Page 35 of Blood Legacy (Eternal Descent (MistHallow Academy) #1)

35

FELIX

MistHallow’s library cocoons me in darkness and stillness. I’m skipping Advanced Water magick to be here. To learn. I’m alone among the ancient texts at the back of the second floor, just how I prefer it. I trace my fingers over yellowed pages describing soul bonds that should remain theoretical, not become visceral realities inside my body.

I shouldn’t feel her as deeply as I do. A sorcerer and a vampire cannot share a soul bond. It’s biologically, magickally, fundamentally impossible. Yet here I am, experiencing flashes of her restlessness even now, sensing her confusion and determination like phantom limbs attached to my consciousness.

Gaida Aragon. The woman who has done what no one in my twenty-one years of existence has managed: awakened desire.

I close the ancient tome with a sigh and press my palms against my eyes until I see bursts of light behind my eyelids. My head throbs from days of being awake. The whispers of my parents echo in my memory, as they often do when I’m exhausted.

Knowledge is protection, Felix. Learn everything, trust nothing.

My mother’s mantra, spoken as she showed me my first containment spell at age four. The memory shifts, as it always does, to flames and screaming. To the laboratory beneath our family estate exploding in a maelstrom of unstable energy. To my parents’ bodies, torn apart by the knowledge they sought to control.

I was ten. Old enough to understand what happened, young enough to be reshaped by the trauma.

The orphanage came next until they realised I was too powerful, too reckless for them to control. Peerage Preparatory (for misfits and the maligned) took me, although I’m pretty sure they regretted that decision almost instantly. But they couldn’t throw me out, a young teenager with nowhere to go. They hung onto me until I turned eighteen and shipped me off to Greystone Academy with glowing recommendations that they didn’t mean, where my aptitude for dark magick immediately marked me as someone to watch. I lasted a year before they expelled me.

The Franklin Institute welcomed my brilliance with open arms until they discovered my midnight experiments with reality manipulation. Another expulsion, another black mark on my record. Another reason for people to whisper when I walk by.

None of it is true; all of it is useful. Fear creates distance, and distance allows freedom. Until MistHallow. Until her .

I pull another text from the stack, this one bound in what appears to be dragon skin: Blood Bonds Beyond Species: Mythical Connections .

As I open it, a slip of paper falls out. Notes from some long-dead researcher. The handwriting is familiar, though I can’t place it. The margin notes describe a phenomenon called “empathic resonance” between species that should be magickally incompatible.

My heart quickens. This is it.

Empathic resonance occurs in approximately one in a hundred million cross-species interactions, requiring specific magickal signatures that complement rather than repel. When such resonance occurs, a pseudo-bond forms, allowing emotional transference and, in rare cases, memory sharing.

This explains what’s happening between Gaida and me, though it doesn’t explain why . What makes her signature compatible with mine?

A vision crashes through my carefully constructed mental shields without warning.

A man with aristocratic features and ancient eyes stands in a circle of blood, chanting in a language that predates modern dialects. The vision shifts to Gaida, her wrists bound with silver chains, her blood dripping into a ceremonial bowl.

I grunt, returning to the library with a violent jolt.

My chest heaves as I try to process what I’ve just seen. This wasn’t a random psychic bleed. It was too specific, too detailed. The man in the vision looked like a much older version of Gaida’s father, with almost feral, monstrous features and an energy that felt ancient, primordial.

“Draken Aragon?” I muse. Is this a premonition or something that’s already happened? The temporal displacement in psychic visions is notoriously difficult to pinpoint, much like the vampire himself. There is no text written about this mysterious originator of the Aragon line.

Written text. He predates all written texts to the point where he has been forgotten about completely. Or on purpose. Perhaps this is why Aurelius could never tell Gaida much about him, because he doesn’t know. Despite his age, there are some things that don’t get passed down by word of mouth. Especially if that something is an age-old feral monster vampire who can cause sire bond severances. It kind of besmirches the elite, noble, purebloodline of the oldest vampire family known to man.

All of this is clicking into place. The First vampire is deflection. She is neither here nor there. This starts and ends with Draken.

“There has to be something about you, old man. Where?” I look around and purse my lips. Casting a location spell, I let it float up above my head. “Find me anything on Draken Aragon,” I murmur.

The location spell flickers weakly before sputtering out entirely. Interesting. Either there’s nothing here on Draken Aragon, or something is actively blocking my search. Given the secrets swirling around MistHallow lately, I’m betting on the latter.

In a library this ancient, containing texts that predate most modern civilisations, there should be something, a footnote, a passing reference, anything. The complete absence suggests deliberate removal. Except for that book down below, which is now in the presence of our Headmaster. I guess I will have to go and speak to him after all, something I was hoping to avoid. He unsettles me. His magickal signature gives off the wrong vibes, and it messes with my head.

I lean back in my chair, letting my mind follow this thread. If someone wanted to erase Draken Aragon from regular history, they’d need considerable power and influence. The kind of influence that spans millennia. The kind that belongs to organisations like The Equilibrium.

“Looking for something?” Blackthorn says, appearing at my side in a swirl of magick that makes my back teeth ache.

“I am, actually. Anything on Draken Aragon.”

“Gaida told you?”

“She did.”

We lock gazes, and something masculine and caveman bounces between us.

“You know something,” he says eventually.

“I have had a premonition.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh? I know of no record where this has happened to you before.”

“It hasn’t.”

“The soul bond?”

“Probably.”

He sits and searches my eyes. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Don’t make me dig it out of your brain with an invasive spell, Mr Davenport.”

I give him a half-smile. “I love your threats, Luke. It’s like a love language.”

He chuckles and leans back in his chair. “Tell me what you saw.”

I describe the vision in detail: the monster vamp, the ceremonial circle, Gaida bound in silver chains. I watch his face carefully as I speak, noting how his expression hardens when I mention the silver chains.

“When is this happening?” he asks, his voice deceptively casual.

“That’s the problem with premonitions. They don’t come with timestamps. Could be tomorrow, could be next century.”

Luke’s fingers drum once on the table before going still. “The feral vampire you saw… you believe it’s Draken Aragon?”

“It fits what little we know. Ancient, powerful, with features similar to the Aragon line but way more primitive.”

“Describe him in detail.”

I consider how to answer this. “Okay, you know Egyptian mummies? Think one of those but fleshed out and alive with fangs and claws that don’t retract.”

“Gods,” Luke mutters, in a rare show of horror before it’s crushed. “And you’re certain Gaida was the one bound? Not some ancestor that could look like her?”

I nod. “It was her. I’m bound to her,” I say slowly to gauge his reaction. “I wouldn’t have a vision of just anyone.”

His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “So we are talking about the first feral vampire who is still alive somewhere.”

“Pretty much.”

“Your theory?”

“You care?”

He draws in a breath before releasing it slowly. “You are a smart man, Felix. Far more intelligent than any twenty-one-year-old has a right to be. I believe Peerage Prep knew this and held you back on purpose. It is my belief you should’ve accelerated your education and graduated with first-class honours at thirteen, maybe fourteen, with your rebellious nature. If you say to me now that you don’t have a theory on this, I know you are lying, and I will take that as a direct affront to Gaida’s safety. And if you were in any doubt about the lengths I would go to protect her, let me show you.” His hand clamps down on my wrist, and a violently brutal vision slams into my head, taking my breath away and possibly a chunk of brain cells.

Blood. Screams. Ripped flesh. I see men being dismembered methodically, their limbs torn from their sockets while they still lived. I see Luke, his eyes black with rage, fangs extended, covered in gore as he systematically destroys anyone who dares to touch what is his.

When the vision releases me, I’m gasping, sweat beading on my forehead.

“Point taken,” I manage, my voice hoarse.

Luke releases my wrist. “Good. Now, your theory?”

I take a moment to collect myself, pushing away the horror of what I’ve just witnessed. “My theory is this has nothing to do with the First vampire, but rather Draken Aragon. As the first of the Aragon line, he is clearly aeons old, his appearance suggests that vampires that old do, in fact, age. Possibly as a result of growing madness over so many years of living, maybe due to isolation or starvation, or maybe, in his case, he is feral, and that is what feral vampires eventually turn into. Monsters. He never had a sire bond if the accounts are correct that he was born from the First vampire. So, how did he turn feral? I need that book.” Those last four words are said with care.

“What makes you think I trust you with it?”

“You wouldn’t have asked my theory if you didn’t. You don’t seem the kind of man to take credit for another’s work.”

He rises. “Come with me.”

I hastily gather up my things and follow him as he sweeps out of the main part of the library to a hidden door that leads downwards. Intrigued, I keep pace until we reach a vault door with so much security that not even I could pick it.

He disarms the security measures and opens the vault door. I step inside into a different library, but one with so much magick, so much power, I stumble slightly. My mouth waters at the thought of all the knowledge in here. He gestures for me to sit down, and I do, piling my notebooks up on the desk as he sits opposite me. He holds his hand out, and the book from the underground chambers appears. “Can you even read it?” he asks, placing it in front of me.

I stare at the ancient text in front of me, my fingers hovering above it without touching. The script is unlike anything I’ve seen before, predating known writing systems, with strange, angular characters that shift subtly under my gaze.

“No,” I admit. “This isn’t any language I recognise.”

“It’s not a language anyone recognises,” Luke says. “It’s pre-Sumerian, possibly even predating human civilisation as we understand it. The text was written by Draken himself. It’s part journal, part manifesto, part warning.”

I lean forward. “Warning about what?”

“About what happens when Blood Rights activate fully.” His eyes meet mine, cold and assessing. “About what Gaida will become if she follows the path laid out for her by her lineage.”

A chill runs through me. “Which is? And please do not say that mummy monster vampire.”

“You would turn from her if she did?”

His question is fair. “No,” I say, knowing that is true. “I would never turn from her. But chances are we would have to put her down.”

“And how does that sit with you, Mr Davenport?”

“Not well. She is the only creature that has made me feel… certain ways. I am inexperienced, na?ve, if you will, when it comes to relationships, sex, em o tions that have to do with someone else. I want to explore it. I want the chance to explore it.”

He nods slowly, a look of understanding passing over his face. It makes me wonder if he is like me.

Part of me thinks so, which means we have more in common than either one of us would probably like.

But that’s fate, isn’t it? Drawing you to the most inexplicable creatures possible to form a whole.

“I get that, Mr Davenport. More than you could possibly know.”

Weirdly, it is a validation that I wasn’t seeking, that I have never sought out. It makes me feel seen, heard. “You got a translator for this?” I ask, breaking the heavy moment.

He smiles and shoves a crystal across the table, and then he vanishes from my sight, leaving me to learn what I can from a book that is thousands of years old and should probably never have seen the light of day.