Chapter 5: Blood That Remembers

Chapter 5: Blood That Remembers

There was something different about the castle the next morning.

It breathed slower.

As if holding its breath.

Waiting.

The black roses outside my window had not wilted in the night — they had grown. Reaching toward the sky like hands clawing for salvation. Or revenge.

I didn’t tell the Devil.

Not this time.

Let him feel the shift on his own.

In the west wing, I found a door I had never seen before.

It was carved from obsidian, veined with crimson like dried blood. No handle. No lock. Just a single line etched across its surface:

"To open is to remember."

I pressed my hand to the stone.

And it opened.

The air beyond was heavy — not stale, but charged. Like the moment before lightning strikes.

Inside, a single object sat on a pedestal.

A mirror.

Whole.

Untouched.

And yet it shimmered like water in a storm.

I stepped closer, expecting to see her again — the girl, Lirael, the queen I was supposedly echoing. But the reflection was not hers.

It was me.

And behind me — shadows.

They whispered.

Names. Places. Sins.

Memories I had never lived… and yet somehow knew.

A hand touched my shoulder.

I didn’t need to turn to know it was him.

"You found the heart of the house," he said. “Most never do.”

"You didn’t stop me."

"I couldn't. The castle wants you here."

"Why?"

He stepped beside me, staring at the mirror with something like… fear.

"Because it remembers you."

"Then tell me what it remembers."

He shook his head slowly. "That’s not for me to decide. You must choose to remember on your own."

That night, the dreams returned.

But they were no longer dreams.

Visions.

I stood in a field of ash, crowned in thorns, while armies of smoke knelt at my feet.

My voice echoed across burning skies.

And beside me, the Devil knelt too.

Not as a lover.

Not as a captor.

But as a servant.

I woke with blood on my hands.

At breakfast — if it could be called that — he joined me for the first time in days.

He didn’t eat.

He never did.

“You dreamed,” he said.

“You know that?”

“I always know.”

I stared into my goblet of black wine. “Was it true?”

He nodded once. “Once. In a forgotten time.”

“I ruled?”

“You reigned,” he said. “And the stars burned for you.”

“What happened to her?”

“To you?”

He met my eyes.

“You died. But death couldn’t hold you. The world tried to forget you. But blood remembers.”

Later, I returned to the mirror room.

I needed more.

More truth. More memory. More of her.

Of me.

This time, I didn’t just look.

I touched.

The glass rippled, and the world fell inward.

I was standing in a throne room not made of stone, but roots.

The same room I had seen in dreams.

And seated on the throne — myself.

But older. Wiser. Terrifying.

She rose as I entered.

“Elira,” she said — not surprised. Not kind. “You took your time.”

“Who are you?”

She smiled with teeth too sharp. “I am what you left behind. The part you buried. The power you feared.”

“Why do you haunt me?”

“Because you are incomplete without me.”

She reached out a hand.

“Take it, and remember everything.”

But I couldn’t.

Not yet.

I turned and fled.

And woke up gasping in the mirror room, alone, the glass still humming under my fingertips.

The Devil found me hours later, curled in the hall of cinders.

“You saw her,” he said.

“I did.”

“You refused her.”

“For now.”

He knelt beside me.

“She is not evil,” he said. “Only… honest.”

I looked at him.

“Then tell me: if I take her hand, what becomes of me?”

He hesitated.

“Queen,” he said. “God. Monster. The world breaks around you. So does your heart.”

“Did she love you?”

“Once.”

“And me?”

“I don’t know yet,” he whispered.

The castle groaned again that night.

But not in pain.

In anticipation.

Because something had awakened.

Not a ghost.

Not a queen.

But a storm.

And her name… was mine.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***