Aria's POV
The book was bleeding.
I froze halfway down the basement stairs, my flashlight beam catching the dark liquid dripping from the shelf onto the stone floor. My heart hammered against my ribs. In six months of working the night shift at Ashcroft Library, I'd seen mice, mold, and once a family of bats. But never this.
"It's just water," I whispered to myself, even though I knew it wasn't. "Old pipes. Leaking roof."
The library had been built in 1847, so leaking pipes made sense. What didn't make sense was why the liquid shimmered silver in my flashlight beam.
I should have turned around. Should have called my supervisor, James, who was studying upstairs. Should have done anything except walk closer.
But I'd stopped making smart choices six months ago when I trusted Marcus Thornfield with my heart and my research. That decision cost me everything—my career, my reputation, my future. Now I worked for eight dollars an hour cataloging books that no one wanted to read, in a basement that smelled like forgotten dreams and rat poison.
What did I have left to lose?
I climbed down the rest of the stairs, my sneakers silent on the stone. The restricted archives spread out before me like a maze of shadows and secrets. Rows of metal shelves stretched into darkness, packed with books the library deemed "too dangerous" for the public. Most were just old and fragile. Some contained ideas people wanted forgotten.
And one, apparently, was bleeding silver.
I followed the trail to the back corner where I'd been working all week. The estate collection. Some rich dead guy's private library, donated by relatives who didn't want it. Seventy-three boxes of books about mythology, ancient languages, and occult practices.
"Perfect job for the disgraced librarian," I muttered, remembering how my supervisor had smiled when he assigned it to me. "No one else wants to touch this stuff, Aria. But you're good with weird languages, right? Since you're so smart and all."
He'd meant it as an insult. Everyone at the university did now. Poor Aria Chen, who accused celebrated Dr. Marcus Thornfield of stealing her research. Poor, jealous, lying Aria who couldn't accept that her boyfriend was smarter than her.
Except I hadn't lied. I'd spent five years translating ancient texts, finding connections between mythologies, proving that the legends of immortal beings weren't just stories but historical records. Marcus had taken my work, published it under his name, and became famous overnight.
Then he left me for Vivian Cross, a museum curator with money and connections.
When I tried to prove the research was mine, the academic community closed ranks. Marcus had Dr. Thornfield on his papers. I had nothing but my word. They blacklisted me. Destroyed me. Made sure I'd never work in academia again.
I shook off the memories and focused on the shelf. The silver liquid was coming from a book on the third row. Black leather binding, silver script on the spine. I'd cataloged it three days ago. Celestial Records: Volume VII.
Nothing about it had seemed special then.
I pulled the book carefully from the shelf, expecting it to be heavy and damp. Instead, it felt warm. Almost alive. The silver liquid wasn't coming from the pages but from a symbol embedded in the leather cover—a seal made of what looked like crystal and starlight.
My hands trembled as I opened the book. The pages were covered in text I'd never seen before, symbols that seemed to shift and move in the flashlight beam. But somehow, impossibly, I could read them.
Here lies Kael Ashenveil, War Prince of the Celestial Court, imprisoned by divine decree for crimes against the natural order. May he remain bound until the end of days, his power sealed, his name forgotten.
A chill ran down my spine. This wasn't mythology. The words felt too real, too immediate. Like a warning.
Or a trap.
I should have closed the book. Should have walked away. But six months of rage and hurt and humiliation burned in my chest. I was tired of playing it safe. Tired of being invisible. Tired of losing.
My fingers traced the seal on the cover, following the intricate pattern of stars and silver script. The moment my skin touched the crystal, heat shot through my hand.
The seal cracked.
Light exploded from the book—blinding, silver, impossible. I screamed and dropped it, but the light kept growing. It filled the basement, turned the shadows into day, made the air crackle with electricity that lifted my hair.
The library shook. Books flew from shelves. The metal racks groaned and bent. I fell to my knees, covering my face, certain the whole building was coming down.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the light vanished.
Silence filled the basement. Heavy. Waiting.
I lowered my hands slowly, my heart trying to escape through my throat. The book lay on the floor, its pages scattered. The seal was gone. And standing in the space where light had been—
A man.
He was beautiful in a way that didn't seem real. Silver-white hair fell to his shoulders. His face could have been carved from marble by someone who understood perfection. He wore strange clothes, like something from a historical movie but wrong, too elegant and too otherworldly.
But it was his eyes that froze the breath in my lungs.
Storm-gray. Cold. Ancient. And looking at me like I was an insect he was deciding whether to crush.
"Who," he said, his voice like winter and smoke, "broke my prison?"
I opened my mouth to answer. To apologize. To scream.
That's when the pain hit.
It felt like someone drove a spike through my chest. I gasped, clutching my heart, and saw silver light burning across my left wrist. A mark appeared on my skin, intricate and beautiful and terrifying—stars interlocking in patterns I didn't understand.
The man staggered, his hand flying to his own chest. His perfect face twisted in agony. His eyes widened, and for the first time, he looked less like a god and more like something human.
Something afraid.
"No," he whispered, staring at his own wrist where an identical mark was burning into existence. "No. You didn't just break the seal."
He looked at me then, really looked at me, and the horror in his eyes made my blood turn to ice.
"You bound yourself to me."
The mark on my wrist flared with heat. The pain in my chest doubled. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt something impossible—
Another heartbeat, not my own, pounding in rhythm with mine.
"What did you do?" I gasped.
He stepped toward me, and the temperature in the basement dropped twenty degrees. Frost spread across the floor. His eyes blazed with silver fire.
"I was sealed away for three hundred years," he said, his voice barely controlled rage. "Locked in darkness. Powerless. Forgotten. And you—"
He stopped inches from me, so close I could feel the cold radiating from his skin.
"You stupid, reckless mortal. You just chained yourself to the most dangerous creature in any realm."
His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, right over the new mark. The moment his skin touched mine, images flooded my mind—
Battles. Blood. Silver fire consuming armies. A beautiful woman with dark hair screaming as she turned to ash. A man who looked like him but with cruel eyes, smiling as he watched—
I jerked back with a cry, breaking contact. The visions vanished, but the connection between us remained. I could feel him now, feel his rage and pain and something else—
Fear.
"What are you?" I whispered.
He smiled, but there was nothing kind in it. Nothing human.
"I'm the reason your people stopped believing in monsters."
The lights went out.
And in the darkness, I heard footsteps. Multiple sets. Coming down the stairs. Fast.
The man—Kael—turned toward the sound, his body tensing. "They've found us already," he said quietly. "I've been free for less than five minutes, and they already know."
"Who?" My voice shook. "Who found us?"
"Everyone who wants me dead." He looked back at me, his gray eyes catching what little light remained. "And everyone who wants to use you."
"Use me? Why would anyone—"
"Because you carry the seal's power now, little mortal. Every being in the celestial realm will sense it. Some will want to control it. Some will want to destroy it." His smile turned sharp. "And all of them will come for you."
The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs. Shadows moved in the darkness. And I heard a voice that made my stomach drop—
"Aria? I know you're down here."
Marcus.
Kael's head snapped toward the sound. "You know these hunters?"
"That's my ex-boyfriend," I said, my whole world tilting sideways.
"Then this," Kael said, silver fire beginning to dance along his fingertips, "is about to get very interesting."
The shadows moved closer. And I realized the worst day of my life had just become something infinitely more dangerous.