Chapter 32 When The Lies Crack #2
“I will not bargain with demons,” he said at last, the words a tremor of conviction and fear. But she smiled. That soft, knowing smile that promised everything while hiding the blade behind her back.
“You already have,” she whispered. The image shifted.
Time fractured. Another night, decades later.
Vas in the corridor, hearing the echo of their voices, hearing the argument unfold.
Her pleading. His father’s refusal. The crash of glass.
The sound of a single word spoken in a tongue not meant for mortal mouths.
Then just like that, time shifted again and to one that was before the argument Vas had heard. The time the demon heard the call of a bargain.
Their mother, Calista stood in an alleyway, cloaked in finery that once held beauty but now stank of decay. Her fingers trembled as she pressed gold into the palm of a hooded stranger.
“Take it… Take their blood. He will never know.” she hissed. And the stranger, that thing in a man’s shape, its features cloaked, took it. The demon’s voice filled the air, smooth and deep, as it echoed through the vision.
“The power you seek is not yours. It belongs to the men of your blood. From father to son, from darkness to darkness. Not to you.” Her rage flared bright enough to burn the heavens.
And from that fury, the curse was born, as in her desperation for power, she made a bargain.
Not only for the curse of darkness but something for herself.
A necklace forged from her bitterness, a drop of the demon’s essence hardened into crimson crystal. A thing made not of love, but of envy.
A gift. A curse.
And with it, she began to weave her lies.
The scenes bled together, impossible to stop.
The father discovering the truth, begging her to stop.
The demon appearing, its voice crawling across the walls like smoke.
Her rage consumed everything. She had wanted what her husband possessed.
The shadows. The control. The worship. But when she could not take them, she made a new bargain. One steeped in deceit.
The necklace was her gift.
I saw it born in a pit of flame, forged from the demon’s own blood, its surface pulsing like a living heart. A cursed stone that could bend truth to her will, that could make the purest love curdle into hatred.
And she used it.
Night after night, she whispered lies into her son’s ears, twisting his heart, poisoning his memories until her husband became the monster she wanted him to be.
As for their father, he had found love elsewhere. His fated mate. His salvation. He had planned to leave that very night, to start again, to escape the poison that his wife had become.
But she had found out.
The vision twisted, and I saw her watching from the shadows of the estate gardens, her pale face illuminated by the soft glow of lantern light that spilled from the stables. Her eyes, green and gold, burned with something unholy as they followed her husband. He was not alone.
The woman who walked beside him was younger, softer, and there was light in her that seemed to reach even the darkness that lived in him.
The same darkness the demon had warned could only be tamed by true love.
I saw him smile at her, tenderly brushing a strand of hair from her face as though she were something sacred.
“You have done what no one else could,” he whispered to her.
“You have quieted the shadows. I feel… whole again… my love.”
The woman’s hand touched his chest, where his curse lay dormant, her voice trembling with adoration.
“Does this mean we can finally be together?” He smiled again, and in that moment, the decision was made.
“Tonight… It ends tonight. I will tell her. This sham of a marriage cannot go on. I will not let her destroy what remains of my soul.”
And from the shadows, Calista listened, her face frozen in a mask that was almost calm.
Only her eyes betrayed her, wide and bright and wet with fury.
Her nails dug into her palms until the skin broke.
She stood there long after they left, long after his words stopped echoing, whispering to herself like a prayer.
“She tamed him,” she said softly.
“She took what was mine… but not for long.”
The memory shifted again, and I saw her move through the house that same night, as silent as a shadow.
Every candle was extinguished, every curtain drawn tight.
She walked the halls like a ghost, her white gown dragging along the floor, the necklace at her throat pulsing faintly as if feeding on her rage.
When her husband left their chambers, she waited only long enough for him to disappear down the lane before she followed.
The next scene came sharp and fast, the lover’s cottage, warm and golden, laughter still in the air. The woman sat by the fire, unaware that death had already entered the room. Calista stepped from the doorway like a shadow come to life, her expression eerily serene.
“You should not have taken what was mine,” she whispered.
The woman gasped, but it was too late. The blade slid across her throat in a swift, elegant motion, the blood blooming bright and fast against the rug.
Calista knelt beside her, eyes wide and unblinking as she dipped her fingers into the crimson pool, tracing a circle in the blood like it was holy water.
Then she cut a lock of the woman’s hair and tucked it into her bodice, proof of what she had done.
“Now he will know what it means to lose everything,” she said, and her smile was the shape of ruin.
When she returned home, her husband was waiting. He saw the blood before he saw her eyes. He took a step forward, demanding to know what she had done, his grief already unraveling his restraint. He could scent his Fated love’s blood. He would know it anywhere.
“You drove me to it,” she spat, the madness slipping through her tone.
“You wanted her. You wanted to leave us. I only gave you a reason to stay!” The argument became chaos. He shouted, she laughed. He struck her once, and her head snapped to the side, but her smile only widened.
“You think you can hurt me now? I already bled for you.” She hissed. And with that, she drove the dagger into her own side, just deep enough to draw blood, enough to make it convincing.
Then she screamed.
“Vasileios!” she cried, her voice cutting through the house like a blade.
“He’s killing me!” From the corridor, Vas ran. The magic in the necklace surged, wrapping him in illusion, twisting his sight until the truth vanished. He saw his father standing over her, the dagger slick with her blood, his mother gasping against the wall.
He didn’t see her smirk.
The next moments unfolded like a nightmare. Vas lunged, grief and rage blinding him, his father shouting something he couldn’t hear. The dagger was torn from one hand to another, and then… silence.
Sebastian fell.
And she began to cry. Not from grief, but triumph.
She cradled his face, pressing a kiss to his brow.
“You did the right thing, my son. You saved me.”
Behind her, the necklace pulsed, the light from it dark and alive.
By the time his brothers arrived, the stage was already set.
Their father’s body lay still. Their mother, hidden from view, a fake necklace among a pile of ash, a lowery vampire she killed, someone to use in her place.
She then watched from the shadows as the harrowing scene played out.
Vas was left standing over his father’s body, out of his mind with rage that was being fed from the lies the necklace emitted.
One that shimmered faintly, feeding on the ruin it had sown, its glow the color of victory and blood.
The visions blurred now, faster and faster, twisting into years of madness.
Vas hiding her. Caring for her. Believing her decades of lies.
Watching her decay, her hunger growing. She had manipulated him from the beginning, feeding him revenge, convincing him that his father’s curse had poisoned them all.
The truth burned through me like fire.
His father was never the monster.
His mother was.
She had sold her soul for power, and when it denied her, she used her own children to destroy everything that had once loved her. She had wanted her husband dead so she could claim the darkness through Vas, using him as her weapon.
And now, she had used me too.
The realization tore a scream from my throat, but the sound was lost in the void. The visions shattered, and the darkness surged around me once more, thick and suffocating. The cracked necklace still pulsed at my feet, the demon’s laughter echoing in my skull.
‘Now you see, little Fated Flame… Every lie leads us home.’
The world split open beneath me, fire and shadow swallowing me whole as the brothers shouted my name. Their voices vanished into the roar.
And then there was only silence.
Only… Hell.
And the Demon there who was ready to claim me.
To be Continued in