Chapter 10
brYNN
Dominic—or the thing wearing Elliott’s face—takes another step, and I can feel the weight of his presence against my sternum, a magnetic pull that makes the fine hairs on my neck stand on end.
But he doesn’t look like a monster. He looks like a savior who just happened to crawl out of a tomb.
Nobody answers his question. We all just stare.
He looks around at the wreckage, at the ash that was once an invading army, seemingly distracted. His dark eyes soften a touch.
“Look at what you have accomplished,” he says.
“For centuries, our people have lived in the gutters of history, hunted by the clearbloods, used as livestock by the dragons. We were a race of shadows, forced to apologize for the very blood that set us apart. I watched it. From the moment I passed beyond the Ides’ veil, I watched my descendants suffer, and it was a torment far greater than death. ”
He paces a small circle, his boots crunching softly on the pulverized remains of a dragon’s scale.
“When I was alive, I was limited. Even as a Master of the Coven, I was a prisoner of a body that would grow old and a world that feared my potential. I was the first recorded person who chose to become an Ide—not out of a desire for godhood, but out of concern. For our people. For all of us. I knew that one day, the dragons would return. I knew the clearbloods would never stop until we were extinct. I chose to wait in the silence so that when this day came, I could offer you the one thing no one else could: unfettered power.”
He stops and looks directly at me at the front, and for a second, I see the sheer, terrifying scale of his ambition.
It doesn’t seem like malice or zealotry.
It feels like he truly believes he is the hero of this story.
“The glory of the darkblood is no longer a memory, young Salem. It is a present reality. No more hiding. No more fear. We are the architects of a new world.”
I want to believe him. Every cell in my body, tired of the running and the hiding and the loss, wants to sink into the comfort of his certainty. He speaks with the charisma of a king and the care of a relative. But as he speaks, a sudden, sharp spike of nausea hits me.
It starts as a dull ache behind my eyes, then spirals into a violent, churning sickness in my gut. I double over, clutching my stomach, gasping as the world begins to tilt. And then, the sound starts.
It’s a sound from somewhere inside me. A high-pitched screaming that vibrates through my teeth and echoes in the hollows of my skull.
“Brynn?” My mother’s voice is distant, panicked.
I look up and see her falling to her knees, clutching her head.
Beside her, Ridge lets out a guttural moan of pain, his hands gripping his temples.
Nyv collapses, her face contorting in an agonizing spasm.
One by one, more darkbloods in the courtyard are brought low by the same internal cacophony.
Nyssa staggers back, her amethyst eyes wide with confusion.
“What are you... doing to us?” I wheeze, looking at Dominic.
Dominic stands unmoved in the center, his expression one of calm compassion.
“I am doing nothing, Brynn. You performed the ritual to bring me back into the realm of the living, and I established the connection to bring other Ides through with me. This is what you wanted, needed: power. We burst through forcefully at first, but now, we must do things properly.” He kneels beside me, his hand—Elliott’s hand—resting coolly on my shoulder.
“You are simply experiencing the birth pains of a new era. The Ides are not mere ghosts. They are echoes of pure, concentrated will. They cannot exist in this realm as mere whispers. They require vessels. They require a home.”
The screaming in my head hits a crescendo that makes my vision go white, and then, as quickly as it began, it recedes into a low, throbbing hum.
“It is the price we pay,” Dominic says, his voice low, somehow soothing.
“For access to this kind of power, we must offer ourselves as the conduit. It is a symbiosis, Brynn. They give us the strength to survive, and we give them the breath of life. It will all work out. The pain will fade, and the clarity will remain. You are no longer alone in your own mind. You are part of a legacy that can never be broken.”
I try to find the words to scream no, to tell him that I don't want a tenant in my brain, but the nausea is already fading, replaced by a strange, numbing warmth.
My ribs, which were screaming in protest minutes ago, now feel strangely distant, the pain muffled by a layer of mental cotton. I feel... efficient. Sharp.
“Look,” Isola whispers, pointing toward the center of the ruins.
The air begins to shimmer with the familiar, silver-threaded light of our ancestor spirits. But they aren't the flickering, weak, translucent wisps they used to be. They look almost solid. Vivid.
My grandmother, Esther, emerges from the haze.
She looks magnificent—her braided hair like spun silver, her traditional robes heavy with sigils that pulse with a rhythmic, dark light.
She almost doesn't look like a ghost anymore; she looks like she could almost reach out and snap my neck.
Behind her, Angus and Ezekiel appear, looking equally… healthy.
“The grid is restored,” Esther announces, her voice ringing across the courtyard. She looks at us all with a rare pride. “Not just restored. It is amplified. The connection to the Ides has turned our sanctuary, finally, into a true fortress.”
I scan the line of spirits, my breath hitching as I see a figure at the very end of the line.
Helena.
What… The last time I saw her, she was being sucked into some kind of spectral void.
Now she stands—or hovers—but is apart from the others, her form strangely darker.
There is a heaviness to her specter, a shadowed aura that seems to swallow the light around her.
She isn't looking at us. Her gaze is fixed on the ground, her expression unreadable, but the sheer cold radiating from her makes my skin crawl.
I look at my grandmother, then at Dominic, then at the darkbloods around me who are standing up, their eyes clear but their shadows elongated, dancing with a faint life of their own.
I can’t feel the Ide inside me yet—not fully.
It’s still a weight, a cold spot in the center of my thoughts. But I know it’s there.
I look back at my great, great, great grandmother.
“Helena?” I murmur.
She doesn't respond.