"I... I wanted to..."
A sharp slap awakened the shadows around them.
Silence enveloped the surroundings—like an echo that refused to die.
It wasn't a slap of anger. It wasn't because of the heat of emotion. It was made of deep sorrow.
Seraphina's hand slowly fell.
Her gaze remained on Lucien—no more tears in her eyes, but her voice was drenched in grief.
"Don't you dare say it wasn't you.
I saw your eyes, Lucien. And I watched as you let them kill me—with the same hands you once swore would protect me."
Lucien's shoulders slumped.
As if all the weight was stripped from his body. No more weapons. No more reasons.
Only his guilt remained.
"I tried to stop it. God knows I did. But... I didn't choose the crown, Sera. I was forced into it. I was never meant to lead that bloodline. I-"
"Then why didn't you burn with me?"
The world stopped.
At that moment, the shadows around seemed to look at Lucien too, waiting for an answer that never came before.
Finally, he whispered. Low. Broken.
"Because I thought I'd bring you back...But I didn't know how to save someone already in hell."
Silence prevailed.
A tear fell from Seraphina's eye.
Not for Lucien.
But for the young Seraphina who thought she could be saved by love.
"You let me die thinking I was cursed."
"You weren't just cursed, Sera. You were sacrificed. And I... I was the one who held the knife. Even if I didn't plunge it."
From his cloak, Lucien reached for the black parchment, its sigils shimmering in the darkness.
"The curse needed silence to seal. That was the law. If I spoke your name during the ritual, the fire would've claimed us both. I stayed quiet thinking I could undo it later.
But silence isn't mercy.
It's a death sentence dressed as love."
Seraphina closed her eyes.
She took a breath, but didn't have the courage for an answer.
"They cursed your blood.
But I was the one cursed... with your memory.."
A sharp sound cut through the scene.
They both turned.
Beside them, an antique mirror hung silently on the wall. There were gold engravings on the side, shimmering even in the darkness.
It suddenly rattled.
And in a flash—The pieces flew to the floor, and from between the broken glass a creature crawled out
A silhouette. Black. Burned. Veiled.
Crying. Screaming.
And as it crawled, the surroundings blazed with the weight of the past returning.
"Lucien...Why didn't you save me?"
The creature's eyes were white, as if soulless, but full of anger and questions.
"That's... me." Seraphina whispered, pale and breathless.
Lucien took her hand.
But, it was too late.
The ghost of the past had found them.
San Arcana Cathedral.
The Forgotten Ruins.
Under the ruins of San Arcana Cathedral—a place long abandoned by mortals—lies a secret passage. A stone staircase descending deeper into the earth's womb. Darkness breathes here. Even the air seems to whisper memories.
At the very bottom, a secret chamber lives in an unusual light. The candles burn with blue flames. The smell of ink, rust, and incense clings to the skin of everyone who enters.
In the center of the chamber, there is a marble table and a man sitting—the tattoo artist.
But this is different.
He wears a white blindfold, seemingly blind. Because his art is not based on what he sees. He sees using memory.
With every touch, the past opens. He clearly reads the wounds invisible to the skin. Secrets, grief, and curses long forgotten. Because his ink comes from memory. And every stroke has a price.
Seraphina was silent as she slowly lifted the sleeve of her blouse.
As she lifted her sleeve, she stopped.
There was no jar of ink yet.
No needle had moved yet.
No word had been spoken yet.
But the mark was already there.
A long line like a lightning scratch. Not made by a needle, but by memory. It wasn't ink that left a mark—but a curse.
Circling her wrist, seeming alive, seeming to wait.
It wasn't drawn. It wasn't carved.
It was already there.
The blind artist touched her wrist, gently—as if searching for the origin of an old wound.
But when his finger touched Seraphina's skin, it suddenly stiffened.
"This isn't new," he whispered. "This mark… is older than your skin."
Lucien and Seraphina looked at each other.
The candles flickered slightly in the air.
The artist seemed electrified.
He gasped.
The mark was clinging to Seraphina's wrist—and it seemed to be deepening.
Slowly rising from her skin like a root twisting into a forgotten sigil.
"What is this?" Seraphina asked, trying to pull her hand away.
But she couldn't move. Her skin was hot. Her pulse thickened with the intensity of the pain.
"Lucien—what is this? Why does it feel like it's burning a memory into my blood?"
But Lucien didn't move. He didn't look away either.
"It's the vow," the man replied, his voice low. "It's bound to you because I said your name… the night you died."
His breath caught in the air.
It was as if lightning had traced her chest—a pain from the depths of memory.
The flames around them seemed to suddenly subside, as if the light recoiled in fear.
But the mark on her skin was heating up—as if carving a curse with fire, directly into her flesh.
The artist suddenly recoiled, his voice trembling.
"This sigil… is a royal deathbind. Only one ever existed. And it was meant to kill the one it's tied to."
The world stopped.
Lucien stared at the cursed mark.
"You were never meant to bear it," he whispered, pale. "I was."
Seraphina's tears fell.
She didn't know if it was because of the pain, or because of the truth that was only now admitted.
"It wasn't just a mark, Lucien," she whispered, holding her burning wrist. "It wasn't a vow, Lucien. It was a chain—and you tied it to my soul."
The candle flames suddenly grew—from blue to red.
The mark on her skin pulsed. It glittered.
"Lucien—!" she screamed.
Blood suddenly erupted from her palm.
"AHHH!" Seraphina screamed as the mark glowed, bright red, as if the blood itself was bringing its own memory to life.
And in the last moment before she lost consciousness, she heard a whisper in her mind:
One name… one death… one soul bound in fire.
Ceremonial Chamber.
Behind the secret parlor, there was an even older place—a ceremonial chamber once used for curses and sacraments.
The walls had lines of writing from the ancient language of vampires—not written in ink, but in blood.
In the center of the room, there was a baptismal pool, but it wasn't holy.
The water was wine colored—deep, dark, and moving like it was alive.
And in the middle of all this, there was a mirrored stone table—a stone polished by time, adorned with runes that ordinary mortals could no longer read.
Seraphina was screaming.
Not out of fear.
But out of a pain that felt like it was tearing her soul apart from the inside.
She struggled, but her body wasn't hers.
The sigil from her wrist was creeping upwards, pulsating towards her heart.
"Lucien—" she screamed, trembling, before her eyes closed and her body convulsed.
She fell to the floor, trembling, and in a flash, Lucien caught her and laid her on the stone.
"Hold on, Sera. Don't let it take you."
Lucien placed her on the mirrored stone, almost simultaneously with the eruption of flames from the bright red candle.
Seraphina's body was trembling—no longer like a human, but like a creature awakened from an ancient curse.
Lucien leaned down, placed his two hands on her chest and whispered a prayer in a language no longer heard in the world.
Words long forbidden.
Words once used to bind a soul to a body.
But he wasn't sure if it would still work now.
And suddenly, Seraphina's voice changed.
From broken and trembling—it became deep. Very old. As if another spirit spoke through her.
You swore blood… and blood remembers.
Lucien recoiled.
His lips trembled, not from fear but because the man knew that judgment was beginning.
Lucien approached again, trying to stop the spread of the mark.
He placed his forehead on Seraphina's forehead, absorbing the heat of the curse.
"The mark binds you to me," Lucien whispered. "But at a cost. If one dies… the other follows. If one betrays… the other burns."
Seraphina's eyes opened.
Her eyes—red as blood and sharp as memory. She didn't weep. She remembered.
"So that night... when I died…"
The world stopped at that question.
"I should have died with you." she whispered.
But Seraphina's eyes were merciless.
She grabbed Lucien's collar, even though her fingers were still trembling.
"Then why didn't you?"
In a blink, Seraphina's surroundings blurred.
She suddenly saw a vision.
Not of the present. Not in this room.
But on the night of her death.
She saw Lucien—kneeling beside her. Her body was cold. The wound in her heart, fresh. And Lucien, screaming her name.
He was holding his own chest, and from there, a knife enveloped in light.
Lucien pulled the blade from his body—and plunged it into his chest. Blood flowed. He fell to the floor, bleeding.
He should have died there. But that's not what the mark took. That's not what the fire ignited.
"The mark wasn't drawn by love, Lucien. It was triggered by betrayal." Seraphina whispered as she felt the explosion of truth in her chest.
"It chose who broke the vow first. You lived because the mark chose me to die. And I died… because I loved you more."
The stone table under Seraphina suddenly shattered.
A bang.
A scream.
The runes around the table glowed, and the red pool at the edge—turned black.
The color completely turned to charcoal.
It boiled.
It moved.
From the dark water, something crawled out.
A shadow.
Skin like a skeleton.
Eyes without light.
A version of Seraphina—burned, broken, and with the same mark. And it was approaching. It was alive.
And it… didn't forget.
The entire corridor of San Arcana was collapsing.
Lucien's every step was accompanied by the rumble of cracking stone, the ceiling splitting, and candles dying one by one.
There were supposedly a thousand candles in the old sanctuary, the elders said. One for every soul that forgot who they were before they died.
But now, they were being killed one by one by memory.
Seraphina was in Lucien's arms.
Her body was limp. Heavy—not because of the weight of her flesh, but of history.
It was as if he was carrying all the time they had turned their backs on each other.
"Seraphina," Lucien whispered pleadingly. "Seraphina, stay with me—don't you dare—don't—"
But there was no answer.
No pulse.
No breath.
No sign of life.
And for the second time in her life—Seraphina died.
"No!" Lucien screamed, his voice almost breaking with despair.
"You don't get to die again," he said as he embraced the cold body. "Not without me."
From the darkness behind them, Seraphina's skeletal shadow watched silently.
It didn't move.
It didn't hide either.
It was there, like all memories—not erased even if there was a trace left behind.
And then it whispered: It is not her death you fear, Lucien. It is the memory of how you survived.