Blood Legacy

Prologue

The cabin in the woods had stood for longer than anyone in the village could remember, and if you asked Kessiah, it had always been there. To her eight-year-old mind, the cabin wasn't just a home; it was her whole world. Perched at the edge of Sion Woods, it overlooked a vast archaeological excavation site where her father spent his days and—more often now—his nights. Jonas Jazrak had been obsessed with that site for nearly nine years, ever since he and his team unearthed the ancient stone disk.

It was a monstrous thing, that disk—heavy, weathered, and covered in intricate carvings that twisted and curled in ways that seemed to make no sense at first glance. The carvings had no pattern she could trace, no story she could follow like the books her mother read to her. But her father insisted there was meaning there. He insisted the stone was more than just a relic of an ancient civilization. No, Jonas was convinced the disk was a gateway to another world, a portal to some far-off dimension filled with wonder and power. And for nine long years, he'd been trying to prove it.

Kessiah's mother, Aerin, had long since stopped believing him.

The rift between them had started small, like the hairline cracks in an old windowpane, invisible until you looked closely. But those cracks had grown, splintering and spreading until the very air in the cabin felt like it could shatter at any moment. Aerin had begged Jonas to leave the woods, to return to the city, to give up this obsession that had consumed him. She had begged him to be a husband again. To be a father.

But Jonas wouldn't hear it. Not anymore.

It wasn't always like this. Kessiah remembered a time when her father had been different. When she was younger—before the obsession fully took hold—Jonas used to tell her stories. Wonderful, magical stories of faraway lands where dragons roamed the skies and forests were alive with ancient spirits. He would sit by the fire with her in his lap, his voice low and warm, filling her head with images of things she could scarcely imagine. Kessiah had loved those stories, had loved the way her father's eyes would light up as he told them. She had loved the way he'd smile at her, like she was the most important thing in the world.

But that was a long time ago. These days, there were no more stories. No more smiles. The man who lived in their cabin now barely resembled the father she remembered. He was a stranger—haunted, angry, and distracted.

Kessiah was the first to notice the change in him. At first, it was subtle: the way his eyes seemed to glaze over whenever her mother spoke to him, or the way he would stare at the stone disk for hours without moving. Then came the restless nights, the constant muttering under his breath about "unlocking the truth" and "opening the gate." He started spending more time at the site, barely coming home for meals. When he did return, it was as if he was only half there, his mind still lost in the cryptic symbols of the stone.

It wasn't long before his temper began to flare.

One day, her mother had told Kessiah to bring her father down for dinner. Kessiah had caught him standing in the excavation site, staring at the stone disk as if it were whispering to him. She had crept closer, curious and afraid at the same time. When her father noticed her, he turned to her with a look she had never seen before—cold, distant, almost predatory. In the flickering candlelight, his face had seemed unfamiliar, his smile too sharp. Then, without warning, he had slammed his fist into a boulder, making a loud crack that's ringing in her ears, and Kessiah watched in horror as the big stone crumbled under the force of his blow. It didn't seem possible. His hand hadn't even bled.

For a moment, Kessiah couldn't breathe. She stood frozen, staring at the pile of dust where the wall had been. And then her father looked at her. His eyes, usually so full of warmth, were dark and dangerous. And that smile... that fleeting, terrible smile. It was gone as quickly as it came, replaced by a blank, tired expression. But Kessiah would never forget it. She ran to her room that night, her heart pounding in her chest, but she couldn't escape the image of that smile—the way it had made her feel like prey.