The roots struck like serpents.
Elian dove, rolling across the cold earth as one thick tendril slammed into the altar where his name was carved, cracking the stone in two. Vlad swung his blade, cleaving through one of the pulsing limbs, dark ichor spraying like venom.
"Don't let them wrap around you!" Father Luka shouted, flinging a vial of blessed salt toward the nearest writhing corpse. It hissed, smoking on contact, and the creature recoiled with a screech that rattled the bones lining the walls.
Elian scrambled to his feet. The six dead brothers—his brothers—moved slowly, unnaturally, as if dragged from the grave by strings they couldn't see. Their eyes glowed with a dull red light, empty of will, puppets of the roots.
"Why are they here?" Elian demanded. "They should be at peace!"
"They were bound," Father Luka said grimly. "Sacrificed to keep the curse dormant. But now that you're alive… it awakens."
Elian turned to the altar. "Then what if I die?"
"No!" Vlad snarled. "That's what it wants. If you die willingly, the binding is complete. The seventh seal closes. Forever."
A root snared Vlad's leg, jerking him into the air. He slashed wildly as another crept toward his throat.
Elian's pulse thundered. He dropped the torch, reached for the dagger at his belt—the one Luka had blessed years ago, forged from the ironwood stake used to kill the first cursed son centuries before.
"Then I sever it," he said, and charged the roots.
As he stabbed the blade into the heart of the altar, everything convulsed—the roots, the corpses, the earth itself.
The chamber screamed.
One by one, the ghostly figures of the brothers faded, their faces no longer twisted in pain… but peace.
The roots flailed, shrieked, and fell still.
Elian collapsed, gasping, the altar crumbling beneath him. The name carved in it was gone.
Father Luka placed a hand on his shoulder. "The seventh son has broken the line."
But something deep beneath still pulsed.
Not an end.
A beginning.
—