ago, it happened. And when she refused to choose, the bloodlines turned on each other. The girl was the first to fall.”
The fire hissed behind him like it knew the story too well.
My lips parted. “And you think I’m her? Reborn or something?”
“I think you’re the reckoning that story left behind.”
I hated how still the room became. Like the walls were waiting for me to explode. Like they wanted it.
I crossed my arms, even though I was shaking. “Then what happens if I do choose?”
His smile was the kind that didn’t reach his eyes. “Someone always burns.”