The first sign came with the frost.
It wasn't the gentle touch of winter, but a sudden, unnatural chill that crept across the forest in a single night. The trees bowed under a thin layer of ice, and every breath Elara took came out in silver clouds. When she woke that morning, she found Lucien already outside, standing motionless in the clearing, staring at the horizon.
The sky was bruised red.
"What is it?" she asked softly, wrapping a blanket tighter around her shoulders.
Lucien didn't answer right away. His eyes, pale and bright as glass, fixed on the faint curve of the moon just beginning to rise, though it was far too early for dusk.
"It shouldn't be visible now," he murmured. "The Blood Moon isn't due for weeks."
Elara frowned. "The Blood Moon?"
He turned toward her, his expression unreadable. "It's the night when the veil between the living and the damned grows thin. It's also when my curse was sealed."
Elara stepped closer, her heart beginning to race. "You think it's happening again?"
"I don't think," he said darkly. "I know."
They returned to the cabin before the sun fell completely. Lucien lit no fire… flames made him uneasy… but the air inside was charged with something that felt almost electric. Elara sat near the window, her gaze fixed on the sky as it darkened. The moon climbed higher, burning a deep, haunting crimson.
As its light filled the room, she felt something stir in her chest… a slow, rhythmic pulse that wasn't her own heartbeat. Her vision blurred for an instant, and suddenly she wasn't in the cabin anymore.
She stood in a hall of stone, ancient and endless, its walls dripping with shadow. Candles burned red along the path, and at the far end stood a throne carved from black marble. A man sat upon it… Lucien, but not as she knew him. His eyes were pure gold, his hands stained with blood, his voice echoing through her mind like thunder.
"Do you understand now, little one?" the voice said. "You are the key. The bond has awakened because the Blood Moon remembers you."
Elara gasped and stumbled back… and the world snapped into place again. She was in the cabin, trembling, her fingers cold. Lucien was beside her in an instant, his hands gripping her shoulders.
"What did you see?"
Her breath came fast. "You," she whispered. "But not you. You were… different. And you said something… about me being the key."
Lucien's expression darkened. "That wasn't me," he said. "That was the curse speaking through me."
She looked up at him, her voice breaking. "It felt real. It felt like the moon itself was alive.
He released her and stepped back, pacing. "It's begun sooner than I thought. The Blood Moon's call… it pulls at the blood of those bound by the curse. You're being drawn into it because it's using our bond as a bridge."
"Then we have to break it," she said quickly. "Before it's too late."
Lucien stopped pacing and looked at her with a strange softness. "If you break it, Elara, one of us dies."
The words hung in the air like a blade.
Outside, the wind began to howl, and crimson light poured through the cracks in the shutters. The entire forest seemed to tremble under the moon's glow.
Elara took a deep breath, forcing herself to meet his gaze. "Then we'll find another way. There has to be one."
Lucien's eyes glimmered faintly. "You sound like her," he murmured.
"Elara frowned. "Who?"
"The woman I once loved," he said quietly. "She, too, believed curses could be defied. And she died proving herself wrong."
He turned away, but not before she caught the flicker of something in his eyes… fear. Not for himself, but for her.
Outside, the crimson moon burned brighter, and in the far distance, a figure emerged from the forest shadows.
Adrian had found their trail.