The dawn arrived slowly, gray and hesitant. For a moment, Eira Carter thought the nightmare might end with daylight. But the memory of voices — old queens, ancient magics — lingered in the thin morning air. She lay unmoving in her bed, staring at the ceiling, unwilling to look at Selena.
Selena hovered in the doorway, exhaustion and resolve etched into every line of her face. She hadn't slept. Couldn't. Not while Eira lay at the brink of something terrifying.
"Eira," she said, voice low and gentle. "I got breakfast."
Eira didn't respond. Her eyes were empty.
Selena moved in, sitting on the bed. She handed over two cups of herbal tea and a plate of toast. Eira took a cup automatically, but didn't sip.
"I want to help," Selena whispered. "Tell me where to start."
Eira closed her eyes. "I can't… I can't make them stop. Every time I close my eyes, I hear them again."
Selena's heart clenched. "Then don't close them."
Eira stared at her. "That's not a solution."
"No, but I'll stay with you. Watch the door. Keep you speaking."
Eira took a shaky breath. "Okay."
Selena settled in, burnishing the silence with gentle questions about memory, about what Eira had seen in the fight, in St. Ivy — anything that might anchor her to this moment, not the whispers.
They moved slowly through the morning. When Eira flinched, Selena touched her hand. When she looked away, Selena met her eyes. Eira sipped her tea, hands shaking, but stayed present. It was small progress — but after weeks of horror, any step felt monumental.
---
Mid-Morning at St. Ivy High
They returned to the ruins once more. Selena had to make absolutely sure the site was purged — no relics, no bones, no books. The ground, once sacred to the Thorn Society, had to be rendered useless.
Cautious daylight gave them a thread of hope.
They checked every classroom, every hidden storeroom. Most was rubble. In the old chemistry lab, Eira found broken vials but nothing living. In the art room, shards of stained glass littered the floor, careless witnesses to last year's Masquerade.
Selena pried open the chapel door one last time. The altar was splintered to dust. Candles, melted to nothing. No sign of dark texts, no hiddenrift. It truly felt finished — like a chrysalis finally broken.
But as they crossed the threshold, the air turned cold — too cold for midday. Eira shivered.
"I feel them," she said, voice quiet.
Selena spun. Behind them, at the opposite side of the chapel, a shadow moved.
Her heart stuttered.
A figure stepped forward — tall, gaunt, wrapped in robes made of bark and vine. Their face was set in laughterless joy, features delicate and terrible, eyes the color of dead leaves.
"Greetings, children."
Selena's fist closed around her dagger.
Eira's hand twitched above her wrist. The Thornmark glowed.
The figure smiled. "I came when I heard her voice."
Selena stared. "You're not Lilith. You're not June. Who are you?"
The figure chuckled, voice laced with wind through branches. "I am neither. I am the Thorn's Summoner."
Eira swallowed. "Summoner of… what?"
"Orphans of the Thorn," the summoner replied. "The lost ones. I gather the broken bloodlines, the hidden seeds. Those who still carry the mark but don't know their power."
Selena stepped forward. "We burned its power. Its history. There's nothing left."
The summoner's smile widened. "Power never truly dies. It hides. It waits for the marked to wake."
Eira backed away, fear and something else in her eyes. "We want nothing to do with you."
The summoner looked at her, eyes fierce. "But you are one of us. You carry the Thorn's seed — an accident of blood — but you belong."
Selena's voice was sharp. "No. Not here."
The summoner's arms spread. "Then watch order fall."
They raised a hand. Instantly, the chapel floor began rotting — wood curling black and collapsing. Dust rained down from the rafters. Icicles of dark sap dripped from ceiling cracks.
Selena grabbed Eira and bolted. They raced into the open.
Eira stumbled, hand over mouth as something reverberated through her mind — the same chant she heard in the nightmare:
"Blood calls to blood. Marked rise in fire."
Slamming into daylight felt like bursting from a tomb.
Selena turned to face the summoner, but they'd vanished — only a tangle of branches remained where they stood.
---
Late Afternoon
Selena and Eira sheltered in the Carter kitchen. Phone calls, police reports, were on indefinite hold — too much had happened, too much blood.
The summoner's appearance left them stunned. Eira collapsed into a chair. Selena paced, mind racing.
"Why now?" Selena muttered. "After we burned the book and the blade was destroyed — why show up now?"
Eira tapped her notes — scraps of their research. "Maybe the curse is in me. Or the bloodline itself — not the relic. Maybe the Thorn doesn't need a physical object to find a host."
Selena chewed her lip. "We thought the curse would die if we cut history off — burned the record."
"But what if the record was Eira's blood? What if she is the true history?"
Eira's hand brushed the faded scar around her wrist. "That's why the summoner came to me. Not Selena. Because I'm marked deeper than a book. I'm the seed."
Selena's chest tightened. "Then we fight her. We fight all of it."
Eira looked up, resolute. "But how do we fight blood?"
---
Night: The Summoning
At midnight, a warning knock came at the front door.
Selena was already awake, perched at the top of the stairs. The knock came again — slow, deliberate.
She descended quietly, weapon ready.
At the door stood Tessa Morgan — Principal Morgan's daughter — pale, her brown hair disheveled, eyes sunken, robes burned along the hem.
Eira gasped from behind. "Tessa?"
Tessa's eyes were haunted. "You have to let me in."
Selena frowned but stepped aside. Tessa stumbled into the house and dropped to the floor in the living room.
"My father… he's dead," Tessa whispered. "Dozens of them… women… he brought them here. They want her."
Eira moved beside Selena. "Want who?"
Tessa pointed at Eira's wrist. "Her."
Selena's blood ran cold. "Maybe… maybe we can help you."
"No," Tessa shook her head. "My father called the Summoner. He brought us together. To complete the lineage. And—she didn't come."
Tears welled in Tessa's eyes. "But now they think Eira is the one. Tonight."
Selena's voice came hard. "What's the plan?"
Tessa looked at Eira. "I don't know if there is one. But we have to keep her awake. Keep her strong. They can't take her when she's awake..."
She paused. "They won't wait."
---
Just Before Dawn
Rain pelted the roof, wind rattled windows. Lightning split the sky with low grumbles of thunder.
Selena, Eira, and Tessa stood in a ring made of salt and iron nails in the living room.
Candles sputtered between them. On the coffee table, they'd laid out talismans — a Thorn but turned upside-down, a piece of bone from the old library altar, shards of stained glass.
Eira stood at the center, fists clenched, eyes bloodshot.
Selena placed a hand on Eira's shoulder. "You ready?"
Eira nodded once. "Pull them out of my head and keep them from pulling me."
Tessa dropped to a knee and whispered an old prayer — something passed down through her family, a ward song from before Morgan's true fall.
Selena joined, reciting under her breath.
They formed a boundary of sound and salt and iron — enough, they prayed, to hold.
Everything went still.
Then.
A low chant drifted up from the floorboards — a dozen female voices woven into an oath of blood and binding.
Eira's eyes glazed. The talismans quivered.
Selena's legs shook. She tightened her grip. Tessa's voice trembled.
The boundaries held.
But not for long.
The living room door rattled like hands trying to escape earth. Lightning slammed the windows.
The boundary line of salt cracked.
Eira screamed — a ragged, broken thing — as voices roared in her mind. They were calling her. Each name. Each ancient queen. Each blade of daughter's blade.
"Eira!" Selena screamed.
Eira's head snapped up — she looked at everyone — and then staggered, lurching forward.
Selena lunged, her dagger aimed for the source — but Eira snatched it first, her hand cold, black veins pulsing.
Selena screamed, but Eira only stared — her eyes black pools of sorrow and something else.
"They told me it's time."
Selena's vision blurred. "No."
Lightning struck.
And everything went white.