Phoenix: By Blood Reborn

Somehow it always begins with blood...
The rituals of rebirth are simple; blood is always called and blood must always be paid. It may be your own, it may be another's but blood it must be.

Late 19th century
Deep in the woods
The middle of nowhere...

The shadows at the edge of the firelight danced; the flames flickered and leapt greedily, as the blood flowed from the slit palm of a white-robe clad witch, standing at its side. The night was still, no sound came from the nearby trees and yet, it was bone-chillingly cold in that glade. It was dark magic being wrought that night, it would chill the bones of any white witch, but Mariana Leah; the once pure witch standing beside that fire, was lost.

There are witches who taste power only to chase it for all their days irreverent of means or consequence and then there are witches who taste power without forgetting its ability to corrupt. Mariana Leah had been such a witch until the moment she faced her own death.

Death, a truly unremarkable assailant, so utterly common, yet so significantly feared. Mariana Leah had foreseen her own death at midnight. Within an hour of awakening, she ran to the edge of her woods and with fear in her heart, she cast her circle and sold her soul in ritual blood sacrifice; her own.

Within moments, the chant complete; she closed the spell, healed her palm and walked away to the cottage on the edge of the woods.

At dawn, Mariana Leah died in her bed and her soul soared free of its earthly binding only to be dragged straight down to hell. Such is the price for a soul once sold.