The wind outside howled like a wounded beast, but within Forgetful Haven's cellar, the silence was heavy. Too heavy. As though the very stone strained to listen.
Seraphine stood barefoot in the back chamber, her pale-blue robes stripped away and replaced by an older garb—thicker, darker, less elegant. Her hands moved in practised motions as she fed bloodstained cloth into a brazier one strip at a time. Smoke curled up, clinging to the low ceiling like ghosts reluctant to rise.
Each thread that burned carried with it a name. A memory. A piece of the past. Some were from fallen comrades. Others were the final remnants of her family. All were tainted by loss.
The scent of singed linen, oil, and distant sandalwood layered the air like incense for the dead.
Among the singed fabric, one fragment refused to burn entirely. As it blackened and curled, a sliver of parchment detached from the inner lining, fluttering down like a condemned leaf.
It landed at her feet.
Seraphine froze.
She bent and picked it up.
A thin sheet, edged with gold lacquer. A wanted poster—tattered, folded from long disuse. The ink had smudged, but the face was unmistakable.
Her face.
The title read:
WANTED BY THE CELESTIAL COURT
SERAPHINE VAL—CHARGED WITH HIGH TREASON AND BLOODLINE HERESY
Alias: The Fallen Flower
Bounty: Sealed Class
Her fingers trembled around the page. Light from the brazier danced across her eyes. She was silent.
A thousand recollections filled the edge of her vision: a burning mansion, a rental sign, a dying oath whispered in her ear. Her breath caught in her throat.
From behind her came quiet footsteps.
Lysander emerged through the gate, coat repaired patchwork-style, breathing more even, but eyes—
They were unique.
"I felt it," he whispered. "In the alley. Something very ancient."
She folded the poster in half twice and stashed it inside a secret compartment in the brazier wall.
"That makes two of us."
He stood next to her, watching the flames engulf the final bit of cloth. The acrid, sorrowful smell of silk burning filled the air.
"I didn't know you were wanted," he said, neutrally.
"I didn't know I was still remembered."
She faced him. She looked at him with dark and intense eyes.
"I was young. The crimes were older than me. But they said blood remembers."
She extended her hand to him uncertainly. "And yours is remembering too, isn't it?"
Lysander didn't react immediately. He only opened his palm.
The faint golden thread—precisely the same one that had quivered in the alley—appeared. Just a thread. Just a whisper. But it pulsed in the form of a crest: wings and a crescent. The same crest in mirror form was engraved into the jade Mira carried.
Seraphine exhaled shakily.
"It thought I was on my own."
"You're not," said Lysander. "Not anymore."
They stood in silence. On the other side of the brazier, darkness shadowed across the curving stone of the vault, its flashes slow and rhythmical—breathing. The cellar, old as it was, felt suddenly awake.
A breeze stirred, though there were no windows. The braziers flared.
Then a deep rumble shook the floor.
Not from above.
From beneath
They both stopped.
The inner wall of the vault—namely, the part Lysander saw cracked in the alley—was also moving. The stones creaked against one another. Dust rained down through grooved joints. Slowly, hesitantly, a rounded seam came undone in its centre.
Behind it lay a narrow passage.
No torches. No light.
But their walls were also faintly gleaming with etchings—familiar, to both of them.
Ancient script. Not celestial. Not human.
Demonfolk. Royal tongue.
Lysander stepped closer. A glyph pulsed when he got near.
He placed his hand upon it.
And the corridor came alive.
Soft blue luminescence ran through the carvings to trace out pathways of old power. A chill crept in and weighed down the air. The temperature dropped, and the air thickened, not with dust—but memory. Power. Oaths. The ground itself seemed to exhale a sigh long held.
Seraphine's breath caught. "The seals are responding to you."
"No," Lysander murmured. "They're recognizing me."
He moved forward, slowly. The magic didn't resist him. It welcomed him. The glyphs glowed warmer the closer he drew.
Behind them, Mira stirred on the bedroll. She sat up slowly, her small face pale in the brazier's light. She blinked toward the open door, her eyes dilated.
"I saw this place," she whispered. "In dreams. A door made of memories. The voice said it opens for the broken."
Seraphine blinked. "That's what the Oracle said once. The Door of Reckoning."
Mira stood, wobbling slightly. She still clutched the jade shard in her hand.
"The dream didn't end when I woke up," she said softly. "It waited. Until now."
She reached out, letting her fingertips touch the edge of the stone doorway. A pale ripple moved across its surface, resonating with her contact. Somewhere deeper within, a slow metallic chime sounded, as if the structure itself acknowledged her.
"Even the lost can unlock it," Mira murmured. "Because loss leaves a key."
Lysander turned back toward the passage.
Far above, faint but growing louder, came footsteps. Boots. More than one set. He could feel the tremor echoing down the stairwell.
"Too soon," he muttered. "We haven't even seen what they're after."
Seraphine grabbed a long, curved dagger from the rack near the vault door. The runes along its edge flickered as she stepped into the light.
"Then we see it now."
Mira took a shaky breath, then stepped between them.
"I'm coming too."
Lysander hesitated, then nodded. "Stay close."
Together, the three stepped into the ancient corridor. The air inside was colder than death, but filled with the scent of old magic. A scent like petrichor and ash.
The walls curved, etched with scenes in relief—battlefields, shattered thrones, beasts long since forgotten. As they moved deeper, the images became more abstract: symbols folding into one another, crests melting into bloodlines, script whispering along the walls like smoke.
At intervals, the tunnel branched. One path was sealed in roots turned to stone. Another had collapsed under the weight of time. The third twisted downward, marked by two stone lions whose mouths were sewn shut.
They followed the slope down.
The glyphs glowed brighter, pulsing in rhythm with their footfalls.
The further they went, the more the world behind them faded—until there was only the silence, the hum of ancient power, and the sound of their breathing in unison.
And the vault wall behind them slowly sealed shut, stone locking stone with finality.
And silence returned.