Prologue: Before the Silence
Long before Damien Cross ever heard the whispers, before Jade ever traced her family name back through ink and blood, there was a night that split time open.
The ritual had no name.
The house stood quiet on the edge of the bayou, lit only by candlelight and storm flashes. Inside, a circle had been drawn—salt, bone dust, and something older. Words were carved into wood. Names whispered into flame. Outside, thunder rolled like something ancient waking.
A child cried once, then fell silent.
Those gathered did not look at one another. Their faces were shadowed, their mouths moving in perfect sync. A woman—Ariella—screamed, but no oreachedne for her. Her wrists bled where the ropes cut too deep, but she didn't stop begging. Not for mercy. But for her son.
He stood in the center, trembling. The sigil on his chest pulsed once, then again, glowing faintly with the light of the past.
A voice—Genevieve's—whispered the final word.
And just before the silence fell, the boy looked at his mother and said, "Don't forget me."
Then the memory was sealed.
And the curse began.
Then came the silence.
The kind of silence that doesn't end when the wind stops, but lingers in the bones of a house for generations. That silence seeped into walls, into names, into memory.
It waited.
And decades later, it began to stir again—carried by dreams, drawn to blood.
Waiting for someone to remember.
Waiting for someone to open the door.