Chapter Text
Tonight was the night, whether you were fully ready or not. You took the steps up to your flat two at a time. The old wood groaned under your boots. The air inside was thick and humid, smelling of dust, melting wax, and the sharp scent of herbs boiling in a pot on the stove.
The ritual waited in the center of your main room, laid out on the worn floorboards. You cleared the space for it, a perfect circle of salt glinted white in the candlelight. Inside it, a tarnished silver dish. Within the dish: crushed vervain seeds, torn up parchment from an old grimoire, a single drop of your blood from a week ago, now dried black, and the final piece was about to be added...
Something you loved. Someone you loved.
You heard him rattling around in his cage, covered with a velvet cloth in the corner. The sounds were faint: a ruffle of feathers, a quiet coo.
He was your father's beloved owl, a mottled gray thing named Poe… a joke your dad made once about the bird being 'a proper little critic.' Poe had been with you since your family died. Your only friend in this world.
You had known this would hurt, that was the point. A true sacrifice of life had to have weight.
You opened the cage, your hands trembling. "I'm sorry, my friend," you whispered.
A gasping shudder worked through you and you forced yourself to reach for the owl. His feathers were soft against your skin. He tilted his head, his big dark eyes regarding you without fear. That only made it worse.
"You will see Dad soon, remember him? How he always fed you the best mice." Your voice was a raw whisper, a pathetic attempt at soothing both him and yourself. A tear slid down your cheek and landed on his head, glittering in the low light like a tiny, perfect pearl.
Then you did it. You drew a thin silver blade across his throat.
It was over in a second. He didn't struggle. Perhaps he knew. Perhaps he was just that good. Either way, the last breath left his body in a tiny, warm puff against your palm.
It broke you. A wave of hot shame and regret washed through you, so potent your knees buckled. You fell to the floor beside the circle, a raw sound tearing from your throat. Dark blood spilled from your clenched fists onto the floorboards.
You held his body above the dish. You squeezed his tiny neck, willing the lifeblood to fall. Each ruby-red drop hit the other ingredients with a soft hiss, like bacon hitting a hot pan. The air grew thick with the coppery scent.
There was no moon in the sky that night, no starlight. The world outside was all velvet black. It was a night for endings. A night for curses.
Your hands hovered over the dish. Muttering the words with unshed tears burning behind your eyes, words in a language older than the crumbling city around you. "May this blood be poison, may my flesh become ashen to them. May my touch be death..."
All the candles in the room went out at once. A deep silence fell, broken only by your own ragged breathing.
You reached for the silver dish. It was cold. So cold it burned, a flash of searing frost that shot up your arm and buried itself deep in your chest. But you held on to it, bringing it to your lips, tilting your head back and letting the thick liquid slide down your throat.
It tasted like regret.
The magic hit you then. Not like a shield, but like a current of dark water pulling you under. It was inside you, rewriting your blood, settling into your marrow. A cold, heavy presence, humming with a low and hungry power.
You rose to your feet, stumbling back a step. You looked down at your hands. They looked the same. But they didn't feel the same. They felt... charged. Dangerous.
There was only one way to test this. One way to know if you had succeeded.
You knew that it was time to go hunting.