Chapter 10 Blood Wears a Familiar Face

Sierra Lane's POV

I was done waiting for truth to knock politely. It was time to kick down some doors.

The woman claiming to be my dead mother stood with calm eyes and a half-smile, like she had been expecting this moment for years. Her presence alone made something ancient rattle in my ribs. It was not just fear. It was recognition. My blood, traitorous and wild, responded before my brain could form questions.

Dominic stayed beside me, tense as a loaded trap. Elias lingered by the gate, watching her like she was a ghost he once tried to bury.

"Say something," I said, stepping closer. My voice cracked down the middle. "Say something only my mother would know."

She did not hesitate. "You used to collect dead beetles in a box and hide them under your pillow because you thought their shells held secrets. I never told your father. You cried when I finally threw the box away. Said I had buried your dreams."

My stomach dropped. That memory had never left the locked box of childhood, something no one alive could know.

She watched me with eyes too steady, too sad. "I did not die, Sierra. I was taken."

Dominic shifted. "By who?"

"Not who. What."

She pulled back her hood.

Her hair was threaded silver, like mine might be if the years had not paused for her. But it was the mark on her neck that stole my voice.

A crescent moon carved into skin, identical to the one on my shoulder. But hers was scorched, like it had been branded.

"The priestesses of the moon do not die easy," she said. "They are buried alive and left to forget."

I turned to Dominic. "You knew."

He shook his head. "I suspected. The records said she vanished. They did not say she rose."

"You were not supposed to find the journal," Isla said, her voice low. "It was hidden for a reason. Your awakening came too fast. The Crux inside you is not ready."

"Then explain it," I snapped. "What is a Crux? Why me? Why now?"

She looked at Elias. He gave a tight nod. She stepped through the gate. The guards flinched. Dominic said nothing.

She reached into her cloak and pulled out a vial of thick black liquid.

"This is blood from the original line. Not wolf. Not priestess. Something older. It calls to you because you carry it too. You are the first Crux born in four hundred years. Your blood can unlock ancient doors. And ancient monsters."

I stepped back. "You are saying I am a weapon."

"No," she said. "I am saying you are the battlefield."

Dominic cursed under his breath. "She should not be here."

Elias cut in. "She is already here. Now what do we do about it?"

My voice broke the tension. "We start with the truth. All of it. Tonight."

The library smelled different when Isla walked in. Like it remembered her.

She moved through it like a woman returned to a house that once imprisoned her. Her hands touched the books. The stones. She stopped at the fireplace, where the mark above the mantle-a half-sun wrapped in thorns-seemed to shimmer beneath her gaze.

"This place is not just Dominic's estate," she said. "It was once a temple. Built on bones. Powered by rituals. Long before wolves ruled the bloodlines."

I sat across from her. The bone dagger lay on the table between us. Dominic and Elias flanked opposite corners of the room like shadows made flesh.

"Tell me about the trafficking," I said. "The part no one is saying aloud."

Her face hardened. "It was not just humans. It was Crux children. Stolen before their powers awakened. Some used. Some bred. Some bled dry for rituals too old to name. Alaric orchestrated it. Dominic helped shut it down."

I turned to him. "Is that true?"

He nodded once. "Not all sins are inherited. Some are fought."

Isla placed the vial of black blood on the table. "This was taken from one of the last surviving elders. It can amplify your sight. But it will burn. And it will change what you see."

I did not flinch. "Give it to me."

She hesitated. "Once you drink, you cannot unsee. Not even in sleep."

"Then I will sleep with my eyes open."

The vial was cold against my lips. Bitter, like rust and ash. It hit my stomach like a storm.

And the world split.

I saw the past.

Not in flashes, but in waves.

My mother, younger, cloaked in red, standing in a circle of flame. Chanting over a cradle. My name.

Alaric, crowned in blood, dragging a child by the wrist. Not me. But someone who looked like me. A sister?

Dominic as a boy, trembling before a burning tree. His hands stained. His eyes already cold.

Then a darkness. Something deeper than shadow. A voice that sounded like mine but echoed with something older. A promise made before birth. A binding.

When I woke, my nails had dug into the wood.

Isla knelt beside me.

"You saw it."

I nodded. "She is still alive. The girl. My sister."

Dominic frowned. "What girl?"

I stood, legs unsteady. "The one Alaric took. She is not dead. She is hidden. And she is the key to something he is building."

Elias swore. "We thought she was lost."

"You knew?" I asked.

"We suspected," Isla said. "But never found her. She would be about your age now. If she survived the binding."

I turned to Dominic. "Then we find her. And we stop whatever Alaric is planning."

He nodded, slow. "Agreed. But we move carefully. The Council is already watching us. Any mistake, and they will strip protection from this estate."

I picked up the dagger.

"Then we stop making mistakes."

That night, I could not sleep.

Not because I was afraid. Because I was alive in a way I had never been.

Outside my window, wolves howled like they were mourning something they had not yet lost. Inside, my blood sang songs I did not understand.

I looked at the photograph again. The one from the satchel. The girl with my face beside Alaric.

Sister. Twin. Clone. I did not know.

But I would find her.

Even if it killed me.

Far beneath Alaric's private sanctum, a girl with Sierra's face wakes inside a blood-lit cell. Her eyes burn gold. Her voice is hoarse. And the first word she whispers is Sierra.