Blood and Sandalwood: English Edition

The cold air of the late autumn morning nipped at Elias’s cheeks as he hurried toward school. His backpack bounced lightly against his back, a familiar rhythm accompanying his quick steps. The traffic light at the corner had just turned red, so he had to wait, tapping the tip of his shoe impatiently against the damp asphalt. His thoughts drifted to today’s history test—he had tried to study last night, but his mind was still clouded by the immense void left by his mother’s absence. Three months had passed, yet the pain was still raw, like an open wound.

He remembered her last embrace perfectly, the faint scent of lavender that still lingered on some of her scarves. Now his only source of support was gone, leaving him to navigate his final year of high school and the uncertainties of the future alone. Their house felt much larger and quieter without her gentle laughter and wise advice.

The house on Acacia Street had never been wealthy, but it had always been alive. Elias remembered the evenings when the golden light of the living room lamp reflected in his mother’s chamomile tea, while the constant background sound was the rustle of turning pages or the radio playing softly on an old jazz station. His mother, Elena, had an almost magical ability—though he hadn’t known then just how real that magic was—to banish any dark cloud with a simple touch to his forehead.

“Everything will fall into place, Elias,” she would tell him, and the lavender scent that seemed to emanate from her skin made him believe the world was a safe place.

Now that sense of safety had evaporated like dew beneath a leaden sun. After the funeral, the house had become a museum of silence. Dust settled undisturbed on the picture frames, and the cold seemed to seep from the walls rather than from outside. Elias had learned to avoid the creaking floorboard in the hallway—not for fear of waking someone, but because that sharp sound brutally reminded him that there was no one left to answer him.

Evening meals had turned into a ritual of loneliness. He would sit in front of a box of cheap cereal, staring at the empty chair across from him, trying to imagine her voice. But with each passing day, the memory of its sound grew fainter, replaced by the harsh reality of unpaid bills piling up on the sideboard like death sentences.

As he crossed the street, Elias noticed a sleek black car parked right in front of the school gate. It wasn’t unusual for parents to drop off or pick up their children, but the aura surrounding this car was different. There was something in the air of importance and authority that emanated from it, something that made Elias feel slightly uneasy.

Before he could analyze it further, the rear door opened and a young man stepped out. He was tall, dressed in an impeccable black suit that contrasted sharply with the relaxed morning atmosphere of the school. He carried an air of confidence that seemed inappropriate for his age—he couldn’t have been more than twenty. His gaze swept over the crowd of students before stopping abruptly on Elias.

For a fraction of a second, Elias thought he must be mistaking him for someone else. But then the young man smiled—a strange smile that didn’t reach his cold, piercing eyes—and began walking straight toward him.

Elias’s heart began to race. He had never seen this guy before. What did he want from him?

The young man stopped a few steps away. The air around them seemed to freeze, and the noise of students heading toward the entrance faded like a distant echo.

“Elias?” the young man asked, his voice surprisingly calm and deep.

Elias nodded, feeling his throat go dry.

“We need to talk,” the young man said—and in the next moment, Elias’s life was about to change forever.

“Elias?” The stranger looked at him with an intensity that made him feel as though he were under a spotlight.

“Yes? Who are you? What do you want?” Elias’s voice trembled slightly as he tried to mask the fear beginning to seize him.

The young man gave a brief, warmthless smile.

“My name is Damian. And I’ve come to tell you something about… your family. More precisely, about your mother.”

Elias stiffened.

“My mother is dead. I don’t understand—”

“I know. I’m sorry for your loss, Elias. But you need to understand that your mother… kept you hidden. Very well hidden.”

“Hidden? From whom? Why?”

Damian sighed lightly, as if bored by the conversation, though his gaze remained fixed on Elias.

“From me. And from… my family. You see, Elias, I made an agreement with your father. An agreement that… directly involves you.”

“I don’t know anything about any father! My mother always told me that—”

“That she was alone, I know. But it wasn’t true. Your father… is who he is. And because of him, you… now belong to me.”

Elias felt the ground give way beneath his feet. What was this stranger saying?

“What… what are you talking about? What do you mean I belong to you?”

“It means exactly what you hear. Your father made a promise. And now you must honor it. You have two options, Elias. First: you pay me a considerable sum of money before you turn eighteen. That is, by the end of this school year.”

Elias let out a short, humorless laugh.

“Where would I get that kind of money? I can barely afford to eat!”

“Then we come to the second option. You become… let’s say… my employee. My slave, if you prefer a more direct term. You will do what I say, when I say it. Until… we decide otherwise.”

Elias was stunned, unable to form a coherent response.

“No… that’s impossible! You have no right!”

“Oh, but I do. Your father offered you to me. And I accept the offer. Now you simply have to choose, Elias. Money or… service? You have until the end of the week to think about it. But I advise you to make the right decision. My family… is not very tolerant of delays.”

He stepped closer, and Elias felt a cold shiver run through him as Damian grabbed his arm.

“And one more piece of information that might interest you. The world is far more complex than you think. There are things beyond what you can see. Things… magical. And my family… is very skilled in such matters. Your mother knew it. Your father knew it. Now it’s time for you to find out as well.”

With one last cold smile, Damian turned and walked back to the black car. He got behind the wheel, and the vehicle sped off, leaving Elias standing alone on the sidewalk with an immense weight on his shoulders and a fear that froze his blood. His world had just changed forever.

Shock rooted Elias to the spot like an animal caught in headlights. Damian’s words echoed in his mind, a sinister refrain distorting the reality he had known until now. Your father offered you to me. The world is far more complex than you think. Magical things.

He raised a trembling hand to his temples, trying to dispel the dizziness. A father. His mother had never told him anything about a father. The only paternal image he had ever had was the faded photograph of an unknown man in an old picture hidden inside a dusty box in the attic—one he had discovered by chance years ago and about which his mother had refused to speak. Now that faceless stranger was the reason his life had been turned upside down by a black-suited unknown—leader of a… mafia? And magic? It sounded like a macabre joke, a plot torn from a bad movie.

With effort, he forced his feet to move and walked mechanically toward the school entrance. The noise of the students, now louder, felt distant and unreal. Their smiling faces and trivial concerns contrasted sharply with the abyss opening beneath his own feet. How could he think about a history test when a stranger was claiming his life?

He entered the empty classroom a few minutes before the bell. He sank heavily into his seat, feeling his heart pound against his ribs. He took out his notebook, but the letters danced chaotically across the page. He couldn’t focus. He had to understand. He had to find out whether Damian was telling the truth. But how? Whom could he ask? His mother was gone. He had no close relatives. The only adults in his life were his teachers, but the idea of telling them about a magical mafia sounded absurd.

The bell rang, and the classroom gradually filled. His classmates talked, laughed, shared the latest news. Elias felt as though he were inside a bubble, separated from their normality. He noticed Andrei, his best friend, approaching with a wide grin.

“Hey, Eli! Ready for battle with Napoleon?”

Elias tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace.

“Uh… yeah. Sure.”

Andrei looked at him closely, noticing his paleness and tension.

“You okay? You seem… absent.”

“I… I had a bad morning.”

He couldn’t tell him the truth. It would sound insane. But the silence was suffocating.

Andrei was about to say more when the history teacher, Mr. Popescu, entered the classroom, slamming the grade book onto the desk. The sound was like a gunshot in Elias’s ears. He sat rigidly, feeling the skin on his arms tingle exactly where Damian had touched him earlier.

“Good morning, class. Today we leave parlor strategies behind and move to the fire of battle,” the teacher said, beginning to write on the board in chalk: 1812. The Russian Campaign.

Elias opened his textbook, but the letters seemed to dance. The teacher’s voice became a distant hum.

“You belong to me.” Damian’s words throbbed in his skull, in rhythm with his heartbeat. Elias clenched his fists beneath the desk. An unnatural heat rose from his stomach to his chest. It wasn’t a fever—it was something denser, as if he had swallowed embers.

“Elias?”

Mr. Popescu’s voice pulled him from his trance. The teacher stood beside his desk, peering over his glasses.

“Tell us, Elias, what was the element that brought Napoleon’s great army to its knees in the Russian steppes?”

From behind him, Andrei whispered, “Winter, Eli! The cold!”

But Elias didn’t feel cold. Around him, the air began to tremble, like heat shimmering above asphalt. A bead of sweat ran down his temple. In his mind, the image of frozen soldiers mingled with the image of Damian’s black car and the scent of his mother’s lavender.

“Power…” Elias murmured, without realizing it.

“Excuse me?” the teacher asked, confused.

“It wasn’t the cold that stopped them,” Elias said, his voice gaining a strange, low resonance that made the students in the front rows turn around. “It was the fact that they entered a territory that did not belong to them. They believed they could master something that cannot be tamed.”

At that instant, the fluorescent light above the board crackled sharply. A faint electric tremor passed through the floor, and the hair on Andrei’s arms stood on end.

“Elias, are you okay?” Andrei asked, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

When Andrei’s finger brushed his shirt, a bluish spark jumped between them. Andrei jerked his hand back as if burned. At the same moment, the flag marking Napoleon’s army on the wall map fell to the floor, though there was no draft.

“I… I need to step outside,” Elias gasped, gathering his things with trembling hands.

“Elias, the class isn’t over!” the teacher called, but his voice sounded far away.

Elias stumbled into the hallway, leaving behind a silent classroom and a friend staring at his own palm, still tingling with electricity. He collapsed beside the lockers, struggling to breathe. He had realized two terrifying things: Damian hadn’t lied when he said Elias was different—and, worse, his life as a high school student—battles with Napoleon, jokes with Andrei, history tests—had officially ended.

He was already on a battlefield no history book could ever describe.

Meanwhile, in his elegant office located in an unremarkable building in the heart of the city, Damian stood at the window, watching the bustle of the street below. An ironic smile played on his lips. Elias. A fragile boy, suddenly thrown into a world he didn’t understand. But the blood running through his veins was the same as his father’s—a dangerous mix of stubbornness and… potential.

He turned from the window and approached a massive dark-wood desk. Opening a hidden drawer, he took out an old book bound in black leather, with silver inlays that seemed to pulse with dark energy. He touched the cover with his fingers, feeling the familiar tingling.

Black magic. The power that had defined his life, that had granted him authority and that, at the same time, bound him to a destiny he had never chosen.

He thought of the prophecy. The hands of his son… A short, enigmatic phrase that had haunted his family for generations. His father had been obsessed with it, trying by every means to avoid it. And now, by a twist of fate, the son of the man he had tried to manipulate was the key. Yet something in Elias’s frightened, confused gaze had made him hesitate for a fraction of a second. A strange, unfamiliar feeling had slipped into his cold heart. It wasn’t pity. Perhaps… curiosity?

And then he thought of Elias’s mother. A white witch. An anomaly in his father’s family. What secret had she hidden so well? Why had she protected that boy? If he is the key, then the others will move faster.

Damian snapped the book shut, banishing those troubling thoughts. He had a plan. And Elias was part of it, whether he liked it or not. On Sunday morning, he would receive an answer.

And Damian would make sure it was the answer he wanted.