“You think you still have a choice?” she said.

But I was already shaking my head. “No. You think you’re the only one strong enough to carry this burden. You think you’re sparing me by showing me horror and calling it tradition.”

She said nothing.

I stepped forward. “What if I don’t want to be its keeper? What if I refuse?”

My mother’s eyes hardened like frost seizing over glass. “Then you will have chosen cowardice. And cowardice in our line means bloodshed for everyone else. You think you’re noble for resisting? You’re just naive.”

“No,” I snapped. “I’m human. Something you and this house seem to have forgotten.”

She walked past me, slow and deliberate, toward the candelabra on the wall. “This house has stood for centuries, Cynthia. Through famine. War. Betrayal. And do you know how?” She turned, her face illuminated from below, casting long shadows up her cheekbones. “Because we made hard choices. Because someone always kept the pact. That’s why the people kneel. Not from ignorance—but from gratitude.”

“Gratitude?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Gratitude for being bled dry, one name at a time? For being pawns in some ancient bargain none of them agreed to?”

Her nostrils flared slightly. “You are a child grasping at morality like it’s a shield. One day, it will break in your hands. And when it does, you’ll wish you had listened.”

“And maybe,” I said, my voice low and trembling, “if this is what it takes to keep this duchy afloat… maybe it deserves to fall to ruin.”

The silence that followed fell between us like a boulder. Somehow it felt like the house itself was holding its breath from the tension.

My mother didn’t move. Her lips parted as if to speak, but I didn’t wait. I turned on my heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind me so hard the sconces shivered.

The hallway felt colder now. Or maybe it was me.

I didn’t stop walking until I reached the staircase again. The sound of laughter and distant music bled through the stone like an echo from another world. I descended two steps at a time, the hem of my gown trailing behind me like smoke. When I finally reached the edge of the ballroom, the light hit me like a wall. Too bright. Too cheerful. Too false.

A few heads turned.

I paused near the crowd's edge, letting the swirl of silk and perfume wash over me.

“Ah, the prodigal heir returns,” came Cedric Tenebris’s voice, lazy and amused.

I turned to see him leaning against a pillar, a wine glass in hand. Veronica Ante-Nox stood nearby, arms folded, brows arched in her signature disapproval. Iris Caligandus flanked her, eyes glittering like twin obsidian blades.

Veronica gave me a once-over. “Judging by your expression, that didn’t go particularly well.”

Cedric grinned. “What did she do—offer you the family blade or just have you stare into the Void and wave?”

Iris tilted her head. “Or maybe she reminded you that legacy doesn’t care about your feelings.”

I felt raw. Splintered. But I wasn’t about to fold.

“She told me what was expected,” I said flatly. “And I told her maybe the duchy deserves to die.”

The silence that followed hit harder than I expected.

Even Cedric’s smirk faltered.

Veronica blinked. “You… what?”

I shrugged, or tried to. “If survival means becoming a monster, maybe the duchy should crumble.”

Iris’s voice lost its edge, just slightly. “Careful, Cynthia. That kind of talk has a price.”

“I’ve already paid it,” I said, and for a moment, none of them had a reply.

Somewhere behind us, the orchestra shifted into a slower, more mournful refrain. I turned back to the party, but I didn’t join them. Not yet.

Let them dance. Let them pretend.

I would find the truth in the shadows instead.

The festival’s music slowed, softening to a hush like candlelight nearing its end. Guests began peeling away from the ballroom in glistening waves, their voices quieter now, dulled by wine and wonder and the weight of the evening.

I lingered near the staircase, letting the velvet murmur of nobles drift around me. The scent of spiced wine and damp stone filled the air—faintly metallic, like rain had already begun falling somewhere far away.

That’s when I saw her.

Mittens.

The cat emerged from the far end of the hall, near the servants’ corridor, tail low and movements cautious. She paused, glancing over her shoulder toward something I couldn’t see, before trotting up to me with surprising urgency. Her sleek black fur looked dusted with cobwebs, and her crystalline blue eyes were wide and unblinking.

“Mittens?” I whispered, kneeling.

She pressed against my legs, warm and soft, a strange comfort. I let my hand trail across her back.

That was when the sky opened.

A sudden roar crashed through the mansion like thunder in a cathedral. The storm outside erupted so violently that the very air inside the house shuddered. I could hear the rain hammering the roof, echoing through the ancient bones of the Mansion as if the house itself had caught its breath.

Mittens stiffened.

I looked up, startled, and saw it: down the hallway she’d come from, the door. The locked room—the one that randomly opened and shut on its own. The one that sent me to that alternate reality, or wherever that was. 

It was open again.

A slow, creaking groan announced it, and from the corner of my eye, something moved. A streak of motion, blacker than shadow, slipped inside the room and disappeared.

Mittens bolted.

My heart lurched in my chest, but my feet moved before I could stop them. Curiosity bloomed into compulsion. I hurried after the shadow, drawn into the corridor like a thread being pulled.

The door stood half-ajar, as though inviting me in. I hesitated just once, then pushed it open.

The room was colder than I remembered, and emptier, too. Bare floor. Bare walls. But the motif was still there, etched deep into the wood, circles and points, and an unspoken geometry that felt like it watched me back.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it.

It wasn’t mist. It wasn’t smoke. It was shadow—dense and liquid, like ink ripped from the edge of a nightmare. It crawled up the wall, surged forward, and wrapped itself around the air.

The Umbrovultus.

I screamed, stumbling back—but it was faster. It struck like a serpent, coiling around my arms, my legs, tightening, smothering.

I couldn’t breathe.

My mind roared with panic as I clawed at the tendrils, but they passed through me like smoke and still managed to hold. My chest burned. The floor dropped from beneath me.

I don’t want to die like this.

Then, crack. Lightning split the sky.

A white flash tore through the room’s high windows, catching the motif on the floor and bathing the Umbrovultus in holy light for the briefest instant.

It recoiled.

It screamed, not with sound, but with a pressure that shook the bones in my skull, and vanished through the walls like fleeing night.

The silence that followed was absolute.

I stood frozen, shaking, until the dizziness took me. The edges of the world curled like paper in flame. The floor rushed up to meet me.

And then, darkness.