A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 50: A Chronicle of Wasted Devotion.

Chapter 50: A Chronicle of Wasted Devotion.

The clock on Anastasia's bedside table read 11:30 PM.

She had read the journal three times now.

And still, she turned the pages. Still, she traced the inked words as if some hidden truth might reveal itself beneath her fingertips.

But it never did.

This was not what she was looking for.

It had never been what she was looking for.

She had wanted answers—real answers. Academic knowledge. Something practical, something concrete. Something she could use to master the power clawing beneath her skin, something to tell her how to control it before it consumed her.

But instead, she had been left with this.

A chronicle of wasted devotion.

A scholar's record that became a love story before it became a tragedy.

Dumbledore must've known.

Of course he had.

Always watching, always knowing, always handing her just enough to lead her down a path without ever telling her where it ended. He had known exactly what this journal contained—what it lacked—and yet, he had given it to her anyway. Not as an academic text. Not as a guide.

As a lesson.

She exhaled sharply through her nose, her grip tightening on the journal's worn leather cover.

It wasn't enough.

Yes, it confirmed what she already suspected—blood magic was not a spell to be learned, not a discipline to be mastered like Charms or Transfiguration. It was something felt, something woven into the very core of the wielder's being. It did not simply exist within them—it was them.

Selene had feared that.

And in the end, it had consumed her.

The book did not say how she died, but Anastasia didn't need it to.

Selene Voclain had withered beneath the weight of her own power, fearing every breath, every thought, every spill of blood, until she locked herself away in the name of control—until control became isolation.

Until she was gone.

And yet—

Her chest ached.

Not just for Selene Voclain, but for Edouard Marchand, too.

For the man who had tried, who had spent three years reaching for a woman who was already slipping through his fingers, who had seen her unraveling and tried to hold her together, tried to bring her back from the edge—only to be left with nothing but silence and a name written in grief.

She exhaled sharply, pressing her palm into her forehead.

The familiarity of Selene's story should have been comforting. A confirmation that she wasn't alone, that this had happened before, that this power was real.

But it only left her feeling cold. Because in the end, Selene had lost.

She forced herself to go back to the entries that mattered. The ones that weren't written in longing but in understanding.

The ones that spoke of blood magic itself.

She flipped through the journal, scanning the pages, searching for the pieces she needed—