They say the soul remembers things the body forgets.
And sometimes… a child is born carrying memories that do not belong to them.
But this story doesn't begin with the child.
It begins with her mother.
Her name was Siana Serin—a quiet woman, never loud, never angry. The kind of woman whose eyes always seemed to be looking just past you. Like she saw something behind your shoulder. Something you couldn't.
She was a schoolteacher. Married. Ordinary on paper.
But there was something else in her blood.
Something ancient.
Something that waited.
She never told anyone about the dreams. The whispers in the walls when she was a child. The way mirrors seemed to blink when she walked past. She buried it all deep, thinking maybe—just maybe—normal life could smother it.
But fate has a long memory. And blood never forgets.
It started again the year she got pregnant.
Her husband, well-meaning and a little superstitious, insisted they visit her family's ancestral home. It was deep in the northern forests, where fog clings to the trees like breath on glass, and the sun forgets to shine after midday.
The village was mostly gone—just stone ruins and wind-swept graves. The house was still there, though. Built from black stone, roof sagging, moss curling around its edges like long-forgotten fingers. There were carvings above the door—spirals, runes, ancient things.
Her grandmother had once said, "Those marks are older than our name. They keep the bad things out, as long as you never disturb them."
She hadn't.
She was careful.
But care means nothing when you're already marked.
Three days in, her husband left for supplies.
He never came back.
The police searched. Drones flew overhead. No signs. No tracks. His phone last pinged in the middle of the woods, then… silence.
Siana stayed in the house for one more night.
That was the mistake.
That night, the house breathed.
Not creaked. Not settled. Breathed—like something inside it was asleep, and waking up. The fire blew out on its own. The windows fogged from the inside. The air grew thick and sour, like soil soaked in rot.
Then came the whispering.
Not loud. Not angry. Just soft. Constant. From the walls, the floor, the mirror above the fireplace. Words in a language she didn't know, but her bones did. Her skin turned cold. Her heartbeat slowed. Something was watching.
She tried to run.
The door wouldn't open.
Not jammed. Not locked. Just… refusing.
Then she felt it.
The presence.
A pressure against her chest. Cold fingers around her spine. A mouth behind her that didn't breathe—but still hissed.
And then—
Nothing.
She blacked out.
When she woke, the sun was up. The door opened like it was never shut. But her skin burned—and on her wrist, glowing faintly, was the mark:
A spiral inside a spiral.
Alive. Ancient.
She didn't speak of it. She just went home.
Weeks later, a doctor told her the impossible:
She was pregnant.
She should've felt joy. Instead, she felt watched.
The farmhouse she moved into before the birth was far from town. Quiet. Surrounded by rolling sunflower fields. Yellow as far as the eye could see. But they began to wilt, even in summer.
Animals avoided the land. Birds flew around it.
Even the wind forgot to blow here.
Inside, the mirrors cracked one by one. Doors opened by themselves. And at night, something paced in the attic above her bed.
She tried to pray.
Tried to forget.
But tonight—
Tonight, it came back.
The sky turned black before sunset. The air inside the house thickened, and the lights died without a sound. She stood in the hallway, breath short, belly heavy, heart racing. She clutched her stomach.
The whispers had returned.
A shape stepped from the shadows.
Tall. Hollow. Veiled in smoke.
No face. Just… a mouth. Grinning.
It didn't walk. It floated. It dragged. And wherever it passed, the wallpaper peeled. The wood blackened. Her eyes filled with tears that were not hers.
It came for the child.
She tried to run. Screamed. But her body gave out. She collapsed.
Then—light. Golden. Blinding. Not from a lamp. Not from the world.
From him.
A figure stepped between her and the darkness. Eight feet tall. Robed in white and armor made of fire and memory. He carried a staff that shimmered with ancient power. His eyes—no human could bear to look at them.
He was not a ghost. He was older.
Her ancestor.
Idran Serin.
Guardian of the bloodline.
"You touch my blood," he said, "and you die forgotten."
The dark thing screamed—not in fear, but in fury.
Idran drew a circle of fire. Runes lit the floor.
But he was fading.
"You must name her!" he said.
Siana's breath came in short gasps. The pain was unbearable. But she looked down at her child, half-born, already fighting to exist.
"Ayla," she whispered.
The name struck the air like a bell.
It echoed through the house. Through the land.
Through something beyond.
The dark figure shrieked, pulled backward into the shadows, burning.
Idran looked at the child once.
"She will see what we could not. Walk where we could not. And end what we began."
Siana smiled once—just once-then let go.
The light faded.
And the child cried.
Outside, the sunflowers all bent in one direction, as if bowing.
And far away, something that had been sleeping opened one eye.
The child had been born.
The door… had opened.
Chapter 1 end