CHAPTER FIVE – The Relic of Ashes
The forest breathed in whispers.
Mist clung to the riverbank like a living thing, pale and ghostly beneath the bleeding moon. Elara sat near the edge, her reflection trembling in the crimson light. Her hands were stained with dried blood, Kael's and her own. The silence between them had stretched too long, heavy and suffocating.
Kael stood a few feet away, his back turned, staring toward the distant treeline where the catacombs lay hidden beneath the earth. His shadow moved differently from his body a faint flicker out of sync, like something trying to detach itself from him.
"They'll find us soon," he said finally, voice rough with exhaustion.
Elara didn't answer. Her pulse still raced from what the spirits had said. Beware the knight's shadow.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet but edged with fire. "You knew this would happen. You knew what I was before I did."
Kael turned slightly, his eyes catching the moonlight.
"Knowing and wanting are not the same thing."
"You betrayed your own kind," she said.
"You killed the witches and now you're bound to one. Don't tell me you didn't see this coming."
Something dark crossed his expression.
"You think I wanted this curse? To wake every century chained to the blood of the woman I damned?"
His voice cracked at the edges, not with anger but grief, raw and ancient.
Elara looked down at her wrist. The mark had dimmed but still pulsed faintly beneath her skin, each throb like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
"What happens if the bond breaks?" she asked.
Kael hesitated, then said, "Then I fade. My existence ends with the covenant's bloodline."
Her throat tightened. "And if it strengthens?"
He looked away. "Then you'll be bound to me completely. Your soul, your will, your fate."
For a moment, only the river spoke, its current whispering secrets the living weren't meant to hear.
Then a sound. Distant. Metallic.
Kael's head snapped toward the west. "They're here."
"Elara...."
But before he could finish, arrows whistled through the air. One grazed his shoulder, another struck the ground near her feet.
"Go!" he shouted, grabbing his sword.
Elara sprinted toward the tree line as the first hunter emerged, a hooded figure with silvered armor and runes burning along his blade. The hunters of the Black Church.
Kael met them head-on, his sword colliding with steel in a burst of black sparks. His shadow lunged with him, striking faster than his body, like an echo of death itself.
But something was wrong.
The shadow didn't stop when Kael did. It tore through one of the hunters, then turned striking at another, but nearly clipping Elara as it did.
"Kael!" she shouted. "You're losing control!"
He gritted his teeth, forcing the darkness back. "It's the relic," he said, panting. "He's using it to pull me apart."
"Father Malric?"
Kael nodded, eyes blazing with pain. "He's channeling the bond. He wants your blood and my curse.
The world seemed to tilt. Elara backed away as another hunter charged. Kael intercepted, but his movements grew sluggish, heavy. Every strike left behind a ripple of shadow that didn't fade.
"Elara...run!" he barked.
"No!"
She lifted her hands, summoning the energy that had nearly destroyed the catacombs. Power roared through her veins wild, ancient, furious. The ground split beneath her feet, and a wall of crimson fire erupted between them and the hunters.
Kael turned, stunned. "You'll draw them all to us!"
"Then let them come!"
Her voice wasn't just hers anymore. It carried the echo of a thousand dead witches, all whispering through her tongue. The air shimmered, and for a heartbeat, the forest itself seemed to bow to her will.
Kael caught her by the shoulders, shaking her. "Elara, stop! You don't control it yet!"
But it was too late. The power surged outward uncontrolled, unstoppable. The flames twisted, forming ghostly shapes, faces screaming within them. The spirits from the catacombs had followed her, drawn to the bloodline they once served.
Kael dragged her backward as the firestorm spread, turning night to scarlet.
"Elara!" His voice broke through the roar. "You'll burn yourself alive!"
Her eyes glowed crimson now, the mark on her wrist blazing. "Then maybe I'll burn the curse too."
Kael swore under his breath and pressed his palm against her chest. Shadows poured from his hand, wrapping around her heart like a cold embrace. The fire dimmed. The voices faded.
When she finally collapsed against him, trembling, the forest was silent again except for the crackle of dying embers and the distant rush of the river.
Kael's form flickered as he held her. His skin was pale, his breathing uneven.
"You're… fading," she whispered.
He gave a faint smile. "Told you the relic feeds on the bond. Every time you use your power, it pulls more of me away."
Elara shook her head, tears burning her eyes. "Then stop protecting me."
"Can't," he said softly. "It's what I was bound to do."
She pressed her forehead against his chest, feeling the faint, unnatural pulse of shadow where his heart should have been. "What if I could end it?" she whispered. "Break the bond before Malric does."
Kael's hand brushed her hair. "If you break it, I die."
"And if I don't?
"Then he wins."
The answer tore something inside her.
From far away, thunder rolled — not from the sky, but from the ground. The relic was awakening.
Father Malric
In the ruins of an old chapel, Father Malric stood before the relic, a crystal orb encased in iron thorns. It pulsed with crimson light, veins of darkness spreading across its surface. The relic fed on pain, on blood, on forbidden love.
And through its glow, Malric saw them, two figures by the river, one fading into shadow, the other trembling in the aftermath of power.
"So it's true," he murmured. "The witch and her knight."
He extended his hands over the relic. "Let their bond bleed."
The relic shuddered, and black smoke coiled upward like serpents. Somewhere across the forest, Kael screamed.
Back at the River
The sound tore through Elara's chest. Kael dropped to his knees, clutching his chest as dark cracks spread along his skin, his body flickering between life and death.
"Elara…" he gasped. "He's… inside my shadow."
She knelt beside him, gripping his face. "Tell me what to do!"
"Find the relic," he choked out. "Destroy it before it consumes us both."
She shook her head violently. "You'll die."
"Better me than you."
"No!" She grabbed his hand and pressed it against her heart. "You said I'm your bloodline. Then take it. Take what you need to survive."
Kael's eyes widened. "You don't know what you're offering."
"Then teach me."
He stared at her for a long moment, torn between duty and desire. Then, slowly, he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. "Forgive me," he whispered.
Shadows flared around them, swirling like black wings. The world tilted, sound vanished, and the river turned to glass beneath their feet.
Elara gasped as warmth flooded her chest, then cold, then nothing.
When the darkness cleared, Kael stood whole again. The cracks in his skin were gone. His eyes, however, were no longer the deep gray of a man. They burned silver the mark of the damned.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
"I took enough to fight," he said quietly. "No more than that."
But his voice was distant now, not fully his own.
"Elara," he said after a pause, "if I lose control… if my shadow moves before I do,run."
She stared at him. "And leave you to him?"
His lips twitched. "That's what you do when a curse becomes a weapon."
Before she could reply, the trees ahead burst open in a flash of red light.
Malric's hunters emerged, led by the priest himself. The relic hovered in his hands, pulsing with Elara's own heartbeat.
"Child of the Blood Moon," Malric called, his voice smooth and cruel. "You bear what belongs to the Church."
Elara stepped forward, fury in her gaze. "What belongs to the Church died centuries ago."
Malric smiled. "Then so shall you."
He raised the relic. It screamed, a sound like a thousand dying souls.
Kael moved first. He appeared between them in a blink, blade clashing against the burst of energy. The impact sent him flying backward, but before he hit the ground, his shadow caught him then turned, striking back.
It wasn't Kael anymore. It was the thing inside him.
The shadow lunged at Malric, faster than thought. The priest stumbled, blood splattering across his robes as the relic flared wildly.
"Elara!" Kael shouted, gripping his head. "I can't controlbit!"
She raised her hands, magic burning through her veins. "Then I'll help you."
The relic pulsed brighter, feeding on both of them. Crimson lightning danced between them, binding, choking, consuming.
Kael's voice echoed through the storm.
"Elara! The river...use it!"
She didn't understand at first, then saw the water glowing faintly blue beneath the red light. The spirits of the witches had followed her here, their power trapped in the current.
She thrust her hand into the river. The cold bit deep, but she didn't stop.
"By blood and shadow," she whispered, "I command the past to remember."
The river erupted. Streams of spectral energy shot upward, wrapping around the relic and tearing it from Malric's grasp. It screamed again a sound like the end of the world before exploding in a burst of light.
The shockwave sent everyone sprawling.
When the smoke cleared, the relic was gone melted into the earth. The hunters were dead or scattered.
And Kael lay motionless on the riverbank.
Elara crawled to him, shaking. "Kael—please..."
His body was cold. The mark on her wrist flickered faintly, then stilled.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no..."
She pressed her hand to his chest, trying to summon the power again, but the energy was gone drained, burned out.
Tears blurred her vision. "You promised to stay."
A faint whisper brushed her ear. "I did."
She froze. Kael's shadow shimmered beside her faint, almost transparent.
"Elara," it murmured. "The relic's gone, but the bond isn't."
She reached toward it, but her fingers passed through smoke.
"Where are you?"
"Between worlds," he said softly. "The covenant's power broke, but not the curse."
Her tears fell harder. "Then I'll find a way. I'll bring you back."
The shadow smiled faintly, fading with each word. "You already have."
And then he was gone.
The forest was silent again, except for the river whispering secrets of the dead.
Elara stood alone beneath the blood-red moon, her mark pulsing once more not in pain this time, but in promise.
Somewhere deep beneath the earth, something ancient stirred, the first witch, the one who had forged the Blood Moon Pact.
And in the silence, her voice whispered through the wind:
"The bond is not broken, child.
It has only just begun."