Chapter 13: The Lark Ascending
In the heart of Ardent Hollow, the town gathers for a long-awaited winter tradition. One whispered about in hushed tones and steeped in reverence.
As Jason navigates a delicate introduction to the forces that rule this hidden place, Kat slips deeper into the mystery on her own, drawn toward a truth her father refuses to share.
But beneath the ceremony’s facade lies something far older, and far more dangerous than either of them anticipated.
In Ardent Hollow, belonging comes at a cost. And once the ritual begins, there’s no turning back.
Signed in Blood is a supernatural horror podcast set in early 2000s America, blending religious horror, dark fantasy, occult thriller, witchcraft, demon bargains, possession, and psychological suspense. Perfect for fans of small-town horror, cult horror, occult rituals, serialized audio drama, and slow-burn supernatural thrillers.
CW: Ritual Horror, Psychological Distress, Religious Themes, Cult Horror
Written, edited, produced, and performed by Evan O’Cuana
Intro: “Suspension” by Anna Dager & Hanna Ekström
Outro: “A Hundred Windows” by Back_Drop
Say Hi at evanocuana@gmail.com
If you enjoyed the episode, please follow, rate, and review — it helps the show reach more listeners.
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1 SPEAKER_00: Signed in blood is a ritual offering to the keeper of
stories per the terms of our pact.
Let all parties be aware these are tales of horror.
They may not be suitable for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised.
Cat ducks behind a parked car as soon as she clears the door at
the bottom of the stairway.
There are still a few people on the street, but for the first
time since she's come to Ardent Hollow, she doesn't seem to be
the immediate focus of attention.
The few stragglers, her father among them, are all making a
beeline for the entrance of the courthouse in the center of the
town square.
She watches as Jason climbs the steps warily, nodding to a
balding man in his mid-50s who's holding the door open for him
and a few others.
In a moment he's out of sight, and the man holding the door
follows.
Kat is alone on the square, her breath rising in plumes on the
crisp evening air.
She waits another minute, letting the cold seep through
her bones while making sure no one else is coming.
Once she's satisfied, she breaks cover and heads for the steps of
the courthouse.
She braces herself as she reaches for the doors, fearing
for a moment that they'll be locked and she'll be out of
luck.
But they swing open easily as she pulls, and she remembers
Mrs.
Summers telling them that locked doors are a rarity in Ardent
Hollow.
As someone who's been running her whole life, Kat marvels at
their sense of certainty.
The main antechamber of the courthouse is empty, though she
can hear the murmuring of a crowd from behind the double
doors ahead.
Her steps echo across the tiled floor as she approaches, and she
stops for a moment, her eyes pulled to a gigantic mural on
her right, painted in a style that makes her think of old
history books.
The colors are faded and the imagery confusing.
A trail of covered wagons border the main tableau, a blond,
bearded man at the helm of one of them, a small girl with
straw-colored hair and a cloth doll seated besides.
Another scene portrays a lush, pristine valley.
Yet another shows the raising of a church.
But her eye is drawn to two scenes in particular.
The first shows the blond man from before kneeling at the
young girl's bedside, his head buried in his hands as her
emaciated face stares upward.
Following her gaze, Kat reaches the top of the mural, where the
young girl, apparently recovered from her ailment, sits atop a
large throne, a smiling doll placed in her lap.
At the foot of the throne there lies a winged lioness in repose,
its eyes gleaming, mouth curved up into a grin that seems almost
human.
Behind them there is a chain of young girls standing hand in
hand.
Unlike the blonde girl, her doll, and the lioness, these
children aren't smiling.
They can't because they have no mouths.
Their eyes are at once pleading, terrified, and ecstatic.
Kat stares, her hand covering her own mouth as she studies
their expressions.
Her heart leaps in her throat as the double doors to the main
courtroom open with a bang.
What the fuck?
She hears a young man's voice echo through the antechamber as
she ducks into an adjoining hallway.
She jams her eyes shut as two sets of footsteps approach.
Dude, hurry up! We're gonna miss it.
She braces against the wall, drawing on the magic within,
should she need to defend herself.
Any moment now.
Dude, relax.
I can't hold it anymore.
I don't know what she's waiting for, but I'm not gonna piss
myself during ascension.
She hears another door open and peeks around the corner to see
two teenagers charging into the men's room.
She waits for them both to disappear before heading back
out and approaching the main chambers.
A small sign points to a stairway to the upper gallery,
and she begins to climb until she reaches another set of
doors.
She lifts her hand to open them and stops.
She can still turn back.
Somehow she's made it this far unseen.
For once, this creepy ass town doesn't have all eyes locked on
her.
She can return to the apartment, eat some lasagna, and leave
whatever lies behind these doors to her asshole father to deal
with.
He doesn't want her here anyway.
He wants to keep secrets?
Let him.
What does it matter to her?
She lets the question hang in her mind.
It doesn't.
This is stupid.
She's being stupid.
She begins to pull her shaking hand back from the cool metal of
the handle.
Without warning, the image of her mom from Stolis's vision
rises to the surface.
Alicia Turner Argyle wouldn't turn back, no matter what a man
told her.
She may be the child of the Argonaut, but she's her mother's
daughter too.
Holding her breath, she slowly turns the handle and slips
inside.
The first thing that strikes her is the noise.
The courtroom is packed, a cacophony of voices rising and
reverberating off of the chamber walls.
But as she gets her bearings, she begins to notice the
absolute enormity of the space.
The courthouse and its adjoining city hall are large, no doubt,
but there must be hundreds of people in this one room alone.
Maybe the entire town.
The chamber and its upper gallery seem to warp and stretch
in a way that makes her head ache and her ears ring.
There's no way this room should be able to hold so many, but
here they all are.
She creeps silently up to one of the polished wooden benches that
descend in rows like an amphitheater in the upper
gallery.
The dozens of townsfolk who have spilled over from below chatter
to their neighbors with gleeful anticipation, their eyes
returning again and again to the raised dais in the center of the
room below.
In a normal courtroom, this would be the judge's bench with
a witness stand.
Here, however, there is only a large stone seat that Kat
recognizes as the throne from the mural.
It's carved from light gray Lannanstone, veined in blue and
adorned with symbols that Kat can't make out.
It looks both soft and incredibly cold.
And the longer Kat looks, the more she feels pulled toward it,
and the deeper the sense of impending dread in her gut
becomes.
She forces herself to look away, searching briefly for her father
in the crowd, but failing to pick him out.
The townsfolk are almost overwhelmingly white, with the
exception of a handful of black and brown folk scattered
throughout the crowd.
Young children run up and down the aisles between the benches
and the chairs below.
Older folks have claimed many of the seats up front, their gray
and silver adorned heads bobbing in animated discussion.
There are farming families, patriarchs distinguished by
their battered boots and jawn deer hats.
Imposing wives next to them with meticulously styled hair to
offset their calloused hands and varicose veins.
Well-to-do business owners with pot bellies and burst blood
vessels from one too many nights spent at the town's only bar.
High school kids who snipe at each other from across the
aisles, gossiping just as much as their parents.
The crowd reeks of sweat, gas station pizza, animal feed, and
Chanel No.
5.
The chatter around them rises and falls in waves.
Kat catches snippets of it here and there.
Most are curious as to the late start of the proceedings.
The princess is many things, apparently, but late isn't one
of them.
People are worried, excited, hungry.
The voices continue to build, swelling to almost a roar, and
then, all at once, they cease.
For a moment, all Kat can hear is her own breathing, which
sounds so loud in her ears that she's afraid the townsfolk in
front of her will turn to investigate and she'll be
discovered.
She doesn't need to worry, however.
Every other set of eyes in this impossibly cavernous room are
drawn to a man in his mid-40s who has just entered the room
from what would normally be the judge's chambers.
He's tall, well built, with a large black beard that threatens
to swallow his face.
He wears a plain gray suit with a checkered tie, and despite the
unruliness of his beard, the rest of his hair is slicked
back.
All rise, he says, and despite the fact that he is speaking at
a regular volume, Kat can hear his words as clearly as if he
were right next to her.
The crowd stands, an obedient hive.
Her Highness, Princess Sophie! He gestures to the door from
which he came while dropping to his knees in a bow.
The entire crowd follows as one, and for a split second, Kat is
the only one on her feet.
Had the bearded man not cast his gaze to the floor, he could
easily see her in the back of the gallery.
She hunches down quickly, eyes glued to the doors the man had
entered from.
Slowly, one of the doors swings open, and a girl not much older
than Kat walks out.
Her long, silken hair is black like the bearded man's.
She wears an old-fashioned dress with frills and a high collar.
In her hands she carries a cloth doll that Kat recognizes, not
just from the mural outside, but from the grocery run she and her
father had made hours earlier.
She stifles a gasp as she pulls the dots together.
The girl that had been stalking her every move in the grocery
store was the princess herself.
As if on cue, Princess Sophie turns her eyes up to where Kat
is hiding and smiles.
The soccer mom sitting immediately in front of Kat
titters, but Kat can't control the shudder that passes through
her.
She knows I'm here.
The girl with the doll takes a seat on the waiting throne and
lifts a regal hand.
Her host of subjects sits in synchrony, their collective
breath held in anticipation.
I am so sorry, dear ones, the girl says, voice dripping in
sweetness.
I know you all must have been oh so terribly worried at my
lateness.
I understand that we have special guests this evening, and
I took extra care to make myself presentable.
She smiles at this, her eyes once again darting to the upper
gallery.
A collective sigh ripples through those in attendance,
peppered with quiet aws, as if they had all just seen a kitten
do something particularly adorable.
Cat almost gags.
Before we begin our kit together, Princess Sophie
continues, I would very much like to meet our newcomers.
Your Highness, Jason's voice rings out as every head in the
space swivels to look at him.
If I may approach.
The girl on the throne locks eyes with him directly.
He meets her narrowing gaze for a moment, then casts his eyes
downward in deference at her amused grin.
Through his periphery, he watches as she nods slightly,
and the bearded man stands to his full height.
Jason also rises to his feet, stepping into the aisle, and
begins to approach the throne.
He can feel all eyes on him, but cutting through all of them is
the big man's imposing glare.
The man's lip curls a hair, revealing a pointed canine tooth
that looks just a bit too long for Jason's liking.
I wonder if he wants to be friends, Jason's inner asshole
whispers, forcing him to stifle a grin.
If that part of him is speaking up, then his chances of walking
out of here intact just plummeted.
He keeps his head level and his stride measured.
He has to show proper respect to the princess, but if tall, dark,
and ugly up there gets the notion that he can intimidate
Jason, then the whole plan becomes that much more
difficult.
Jason stops just short of the Dais and stoops down on one
knee.
Princess Sophie nods her approval.
Arise, stranger, and give us your name.
Highness, Jason says as he returns to standing, eyes still
averted downward.
My name is Jason Argyle, but the pilgrims of the eastward path
know me as the Argonaut.
I have come to offer you my service.
Princess Sophie claps her hands excitedly, the cloth doll
staring at Jason from its perch in her lap.
Oh, how absolutely wonderful! The Argonaut is a name that even
I recognize, insulated as I am from so much of the gossip back
home.
You're a busy little boy, aren't you?
Jason holds his tongue and waits.
But, she continues, you didn't come to play with us all by your
lonesome, did you?
My daughter is ill, Your Highness, he says, studying the
base of her throne with his gaze.
I did not want to risk making it worse.
Oh no, how dreadful! That simply won't do it all, will it?
Shall I send a doctor to her?
We could have one this instant.
Something about the tone of her voice unsettles him, like she's
sitting on a punchline to an incredible joke, but doesn't
want to share.
He chances a look up to find her distracted, her eyes scanning
above his head.
No, that won't be necessary.
But I am so grateful to your Highness for her generosity.
He feels her eyes shift back to him and averts his gaze just in
time.
Then tell me, if there's nothing I can do for you, Argonaut, then
what is it you can do for me?
For all his many faults and shortcomings, Jason Argyll is a
man who knows his moment when he sees it.
I'm happy you asked, Highness.
If you know who I am, then you know my profession.
As a former archivist of the Order of King James.
Jason sees the bearded man tense up at the mention of the order,
and a discontented murmur ripples through the crowd like a
shark gliding beneath the waves.
I was charged with researching lore.
As a broker, I've become an expert in all sorts of
negotiations.
I'm hoping there might be a way to put both skills to use for
the good of your home.
At the last word, Jason lifts his gaze to lock eyes with the
princess and holds her stare.
It lasts only a moment, but he sees the exact spark of
recognition he was hoping for.
He quickly looks down again.
He can feel the townsfolk leaning in, suddenly curious in
a way that casts hundreds of anxious, prying eyes his way.
That's fine.
So long as the big man didn't see what happened, they should
still be in business.
I'm sure I don't know what you mean, the girl says, her voice
taking on a bored lilt.
But I suppose we may find a place for you after the
ascension.
For now, take your seat.
We've kept my darling subjects waiting long enough.
With that, the puzzled stares of the townsfolk are instantly
replaced by rapturous excitement, all eyes returning
to the girl as she stands apart from her throne, doll in hand.
The time is finally here, my loves, she says, her eyes
scanning the room.
The winter solstice has arrived, and with it the shedding of old
skins and the ascension of a new vessel.
The crowd cheers and the sound is thunderous.
The seasons may change, Princess Sophie continues, her voice
effortlessly and impossibly rising over the roar of the
masses.
The years may drift by.
I can renew you, she says as she waves her hand, as you renew me.
With these words, the crowd is on their feet, surging in as
they approach the Dais.
The elders up front part ways, letting three sets of parents
approach at the head of the sea of townfolk.
Between each of them there stands a young girl, each one a
few years younger in age and appearance than the princess.
Each one clutching their parents' hands tightly, whether
out of fear or excitement, Jason can't tell.
With another wave from Princess Sophie, the crowd again falls
silent.
She walks up to the first girl, looking down into her eyes in a
stare that is both dreamy and ravenous.
The girl stares back, breath held.
After a moment, Princess Sophie breaks away, walking to the next
girl in line.
The first girl looks up at her parents in confusion and then
starts crying softly.
Her father turns away slightly as her mother bends down to give
her a hug.
Princess Sophie repeats the ritual again with the next girl,
who is trembling as she squeezes her parents' hands with white
knuckles.
This time she holds the gaze longer and after a minute breaks
away and looks up at the crowd.
This one.
The crowd cheers, the sole dissenting voice being the wail
of the third girl, who wasn't approached at all.
The chosen girl jumps into her mother's arms, weeping joyfully
as both parents embrace her.
She has pretty red hair and a pair of sparkling blue eyes that
radiate the most exuberant happiness.
It's those eyes that haunt Jason when he eventually lies down to
sleep later.
Something in them that was so happy to leap into the void,
until they weren't.
As the noise of the crowd dies down, the parents of the young
girl bring her forward to join Princess Sophie before the
Lannin stone seat.
The girl hugs her father, then turns as her mother kisses her
forehead, pulls her close, and whispers something to her.
Jason can't hear the words.
But he doesn't need to to know what the mother is saying.
Some version of we're so proud of you.
He feels his stomach starting to turn.
Princess Sophie takes a step forward.
Are you ready?
Yes, the younger girl replies.
Then come, my love.
Come and ascend.
With that, Princess Sophie lifts the cloth doll with its ravenous
painted smile toward the girl, and the girl reaches forward to
take it.
The crowd leans in, and Jason finds he can't breathe as the
lines and angles of the room around them shudder and writhe.
The bile rises in the back of his throat, saliva flooding his
mouth as his body prepares to vomit.
He struggles to keep it down, to hold himself together.
He has to do something, anything for God's sake, and his vision
blurs knowing that he can't.
This is the game.
It always was.
Princess Sophie, one hand still on the doll, starts to shake
violently.
The younger girl, holding the other side of the doll, looks
back to her mother, confused.
She looks like she's trying to pull away.
Mom! Mom, what's?
The words are cut short as the smaller girl also begins to
convulse.
Both girls scream, blood pouring from the eyes, nose, and mouth
of Princess Sophie as a sick, jaundiced glow emanates from the
doll.
In another moment the light dies, and the empty husk of what
was Princess Sophie falls to the ground.
Blood continues to seep from the shell, pooling slowly beneath
the vacant head.
Princess Sophie looks out at her adoring subjects, this time
through a set of brilliant blue eyes.
A joyous ascension to you all, my dear ones, she says with a
dazzling smile.
Jason fights to maintain his balance, desperately forcing his
face to return to its mask of cool competence.
Those eyes will be on him again soon.
Before it settles in place, however, he looks once more at
the body of the girl who was once Princess Sophie.
The bearded man has knelt down to scoop the corpse up, cradling
her gently in his arms and wiping the blood from her lips
and eyes.
Jason knows the look on the man's face, that hollow-eyed
grief, and in that moment would give anything to wrap his hands
around his throat.
So he had given his daughter up too, once upon a time.
In the back of his mind, unbidden, Jason hears the voice
of his father repeating words he hadn't heard in years.
There's something about that guy I don't like about myself.
Jason forces his eyes back to the princess to find her
studying him with cold, quiet amusement.
She walks up to him and beckons him close.
I would like a word after the festivities.
He has just enough time to nod before the doors to the chamber
burst open with a thunderous bang, louder than any shotgun.
There are screams as the crowd begins to scatter away from the
swinging doors.
Jason feels himself shoved to the side as the bearded man
charges forward, placing himself between Princess Sophie and the
pair of intruders walking calmly into the chamber.
The woman is an austere blonde in a cornflower blue dress, her
hand clutching a golden necklace as she eyes the mass of
townsfolk.
The man next to her strides forward in a cream-colored suit,
his wand already extended toward Jason.
So sorry to interrupt, Jean Blackwood shouts, his voice
transmitted perfectly to every ear in the house.
But we've got business with that man there.
Hand him over quietly, and the girl he brought with him, and
we'll be on our way.
Jason knows he needs to look at the hunters who have been on his
trail for so long.
Knows he needs to ready himself.
But in this moment, his eyes are locked on a lone figure in the
upper gallery.
A young girl who looks more like her mother every day, especially
now.
Her eyes are pink from crying, but her jaw is set.
She stands there, the power within her threatening to
explode outward.
He's never been so proud and so terrified.
She meets his stare, and he pours every ounce of power he
possesses into a single, desperate thought.
Run! She looks at him for a long moment, and then she does.
Return in two weeks, dear travelers, as hidden truths are
unburied, desperate deals are struck, and the door to escape
draws ever closer to being shut.
Maybe forever.
This episode was written, performed, produced, and mixed
by Evan Okuana.
Our intro music is by Anna Dagger and Hannah Ekstrom.
Outro music is by Backdrop.
You can find more at Signedandbloodcast.com.
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Until next time, keep your eyes to the ground, your hands to
yourself, and your intentions signed in blood.