"We are royalty?" Elara asked, wide-eyed despite the gravity of the moment.
"Among Sirens, yes. Which makes you even more valuable to the hunters." Her mother's expression darkened. "Especially that one family. They have hunted our bloodline specifically for generations. They carry the mark of a thorn."
"A thorn?" Elara repeated, trying to understand the significance.
"Because our voice is the strongest. The most powerful." Her mother cupped Elara's face in her hands. "Promise me you will be careful. That you will guard your voice, your power."
"I promise," Elara whispered, feeling the weight of the pendant, of her heritage, settling against her skin.
The memory began to fade, giving way to a jumble of similar moments. Warnings. Hastily packed belongings. New apartments. New schools. Always watchful. Always afraid. Until finally, her mother's face disappeared entirely, replaced by the sterile walls of a hospital room and a doctor's grave expression as he delivered news of a car accident that had taken her mother's life.
Tears streamed down Elara's face as she surfaced from the memories, the sense of loss as fresh as if it had happened yesterday rather than over a decade ago. The pendant at her throat burned hot against her skin, responding to her emotional state.
"I remember," she whispered, her voice choked with tears. "She told me we were Sirens. That we were being hunted. She gave me her pendant to protect me."
"And the hunters? Did she give you any clues to their identity?" Marlowe asked gently.
"She spoke of a family marked by a thorn," Elara said. She opened her eyes, finding Marlowe watching her with an expression of compassion. "And she mentioned wolf shifters who were once our allies and protectors. That must be..."
"The Blackwoods," Marlowe finished softly. Something flickered in the elder's eyes - confirmation, perhaps, or surprise at the depth of Elara's recovered memories.
"The alliance between the Blackwood pack and the Lyra Sirens was once legendary," the elder continued. "A partnership based on mutual respect and complementary abilities."
"But something went wrong," Elara said, sitting up slowly, her body heavy from the ritual. "The alliance could not prevent the Sirens from being hunted to extinction."
"Not extinction," Marlowe corrected. "Near extinction. Your presence proves that."
Elara wiped at her tears, trying to process everything she had remembered. "My mother knew what we were. She had documents, research. She was trying to understand our heritage better."
"Perhaps seeking a way to end your running," Marlowe suggested. "To find safety for you both."
"But she never got the chance." Elara's voice caught. "She died in a car accident when I was fifteen. After that, I went into foster care. Kept moving, kept hiding, just as she had taught me."
"Was it truly an accident?" Marlowe asked the question, gentle but pointed.
The implication sent a chill through Elara. "What do you mean?"
"The hunters are relentless. If they were tracking your mother, if they discovered what she was..."
The possibility that her mother's death had not been an accident, that the hunters had found her after all, was almost too painful to contemplate. Yet it aligned with the fear Elara had always sensed in her mother. The constant vigilance, the warnings about those who would never stop hunting them.
"Jonah Thornwood," she whispered. "The brother of the man I killed in Chicago. He left the black rose at my door, at my apartment. It cannot be a coincidence."
"I think not," Marlowe agreed grimly. "The Thornwoods have symbols, traditions in their hunting. Black roses are left at the site of a kill, or as a warning of a kill to come."
"But how would Jonah know what I am? His brother attacked me because I was a singer at a club, not because he knew I was a Siren."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps he recognized something in you that others missed." Marlowe began gathering the ritual materials, her movements efficient despite her age. "The Thornwoods have hunted Sirens for centuries. They know the signs, the subtle markers of your kind."
Elara touched her pendant, now cooling against her skin as the ritual's effects faded. "My mother said this would protect me. That it contained Siren magic."
"And so it does," Marlowe confirmed. "The spiral is a symbol of Siren power, specifically, the royal Lyra bloodline. It acts as both identifier and focus for your abilities."
"That is why it warms when I sing," Elara realized. "Why it burned during the vision and at the training grounds."
"It responds to your power, amplifies it. In the hands of a fully trained Siren, such a pendant would be a formidable tool."
The implication was clear: Elara was not fully trained. Not in control of her heritage or her abilities. The pendant's power, like her voice, was unpredictable in her inexperienced hands.
"My mother never taught me how to use my voice," she said. "Only how to suppress it, how to hide. She was so focused on keeping us safe that there was never time for anything else."
"A natural response for a mother protecting her child in a world of hunters," Marlowe said. "But now, with the Blood Moon approaching and Viktor seeking your power, suppression alone will not be enough."
"Then what?" Elara asked, frustration edging her voice. "Every time I try to explore my abilities, disaster strikes. At the pub with Damon. In your study with the Codex. At the training grounds."
"Because you are trying to access power without understanding its source or purpose," Marlowe explained patiently. "It would be like trying to drive a car without knowing what any of the controls do. Of course you crash."
The analogy was apt, if somewhat simplistic. "So what do I do?"
"We continue with these sessions," Marlowe said. "Explore more of your memories, perhaps access some of the ancestral knowledge that seems to be awakening within you. And we proceed more carefully."
It was a reasonable approach, despite Elara's lingering fear of her own abilities. The recovered memories had confirmed what she had always suspected. That her difference, her power, was something inherited, something she had been born with rather than some strange anomaly.
"Did my mother know about the Blood Moon ritual?" she asked suddenly. "About what Viktor is trying to do?"
"I do not know," Marlowe admitted. "But if she was researching your heritage, it is possible she discovered something about it. Something that made her even more determined to keep you hidden."
The thought was troubling. Had her mother known that one day, a werewolf Alpha would seek to use her daughter's voice in a ritual of domination? Is that why she had been so adamant about suppression, about hiding?
Before Elara could pursue this line of questioning, a harsh buzzing sound cut through the ritual room's peaceful atmosphere. Marlowe stiffened, her hand going to a small device at her waist - a pager or alarm of some kind.