UNRAVELING THE TRUTH

Chapter 6

Lucia barely slept that night. Her mind swirled with questions—questions she had never dared to ask before, but that now haunted her every thought. The cryptic words of Selene and the strange, elusive warning from her father weighed on her heavily. What truths were they hiding? Why had they kept her in the dark for so long?

The next morning, the air felt heavier than usual. As sunlight filtered through the curtains, Lucia felt a growing sense of urgency. She couldn't ignore this any longer. She needed answers—answers that no one, not even her father, would give her willingly.

She stood in front of the mirror, her reflection a mixture of determination and uncertainty. The woman staring back at her was no longer the young girl who had lived her life in ignorance. She was someone who was beginning to understand that the world she had always known was far from the truth. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she couldn't continue to live a lie.

A soft knock at the door broke her reverie.

"Lucia, breakfast is ready," came the hollow voice of her stepmother from the other side of the door. The usual tone of forced politeness made Lucia bristle. She didn't want to deal with her stepmother today. Not now.

Lucia didn't respond, choosing instead to ignore the call. She couldn't stay in her room any longer; the walls felt suffocating, the air thick with secrets. She needed to find the answers she'd been searching for, and the only place she could think to look was her father's study—the one place she was never allowed to enter.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she walked through the halls of the mansion. The house, as always, was eerily quiet, save for the creaks of old wood beneath her feet. She moved with purpose, the weight of her decision making her resolve stronger with every step.

As she approached the study door, she hesitated for a brief moment. She had always been kept out of this room. Her father was strict about privacy, about control. It was always forbidden territory. But she had come too far to turn back now.

Lucia reached into her pocket and retrieved the small, rusted key she had found years ago in her father's desk. It had never fit any of the other locks in the house, but it had always intrigued her. Today, it felt like the key to her past.

The lock clicked open with a soft sound, and she pushed the door open, her breath shallow in anticipation.

Inside, the room was dark. The curtains were drawn tightly, casting the study in shadows. The smell of old books and dust filled the air, but there was something else—something metallic, like the scent of old blood, lingering in the corners of the room. Lucia stepped inside, her gaze immediately drawn to the large desk in the center of the room.

She hesitated, but only for a moment. As she moved toward the desk, she could feel the weight of the moment pressing down on her. She was standing in the place where so many of her father's secrets had been kept.

The papers on the desk were scattered in disarray—some of them marked with strange symbols, others written in a language she didn't recognize. She flipped through them carefully, her fingers brushing the worn edges of the paper. There were records of family names, cryptic lists, and strange drawings. But the one thing that caught her attention immediately was a symbol—familiar, yet foreign. It was the image of a full moon, a wolf beneath it, surrounded by swirling lines.

Her breath caught in her throat. She had seen this symbol before. Where? The memory nagged at her, but it wasn't until she spotted a sentence scrawled on one of the pages that everything clicked into place.

"The curse is tied to the bloodline. She is the key."

The words sent a jolt of shock through her system. She was the key? The key to what? The words were like a riddle, each one adding more layers of confusion to her growing anxiety.

Before she could process what she had just read, she heard footsteps in the hallway. Panic flooded through her. Someone was coming.

She quickly shoved the papers back into place, her mind racing. What had her father been hiding all these years? She couldn't make sense of it all right now, but one thing was clear—there was something much bigger at play here. A curse tied to her family's bloodline, something dark and dangerous that she was inexplicably connected to.

She backed away from the desk, glancing around the room one last time before she made her way to the door. With a glance over her shoulder, she locked the door behind her. She couldn't afford to leave a trace of her intrusion.

Her heart was pounding, but now more than ever, she knew she couldn't let this go. She needed answers—and she needed them from the one person who had been keeping them from her: her father.