Chapter 58: Embers of Betrayal

The war chamber deep beneath Ravenshade was unusually quiet. A thin mist of enchantment fogged the air as Alaric pored over ancient parchments retrieved from the ruins of the lost Carello Archives.

Carlos stood across the table, holding a cracked obsidian amulet humming with dark energy. "It's not just fragments of Lucille's power, Alaric. It's a beacon. Someone is using it to awaken them."

Alaric looked up sharply. "Who?"

Carlos's jaw tensed. "Marlik."

The name clung to the stone walls like poison.

Alaric's crimson eyes glowed faintly. "He's not just targeting Caelum anymore."

Carlos laid down a parchment, its ink pulsing faintly in black and gold. "Lucille had children scattered across the continent. Most of them lived ordinary lives, unaware of their bloodline. But with this beacon... he's calling them."

> "He's building an army," Carlos said grimly. "From the blood of devils and witches."

Alaric turned toward the towering window, where the night had deepened into a velvet black. "An army of descendants. All carrying the dormant Black Flame..."

Carlos added, "He knows how to ignite it. He's probably already awakened several. The ghost I encountered said it plainly—Caelum isn't just a target. He's meant to be the crown jewel. A vessel."

Alaric slammed his fist onto the map table, the magical lights flickering.

> "I won't let him touch my son," Alaric growled.

Carlos's voice dropped to something more personal. "You're not alone in this."

The vampire lord looked over his shoulder. "You've always been there, Carlos. For Seraphine. For Caelum. For me." A pause. "I trust you not only as an old soul... but as my brother."

Carlos bowed slightly, not in submission, but in mutual respect. "And I will fight beside you until my last breath. We both know what's at stake."

Alaric's gaze shifted back to the amulet. "We need to act before the rest of the descendants fall under Marlik's control. If they awaken to the Black Flame without guidance, they'll lose themselves to it."

Carlos nodded. "Then we find them before he does. And those we can't save... we stop."

The night sky above Ravenshade was silent and vast, stars scattered like whispers of forgotten gods. Alaric stood by the arched window, wine untouched in his hand, his mind lost to echoes of a time far older than most remembered.

> "Karena…" he whispered, as though the name itself carried weight enough to move fate.

She had been hidden from the world — not for what she had done, but for who she truly was.

---

The Truth:

Long before the rise of the Council and the war of bloodlines, there existed a love story twisted by envy and betrayal.

Corinne Carello, the infamous dark mage, once knew love not in the shadows of ambition, but in the arms of Calix Moonwell, heir to the noble Moonwell lineage — a union of light and dark, of passion and promise. Their love was powerful, prophesied even, meant to bring balance between two ancient bloodlines.

But Corinne was not the only one who loved Calix.

Her own sister, Brienne Carello, consumed by jealousy and pride, desired him fiercely. Brienne — cunning, calculating — could not stand to see Corinne have what she could not.

On the eve of their betrothal ceremony, Brienne cast a forbidden spell, a heart-twisting enchantment that warped Calix's emotions, redirecting his love from Corinne to herself.

What followed was nothing short of soul-shattering.

Calix, under the enchantment, ended his bond with Corinne in a cruel, detached manner. His words cut her deeper than any blade, laced with disdain he had never once shown before.

> "We were a mistake, Corinne. I was blind. Brienne is my path now."

Crushed and betrayed, Corinne watched helplessly as the man she loved married her sister.

But amid her grief, she discovered the truth — a flickering heartbeat inside her. She was pregnant with Calix's child.

A daughter.

Karena.

Fearing Brienne's wrath and the scandal that would erupt from the truth, Corinne kept the pregnancy secret. She gave birth in isolation, aided only by the trusted elders of the old Carello clan.

Yet Corinne's parents, wise and politically bound, made a difficult choice. To avoid igniting an all-out war between the Moonwells and the Carellos — and to keep Brienne from destroying the child in a jealous rage — they hid Karena. Even from Corinne. They told her the child did not survive.

Karena was raised in obscurity, in the sanctuaries of the Witch Sanctum, her heritage buried under layers of silence. Even she never fully knew the depth of her own bloodline — only that she was different. Powerful. Drawn to shadows yet glowing with ancient fire.

When Alaric met her, he saw more than a woman — he saw a soul forged by sorrow and light. He didn't know her past then, but he felt it. And when they loved, it was as if fate itself wept for their reunion.

And now, as he stood remembering it all, the weight of the truth pressed heavily against his immortal heart.

> Karena Carello was not a mere mage.

She was the firstborn of Corinne and Calix Moonwell.

A child born of true love twisted by magic, hidden from history, buried in blood and silence.

Corinne then learns the truth confronted her parents but they kept silent. Days of threathening but no answer is extracted from them, she killed them.

For years,

Corrine search for her lost daughter but failed until after the Massacre of Alaric and Karena, she sense the spill of her own blood then cast the well-known curse of the twins in the vampire clans.