The last curl of smoke from the Ash Breath lingered in the corners of the ritual room like a forgotten ghost. Mira stood alone now, the faint glow from the ember bowl still pulsing with the remnants of what she had summoned. She didn't move. Not for a long time.
There had been a time when she feared even the name of the thing she had just called forth. Ash Breath. A curse that feasted on soul-threads, born of a grief too ancient to trace. It had once devoured whole forests—her forest, long before this town bore its name.
Mira pressed her fingers lightly to the edge of the obsidian dish, where a single drop of her blood had sizzled and opened a door that should've stayed shut. She could still feel its hunger clawing at the edge of her mind, like it had recognized her.
It always recognizes its own.
But it hadn't taken her. That mattered.
"Why didn't you take me this time?" she murmured.
Ash Breath did not answer. It never did.
Mira's emerald ring pulsed faintly, the sigil etched within it pulsing once—then still.
She sighed and turned away. Her joints ached, not from age, but from memory. There were costs to channeling something so old. Not just in body. Not just in blood. But in legacy. And she had just reopened a door that others—many others—had died to seal.
But for Elora… she would face far worse.
______________
Mira walked slowly down the hall, her footsteps silent against the wood. From beyond the parlor walls, she could just barely hear the murmuring of the boys—Devin and Elias. They were whispering about her, no doubt. She had seen the way Elias watched her like a coiled serpent. And Devin—he tried to hide the weight of what he felt, but his presence had always been louder than he realized.
Still, she had allowed them in.
Allowed him in.
That alone made her stomach twist.
She paused before the door to her study and leaned against the frame, her eyes closing briefly. The pain had begun again, a low, burning throb in her chest. The cost was surfacing already.
Was it foolish? Yes. She knew that.
Did it matter? No.
If there had been another way, she would have taken it. She would have stayed in the shadows and let the forest itself raise Elora, as it had done in whispers since the day she was born.
But time was shortening, and secrets were beginning to unravel on their own. The Ash Breath was the only force ancient enough to test the boundaries without tearing them completely apart. It was a dangerous whisper in a deafening world—and she needed that whisper to listen.
Mira touched her chest, where her blood had stirred the curse awake. The risk had not been just to herself.
If she had miscalculated… it could have reached Elora.
Or worse—touched the town's roots and woken it fully.
But she hadn't miscalculated.
Because she never risked Elora.
Not without knowing how the ending would turn.
The house creaked with a slow breath. Mira opened her eyes.
She would not explain herself to the Knights. Not yet.
She would make them look like fools in their territory.
They all said Cloves were epitome of greed and hate.
Mira scoffed
Refusing to aid the humans, was was that exactly?
The founding families has a part to play in every dirty secrets
Mira had long obtained armour and strategies to make sure she and her granddaughter survives in Hawthorne.
She couldn't protect her daughter she would not let the same happen to Elora.
She would nurture her enough to stand on her own.
Mira wasn't fazed by the so called peace in Hawthorne , she doesn't have an inkling of what was to come but The clove heritage and veins in her burns to protect Elora.
Elora was an important piece of something.
Relocating to Hawthorne was not a fluke it was so intentional, Elora's growth could not happen anywhere else but the root itself.
'Mother, promise me something........'
Mira could still hear her daughter's last words in her blood over and over again.
"I must prepare faster, the Strom draws near" Mira said into the quiet night
And....
Devin.
Devin Knight.
Devin may have been polite—surprisingly so—but politeness could be just another weapon. Still, he had something in him. Something the others lacked.
He's different, her blood whispered once.
Mira wasn't sure yet if that made him a blessing… or a threat.