Shadows of deceit : The Augustus secret

Chapter Twenty-six

Asheley

I spent the entire morning digging through the box Stefan had given me, my fingers sifting through a tangle of brittle relics. There were yellowed land deeds sealed with cracked wax, family letters written in an elegant, fading script, sketches of long-dead Augustus ancestors with hollow eyes, and brittle pamphlets so fragile they threatened to dissolve at a touch. The air smelled of dust and old ink—centuries of history, but nothing that hinted at the answers I was searching for. By midday, frustration settled in like a weight; everything was fascinating but useless.

Then, hidden beneath a stack of frayed parchment, I uncovered a book. My breath caught. Its leather cover was astonishingly intact, the dark brown hide polished smooth by time, corners still tight despite the centuries. A faint, almost sweet scent of aged parchment clung to it. Across the front, impressed in faint, hand-tooled lettering, was a single title: Blood Line.

I dropped it onto the bed with a soft thud, dismissing it at first as a story book won't give me what I need. But as it fell open, a neat, deliberate signature drew my eyes.

Josiah Augustus.

I picked it up again, my fingers hovering nervously over the page as if a single touch might smudge the fragile ink. The handwriting, faint and nearly lost to time, looked as though a breath could erase it. Holding my breath, I turned the first page with painstaking care, the paper whispering like something centuries old and alive.

"This is no common tale to be uttered, but a burden sealed in flesh and shadow. These words are bound to the continuance of our blood, betray them not, as I betrayed thee not, lest ruin claim thy soul. I have given mine offering, and with blood shalt thou preserve it, for He who observes from the dark is merciless and hungers evermore."

What the—? I read the first page again, my eyes tracing each line as if a second glance might soften the dread coiling in my chest. The words gnawed at me, cold and unrelenting, yet I couldn't tear myself away. Almost without thinking, I turned to the next page, desperate to understand.

"I had wandered many days, my belly gnawing as if some devouring wretch did dwell within me. Each step grew weaker than the last; my limbs quivered under me, and my tattered raiment afforded me no warmth, no solace. The village had spurned me every door fast, every hearth cold, every eye a dagger of disdain. Hunger had hollowed me, stripped my very bones, and rendered me naught but a shadow of man. At last, I sank upon the frozen earth, knees sundered by mud, too spent to cry, too void to lament.

And then I espied it: a swine, filthy and diminutive, had broken loose from a neighbouring pen. A spark of hope stirred, fragile as the web of a spider. I crawled forward, trembling, limbs crying rebellion, fingers grasping but the creature mocked my effort, slipping as smoke through my clutch.

Then he appeared.

He was no man, or not wholly. His visage was a shifting shadow, a smoke-wraith in the wan moonlight, ever elusive, ever slipping from mine eyes. The harder I strove to behold him, the less there was to see; yet his presence pressed upon me, cold and insatiable, patient and judging beyond mortal measure. I felt laid bare, mine very soul exposed.

He spake no word, yet the world did tremble. Before mine eyes appeared a feast of impossibilities: bread and meat, fruits that gleamed as though kissed by fire. Hunger gnawed at me, more than of flesh or bone, a madness of desire and despair. I lunged, frail and desperate, yet the feast danced ever farther, cruel and mocking.

Then his hand was extended. Upon it lay dark, congealed blood, slick and abhorrent. Mine instinct cried for recoil, yet the hunger within me—deeper than any mortal want—drove me forward.