Chapter 8 Blood Knows the Way

Sierra Lane's POV

If you have ever felt your spine remember something your mind swore it forgot, then you know how I felt standing across from the woman claiming to be my dead mother.

Her voice was not loud. It didn't need to be. It reached into my chest and knocked on something I didn't know was locked. My name sounded too gentle from her lips, like it belonged to a little girl still chasing fireflies in an apartment rooftop garden that no longer existed.

"Sierra," she repeated. Calm. Controlled. Like she'd rehearsed it in the mirror a thousand times.

Dominic's body shifted slightly in front of me, protective without touching. Elias did not move at all. His silence said more than any growl could.

I stared at her cloak, the one she wore like armor. Her face was aged but not worn. She was beautiful in that terrifying, tragic way-like a melody you recognize but cannot name. She had my jawline. My eyes. My defiance.

And she was supposed to be dead.

"If you are who you say you are," I began slowly, "why the hell did you let me think you were buried beneath stone?"

Her smile cracked. Not sad. Not cruel. Just... tired.

"Because I was."

The words landed like bricks to the ribs.

She lifted her hood. A crescent-shaped scar ran along her collarbone. Jagged. Familiar.

"They tried to erase me. Cut the priestess out of my blood. But you can not kill what was forged under a blood moon. You can only bury it."

Dominic stepped forward. "You were declared lost by your own Circle. That was no mistake."

Her gaze snapped to him. "And yet here I stand. Maybe you should question your sources, Alpha."

Tension sizzled between them, history written in eye contact alone. I wanted answers. I got flames instead.

I pushed past Dominic. Not recklessly. Just ready.

"So who buried you?" I asked. "Who decided I didn't need a mother?"

She touched the iron gate between us, and for a second I wondered if it would melt under her fingers.

"The same ones who trained me. Protected me. Used me. Then feared me. The Circle of Nine. The high priestesses of the old order."

Elias sucked in a breath like a man who already knew and hated being right.

"They said you died protecting me."

She looked at me again, that same soft ache in her eyes.

"I did. And it wasn't enough."

I don't know what snapped in me. Maybe it was years of orphaned dreams. Maybe it was her voice saying my name like nothing had changed.

I unlocked the gate.

Dominic's voice flared. "Sierra. No."

I did not listen. My instincts were a hurricane, but something deeper-a root buried in my marrow-pulled me forward.

She stepped through. And just like that, she was real. Solid. Not memory. Not ghost.

We did not hug. There was no reunion music. Just silence, thick and electric.

"They branded me a traitor," she said, her voice low. "Because I fell in love with your father. Because I wanted a child that wouldn't belong to either world but both. They said Crux blood would ruin us."

I blinked. "You knew what I was?"

"I knew what you could be."

Dominic growled behind me. "She doesn't belong to you."

"She doesn't belong to you either, Alpha. She belongs to the truth."

The silence that followed was deadly.

She turned back to me. "If you stay here, the Circle will come. They'll finish what they started."

"And if I leave?"

Her face softened. "Then we stand together. And we burn down the old order."

It sounded like madness. And maybe it was. But something in my chest stirred.

A wind shifted. Elias turned his head slightly.

"We're being watched."

Dominic snarled, low and violent. "They're already here."

Two figures dropped from the treetops, cloaked in robes stitched with runes that flickered in and out of sight. The air warped around them.

"Sierra Lane," one of them hissed, voice layered with magic. "You are summoned."

I stepped forward. My mother grabbed my wrist.

"No. You answer no summons unless it comes through blood."

"She is blood," the other priestess countered. "She is prophecy."

"She is mine," my mother snapped.

Magic cracked like lightning between them. Dominic lunged forward, claws out. Elias blocked one of the priestesses with a blast of blue flame from his palm.

I did not know who to run to. So I ran inward. I grabbed the dagger hidden in my boot and held it out.

The runes lit up.

The priestesses froze.

"She's awakened," one whispered. "It is too soon."

"She was not supposed to ignite until the eclipse," the other hissed.

"Oops," I said, trying to steady my breath. "Guess I missed the memo."

They vanished in a shimmer of broken light. Not fled. Retreated.

My mother touched my cheek.

"You lit the blade. That means your blood has accepted the call."

"What does that mean for me?"

She glanced back toward Dominic. "It means they will all try to own you."

He did not deny it. He just stepped closer, jaw clenched.

"You are not safe in this estate anymore," he said. "Not unless we shift the power."

I frowned. "Shift how?"

Elias stepped forward, eyes cold. "You take the Trial."

My mother stiffened. "She's not ready."

"She does not have a choice. They will keep coming until she kneels or dies."

I looked between them. Three people who all thought they knew what I needed. Three pasts colliding on the battlefield of my future.

"What is the Trial?"

Dominic met my gaze. "It's the rite of Crux. Blood. Fire. Memory. You face the parts of yourself that were hidden, broken, or stolen. If you survive, no one can claim you. Not even the Circle."

"And if I don't?"

Elias said nothing.

I turned to my mother. "Did you do it?"

She nodded once. "But they broke me afterward. You might not be so lucky."

"Then I guess I better break them first."

Her smile returned, sad and proud. "You have my fire. I just hope it doesn't consume you."

Dominic placed a hand on my shoulder. "We begin at dusk. Until then, rest. You will need every piece of strength you have got."

I turned toward the estate. The house that once felt like a prison now felt like a battlefield dressing room. My knees shook.

But I did not fall.

Not yet.

As I walked back inside, something in the shadows watched. Not Circle. Not Dominic. Not priestess.

Older.

Hungrier.

The wind whispered its name across my ear as I shut the door.

Ashkar.

I did not know the name. But the name knew me.

And it was coming.