Chapter 5 – The Monster Who Called Himself Father

• He didn’t think. Just moved.
• The gun was already in Cassian’s hand before his brain caught up.
• Click. Cold metal. Familiar weight.
• Across the room, the hooded man stood still. Too still. Like the rules of motion didn’t apply to him. His hand lifted slowly—burning. That glow. Red-gold, bleeding light. Not flame. Not magic. Something older. Something alive.
• And it was the same light bleeding from Luca’s chest.
• The boy stood frozen. Arms shaking, symbols flickering around him like fireflies with teeth.
• “Luca!” Aveline’s voice cracked.
• She moved. She didn’t care about the danger or the sigils or the man who looked like death cloaked in silence.
• She just moved.
• And the room didn’t let her.
• The force hit her like a truck. Her back slammed into the wall. She dropped with a gasp that sounded like it belonged to someone drowning.
• Cassian didn’t hesitate. He pulled her behind him, shielding her like instinct—not kindness.
• “I’ve got you—”
• “Get off!” she snapped, pushing his arm away. “He needs me, not you!”
• But Luca... Luca wasn’t even blinking.
• His hands moved like they belonged to someone else. Symbols appeared in the air, dancing, twisting. Too clean. Too old.
• And when he spoke—
• “They’re calling me.”
• —it wasn’t his voice.
• “From behind the gate... I hear them. They said... they said my blood remembers.”
• Aveline shook her head. “No. No. I locked it. I sealed it. I—I closed the damn thing—”
• “You failed,” the hooded man said, stepping closer. His voice was calm. That made it worse. “And now, he remembers us.”
• Cassian pulled the trigger.
• The shot never made it.
• The bullet hung in the air—stopped, trembling—and then the sigil on the man’s chest lit up. One breath. One pulse.
• And the world exploded.
• ⋆⋆⋆
• Ash.
• Her throat burned.
• Aveline coughed once, then again, harder. Her chest was tight. The smell—oak, blood, incense—hit her first. And the softness beneath her.
• Sheets. Satin. Clean.
• Too clean.
• Her eyes opened slowly.
• Not chains. No restraints. But her wrists hurt.
• She was home.
• No—not home.
• The Drayke mansion.
• Again.
• Her body tensed before her mind caught up.
• Across the room, Cassian sat in a chair like someone who’d lost a war. Blood crusted along his sleeve. His eyes weren’t red from rage.
• It was something else.
• “You brought me back?” she rasped. Her throat scratched with each word.
• He didn’t answer right away.
• “You were out cold,” he said finally. “The sigil room collapsed after the detonation. And Luca—”
• He paused.
• She sat up fast. Too fast. Her head swam.
• “What do you mean Luca?”
• “He’s gone.”
• “What the hell do you mean gone?!”
• Cassian met her eyes. His voice didn’t change. But something in him did.
• “The Hollow Court took him.”
• Her breath caught. It didn’t leave her body—it froze there.
• “That’s not possible,” she said. “We destroyed them. They’re done. They’re supposed to be ash in the wind.”
• Cassian stood, slow. “So are we.”
• She clenched the sheets in her fists. “We were supposed to protect him.”
• “I tried,” he said.
• She laughed. Dry. Hollow. “That’s what you always say when things burn down around you, isn’t it?”
• “I’m not here to shift blame,” he said, stepping closer. “But I’m not letting you carry it alone either.”
• The silence between them felt louder than any argument.
• She pressed her hand to her temple. Her body was shaking, though she didn’t want it to. She could still see Luca—those eyes.
• Those weren’t his eyes.
• Something had been inside them. Something cold and watching.
• “His aura,” she whispered. “It’s not just Vallerion blood. It’s more. It’s older. It’s not just power—it’s... memory.”
• Cassian didn’t argue. That scared her more than if he had.
• She stood slowly. Her balance off.
• Her fingers brushed the old dresser. It still had a dent from the night she threw a knife at him.
• Inside, old letters. She never mailed them. Never meant to. They were just pages filled with words she couldn’t scream.
• “I had dreams,” she said. “When I was pregnant. Doors. Fire. Hands reaching through cracks. I thought I was just scared.”
• “It wasn’t fear.”
• “No,” she said. “It was prophecy.”
• ⋆⋆⋆
• By morning, the war room felt like a tomb.
• Screens buzzed. Data scrolled. One name blinked over and over:
• Luca Vallerion Drayke
• Aveline didn’t move.
• Cassian dropped a folder onto the desk. She didn’t look at him.
• “What is it?” she asked flatly.
• “Something my father kept hidden. Buried under false archives.”
• She opened it. Inside: grainy photos. Ritual diagrams. Blacked-out names. One title in red ink:
• PROJECT LINEA
• And at the bottom, scrawled by hand:
• > “Subject A.V. is viable. Awakening to begin at age nine.”
• She went cold. Not just her hands. Her chest. Her breath.
• “They planned it,” she said. “They planned him.”
• Cassian nodded once. “Before he was even conceived.”
• She looked up sharply. “Your father knew I was pregnant?”
• “He orchestrated it.”
• Her voice rose. “You’re telling me I was set up? That my son is some... experiment?”
• “You were never meant to carry a child,” he said. “Just a weapon.”
• Her hands balled into fists. “And you? What were you supposed to be? The trigger?”
• “I didn’t know,” he said quietly. “Not then.”
• She turned away. Her jaw clenched.
• “I would’ve stopped it,” he said. “If I’d known—if I had even suspected. But by the time I pieced it together... you were gone.”
• “I ran because I knew something was wrong,” she said. “Even if I didn’t have the words for it.”
• He took a slow breath.
• “I would’ve burned it all to protect you both.”
• “But you didn’t,” she said. “You didn’t even try.”
• “I failed.”
• They stood in that awful quiet for a moment too long.
• Then he added, “That man—down there, in the sigil chamber—he’s not mortal.”
• She turned. “Then what is he?”
• He flipped a page in the folder. “They called him The Woken First. He’s a gate anchor. The beginning.”
• Aveline swallowed hard. Her voice dropped.
• “They’ve been waiting for Luca. All this time.”
• Cassian nodded. “And now they have him.”
• She took a step back. She couldn’t breathe.
• “They’ll use him,” she said. “Complete whatever the hell this is.”
• “Not yet,” he replied. “They can’t. They need the other half of the sigil.”
• She blinked. “What other half?”
• “Your bloodline.”
• She stared at him. “You’re saying they need me.”
• “No. I’m saying you’re the last key.”
• ⋆⋆⋆
• That night, the balcony wind was sharp enough to cut.
• Cassian stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the city lights flicker like candles too stubborn to die.
• Aveline joined him, silent.
• “You still wear it,” he said.
• “I tried taking it off,” she replied. “But some scars don’t peel that easy.”
• He didn’t laugh.
• “It’s just a ring,” he said.
• “No. It’s a reminder.”
• Of love. Of mistakes. Of the life they almost had.
• “We used to talk about him going to school,” she said, staring at the sky. “Of growing up without blood on his hands.”
• “I remember.”
• “Lies. We were lying to ourselves.”
• “I had a way out,” Cassian said. “After the last summit. Plane. Passports. New names. I had it all ready.”
• She turned toward him. “Then why didn’t you take us?”
• He didn’t blink.
• “Because once I walked away... I wouldn’t come back. And I wasn’t ready to lose the empire.”
• There it was.
• The thing she’d always suspected.
• “You chose the crown.”
• His voice cracked. “And I lost my kingdom.”
• The silence sat between them like a third person.
• “They won’t kill him,” she said. “The Hollow Court doesn’t kill vessels.”
• “No. They hollow them.”
• She looked up. “Then we get him back.”
• Cassian nodded. “We break the gates. Whatever it takes.”
• She hesitated. “Together?”
• He didn’t he
• sitate.
• “Always.”
• ⋆⋆⋆
• Far beneath the mansion, the stones shifted.
• A hand clawed up from the rubble—small. Glowing.
• Luca opened his eyes.
• Gold.
• And behind him, the shadows moved like they were breathing.
• Not alone.
• > “The Heir has awakened.
• And the Curse has chosen him.”