A Spark In The Shadow

CHAPTER - TWENTY TWO

The single candle in Brianna's room flickered, casting long, dancing shadows on the walls. Outside, Havenwood lay still, the raw wounds of the vampire attack slowly healing under the watchful eyes of the Dawn Watch. But inside Brianna's small room, a different kind of quiet settled, broken only by the soft rustle of old paper. The leather-bound journal lay open on her lap, its creamy pages filled with strange, elegant handwriting. She had found it in the attic, a forgotten relic that now felt heavier than any stone.

She had spent hours already, her brow furrowed in concentration. The language was ancient, full of words she didn't know, mixed with flowing symbols that looked more like art than letters.

But Brianna was stubborn. She remembered the drawing of a young Duskiel and his mother, Ember. She remembered the chilling phrase beneath the sketch of the Shadescore: "It feeds. It consumes. A curse." A powerful urge to understand, to know the truth for Duskiel's sake, drove her.

She found an old, thick dictionary of ancient tongues, tucked away in her father's study. Slowly, painstakingly, she began to decipher. She would read a word, then look it up, then read the next. It was like putting together a puzzle, one tiny, faded piece at a time.

"Sun... Weaver... light..." she murmured to herself, tracing the elegant script with her finger.

"Harmony... essence..."

The early pages spoke of Ember's life. Not in the language of a queen, but of a woman deeply connected to nature. Brianna pieced together words like "sun," "moon," "earth," "harmony."

Ember described a magic that flowed from within her, a pure, vibrant light.

"My essence," one entry read,

"a gift passed down from the Sun-Weavers. A warmth that breathes life, heals wounds, and turns back shadow." Brianna felt a flicker in her own chest as she read this, a familiar warmth that echoed the power she had unknowingly unleashed during the attack.

"She had it too," Brianna whispered, her eyes wide, a dawning realization in her voice.

"This light... it runs in the blood." so, Ember had light magic too. And it sounded like Brianna's own unexpected power.

A strange connection.

As she moved deeper into the journal, the tone shifted. The words became more urgent, more worried.

Ember wrote of "darkness closing in," of "whispers of forbidden power."

Brianna began to see names: "Rowan," mentioned with deep love, followed by "brother" and a word that translated roughly to "betrayal."

The picture began to form: a happy family, shattered by a ruthless ambition. "Rowan's brother..." Brianna murmured, a cold feeling settling in her stomach.

"He... he betrayed them."

Then came the entries about a "ritual." Ember wrote with a frantic hand, the ink often smeared as if by tears or hasty movements.

"He seeks to bind what cannot be bound," one entry read.

"To twist light into a weapon. My essence... for his darkness." Brianna recognized the "he."

It had to be Rowen, the brother. The true killer.

"He didn't just kill Rowan," Brianna whispered, her voice filled with dawning horror.

"He did this... to Ember. To steal her light."

She turned to the pages with the sketches of the Shadescore. The journal confirmed her chilling discovery: the gem was Ember’s light, yes, but it was corrupted.