The truth had sharp edges. And Adrian Blackwood had been bleeding from its cuts for years.
He stood before the ancient mirror in his study, the flickering candlelight throwing ghostly shadows across his reflection. He didn't quite recognize the man staring back. The same dark hair, the same ice-gray eyes—but the weight behind them had deepened, like time had carved furrows into his soul. The mark of the First Keeper lay dormant beneath the fabric of his shirt, nestled above his heart, pulsing faintly beneath his skin like a brand that never cooled.
He had once tried to carve it out.
Stupid, naïve—he'd been sixteen, full of rage and denial, locked in his chamber after discovering what his bloodline truly meant. The dagger had trembled in his hand, the fire of rebellion in his chest. He'd failed, of course. The magic wouldn't allow it. The mark remained, and with it, the legacy of a family that had bound itself to powers older than the kingdom itself.
Adrian turned away from the mirror and crossed to the tall windows overlooking the misty forest. From here, he could see the faint outline of the stone path Lila had taken the night before. She had gone to the library. To the hidden chamber. To the Book of Lines.
And now she knew.
He should've stopped her.
But something in him hadn't wanted to. Some foolish, cracked part of his mind wanted her to know and to see the rot beneath the surface. To understand that he wasn't just the cold, detached nobleman the court whispered about. He was a monster in a tailored coat. A boy raised on blood-soaked stories and quiet warnings.
And now… she had looked him in the eye and hadn't run.
Adrian rubbed the bridge of his nose, his thoughts a storm.
Lila Hart.
She was supposed to be a minor noblewoman. A wallflower. The kind of woman who curtsied and smiled and knew her place. But from the moment she walked into Blackwood Manor, everything shifted. There was something in the way she moved, the way she looked at the world like she knew more than she let on. Like she didn't belong here, and yet fit perfectly into the cracks he'd long stopped noticing.
And last night, she had stood before him—defiant, curious, unafraid. Not many could do that.
Not many ever had.
He should stay away. The last time he let someone get close, it had ended in ash and ruin. But he couldn't. Not now. Not when the pieces of the prophecy were starting to align.
You are not a background character in this story. He had said that to provoke her, but even now the words lingered like prophecy. Maybe he hadn't meant it as such when he said it. But perhaps deep down he had known.
She wasn't a background character.
She was something far more dangerous.
Adrian descended to the lower floors of the manor, his boots echoing in the hall. He passed through the northern wing, avoiding the eyes of his staff, until he reached the locked chamber beneath the east wing—the archives.
He pressed his hand against the sigil-etched stone door. The magic recognized him instantly, the runes pulsing to life beneath his fingers, and the door creaked open, revealing shelves lined with old scrolls and relics from another age.
He moved to a specific shelf, retrieving a worn scroll sealed with red wax. The seal bore the emblem of the First Circle—a hidden council of bloodlines like his. Families cursed with ancient gifts and tied together by old pacts.
Breaking the seal, he unrolled the scroll and scanned the names.
His finger stopped on a name at the bottom.
Hart.
The Hart family wasn't supposed to be relevant anymore. Their line had been dormant for decades. Powerless. Forgotten.
Until now.
Adrian stared at the name, the ink faded but clear. Lila wasn't just a clever girl with good instincts. She was something more. Perhaps even the last remnant of a line that had once stood at the edge of creation alongside his own ancestors.
He exhaled slowly, rolling the scroll back up.
That changed everything.
Later, as the household bustled with preparations for the upcoming masquerade, Adrian sat at his writing desk with a quill in hand and ink drying on the edge of his fingertips. Letters from the Capital littered the table—petty requests, reports, noble demands—but his eyes were fixed on the unopened envelope lying untouched in the center.
It bore the crest of the King's Arcanum—the secret magical court that monitored those of power and heritage.
He hadn't opened it yet. He didn't need to. He already knew what it would say.
There were rumors spreading. Of dark magic stirring in the north. Of omens and dead things returning to life. And of a girl whose presence rippled through the aether like a thread tugged loose from the loom of fate.
Lila.
He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands beneath his chin. His mind raced, calculating.
If the Arcanum had taken notice of her, it wouldn't be long before others did. The Council. The Church. The Seraphim Order. Powers older and crueler than him. Powers that wouldn't hesitate to destroy Lila if they saw her as a threat.
And they would see her as a threat.
But she didn't know any of that yet. She was still wandering blindly, searching for answers in the shadows of a story written long before her birth.
Adrian could protect her. For now.
But how long before she stopped trusting him?
And worse… how long before she realized she might be the key to breaking the curse?
The prophecy etched into the walls of the Blackwood crypt echoed in his mind:
When fire meets shadow and the thread is cut, the First Keeper shall fall and the world shall choose anew.
He had always assumed he was the fire. That the prophecy spoke of his own destruction. But now…
Now he wasn't sure.
Because in all his years through war, loss, and betrayal nothing had ever shaken him quite like her. Not her beauty. Not her wit. But the calm certainty in her eyes, the way she peeled away his defenses with nothing but a glance. The way she saw him.
Truly saw him.
And something about that… terrified him.
That night, Adrian stood once more at the edge of the garden, beneath the shadow of the moon. The air was still, the wind whispering through the hedges like the memory of a voice long gone.
He didn't turn when he heard her footsteps.
"You found it," he said quietly.
Lila stepped beside him, her expression unreadable. "The name. My family. You knew."
He nodded. "I suspected."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Adrian looked at her then, and for the first time in a long while, he let down the guard in his eyes.
"Because the truth has teeth, Lila. And once it bites, there's no turning back."