Chapter 1: Signed and Sealed

I stared at the divorce papers spread across my kitchen table, my signature still wet on the dotted line. Three years of marriage reduced to legal documents and property division. The pen felt heavy in my hand, like it weighed more than the life I was leaving behind.

"It's done," I whispered to my empty apartment.

The silence answered back, which pretty much summed up my life these days. Two weeks since I'd walked in on David and his secretary Jessica tangled up in our bed—the bed I'd picked out, the sheets I'd washed a hundred times. The image still burned behind my eyelids every time I closed them.

My phone buzzed. Another text from David: "Sarah, please call me. We need to talk about this. I made a mistake, but we can fix this."

Fix this. Like our marriage was a broken appliance he could tinker with until it worked again. I deleted the message without responding, just like I had the previous fifteen.

I gathered the papers and shoved them into a manila envelope. Tomorrow I'd drop them at the lawyer's office, and Sarah Mitchell would officially become a single woman again. The thought should have felt liberating, but mostly it just felt terrifying.

At twenty-eight, I was starting over with nothing except my teaching job and this tiny one-bedroom apartment that smelled like the previous tenant's cat. My savings account had exactly four hundred and thirty-seven dollars after paying the security deposit and first month's rent. David had always handled our finances, said I was "too emotional" about money decisions.

Too emotional. His favorite phrase for shutting down any opinion I had about anything.

I walked to my bathroom mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back. Hollow brown eyes, cheekbones sharp from the weight I'd lost since finding out about the affair, dark blonde hair hanging limp around my shoulders. I looked like a ghost of myself.

"You're pathetic, Sarah," I told my reflection. "Twenty-eight years old and you don't even know who you are without him."

The woman in the mirror didn't argue.

I was reaching for my toothbrush when something strange happened. The bathroom cabinet door swung open by itself, making me jump backward. Must be a loose hinge, I reasoned, pushing it closed. But as soon as I let go, it drifted open again.

"Great," I muttered. "Haunted apartment. Because my life wasn't complicated enough."

I wedged a hair tie around the handle to keep it closed and tried to forget about it. Stress did weird things to people. Made them imagine things that weren't there.

The next morning, I stopped at Corner Cup Coffee before work, desperately needing caffeine to face another day of teaching Shakespeare to teenagers who thought Romeo and Juliet was a documentary about bad decision-making.

The barista, a college kid with pink hair and multiple piercings, handed me my usual vanilla latte with extra foam. "Rough morning?"

"Rough life," I admitted, probably oversharing with a stranger.

"Been there," she said sympathetically. "It gets better."

I found my usual corner table and pulled out the stack of essays I needed to grade. Thirty-seven papers on "The Theme of Betrayal in Hamlet." The irony wasn't lost on me.

"Sarah Mitchell?"

I looked up to find a woman standing beside my table. She was maybe sixty, with silver hair twisted into an elegant bun and wearing a black coat that probably cost more than my car. Her dark eyes seemed to look right through me.

"Do I know you?" I asked.

"No, but I know you." She gestured to the empty chair across from me. "May I sit? I have something important to tell you."

Every instinct told me to say no, but something about her voice made me nod. She settled into the chair with fluid grace, never breaking eye contact.

"My name is Rebecca Stone," she said. "And you, Sarah Mitchell, are in great danger."

I nearly choked on my latte. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Your bloodline is ancient. Powerful. And there are those who would kill to possess what runs through your veins." She reached into her purse and pulled out a small piece of parchment covered in elegant handwriting. "This prophecy has been waiting for you your entire life."

"Lady, I think you have me confused with someone else—"

"Sarah Elizabeth Mitchell, born March 15th, adopted through St. Mary's Catholic Charities, married David James Mitchell three years ago." She smiled at my shocked expression. "Discovered his infidelity two weeks, three days ago. Signed your divorce papers last night."

My blood turned cold. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because I've been watching over you since the day you were born." She pushed the parchment toward me. "Read it."

With shaking hands, I unfolded the paper. The writing was in English, but the style looked ancient:

When the blood awakens and betrayal cuts deep,

The daughter of power from slumber shall leap.

Two paths before her, two lovers to choose,

One brings salvation, one death to ensue.

Trust not the first love who returns with sweet lies,

For poison flows deep where devotion should rise.

The second shall challenge with words sharp as steel,

But his heart holds the truth that can help her to heal.

When darkness descends and the enemy calls,

The choice that she makes will determine who falls.

"This is insane," I whispered, but my hands were trembling as I held the prophecy. "You're talking about magic and bloodlines like this is some fantasy novel."

"Feel your pulse," Rebecca said quietly. "Tell me what you sense."

I pressed my fingers to my wrist, and immediately felt something was different. My heartbeat was stronger, faster, and there was something else—like electricity humming just beneath my skin.

"What's happening to me?"

"You're awakening," she said. "The trauma of betrayal often triggers the first manifestation. Haven't you noticed anything unusual? Objects moving, electronics malfunctioning, dreams that feel too real?"

The cabinet door. The way my phone had been acting up. The strange dreams I'd been having about flying.

"This is impossible," I breathed.

"I'm afraid it's very possible. And very dangerous." Rebecca stood, leaving the prophecy on the table. "Someone will contact you soon. A man named Jake Sullivan. He's rude, arrogant, and will probably insult you within the first five minutes of meeting him."

"Then why—"

"Because he's the only one who can keep you alive long enough to master your abilities." She placed a business card next to the prophecy. "When you're ready to learn the truth about who you are, call me. But don't wait too long, Sarah. They're already hunting you."

Before I could ask who "they" were, Rebecca Stone walked away, disappearing into the morning crowd like she'd never been there at all.

I sat frozen, staring at the prophecy and business card. Part of me wanted to throw them both in the trash and pretend this conversation never happened. But another part—a part I'd never acknowledged before—recognized the truth in her words.

Something was happening to me. Something I didn't understand.

And apparently, my quiet life as a divorced English teacher was about to become anything but quiet.