The dust hadn't even settled from the broken mirror below the manor, yet Elira couldn't sleep.
She sat by the window in the east wing—one of the few places untouched by the curse's echoes. Moonlight bathed the stone floors, and the wind hummed low, like a lullaby she had once known but never learned.
Lucien hadn't returned since the town registry ceremony. No word. No note.
Just absence.
And it gnawed at her.
She finally rose from the window seat and lit a single candle. Her footsteps were soft on the old floors, but she didn't try to be quiet.
Let the house hear her now. She wasn't hiding anymore.
Something shimmered faintly under the stairs as she passed. Not light—memory.
A shimmer like laughter. The whisper of a child.
She paused, knelt, and pressed her palm to the floor.
A cold chill crawled into her skin, and the boards creaked.
"There's another one."
The voice wasn't hers. Nor the Watcher's.
She pushed harder—and the floor dipped open.
Beneath it was a crawlspace. No air. No sound. Only the scent of burnt wax and buried ink.
She crawled in.
And there she found it:
A child's notebook.
Bound in blue velvet. Sealed with red string.
It had her handwriting.
But not her words.
She opened the first page.
"I saw him again today. The boy with moonlight in his eyes. I think I was meant to love him. But I don't know how to love and still survive."
Elira's breath caught.
These were her thoughts—but from another life. A life when she was young and scared. Before she became Seraphina. Before she was anyone else at all.
And the boy…
It had to be Lucien.
The pages told the story of a version of herself who had lived in the manor when it was new.
A girl named Lioren, raised in the shadows of power.
Loved a stable boy. Betrayed by her own blood. Buried under the weight of others' sins.
This was the origin. Not the curse.
But the choice that led to it.
She closed the notebook, pressed it to her chest, and wept.
Because she finally understood:
The house didn't begin cursed.
It was cursed the moment she chose silence over love.
Behind her, the boards creaked.
Lucien stood in the entryway, a leaf in his hair, shirt half-unbuttoned from travel.
His eyes found hers—and then the notebook.
"You found her," he said softly.
She nodded. "I found…me."
He stepped inside slowly, as if afraid she would vanish.
"Why didn't you tell me you were leaving for so long?" she whispered.
He hesitated. "Because I was afraid. That if I stayed, I'd tell you everything I'm not supposed to."
She stood up. "Then say it now."
Lucien swallowed. His voice trembled.
"I remember you, Elira. Not just this you. All of you."
She froze.
"What?"
He took another step.
"I don't know how, or when it started. But the closer I got to you, the more the other lives came back. Like dreams I didn't know were real. In every one of them, I—"
He didn't finish.
She walked to him.
Close enough to touch.
And he let her.
She rested her hand on his cheek.
"In every one of them," she whispered, "you loved me."
Lucien closed his eyes.
"Yes."
She leaned in, her forehead touching his.
"And in every one of them, I broke us."
He shook his head. "Not this time."
Their lips met.
Soft.
Slow.
No fire.
Just light.
And when they parted, the house sighed like it had held its breath for a thousand years.
They sat together on the stairs, Elira's head on his shoulder.
Lucien opened the notebook, reading her younger self's words aloud.
He didn't laugh.
He didn't correct them.
He just listened.
Because that's what she had needed all along.
Not a prince.
Not a spell.
Just someone who would listen until she remembered who she was.
And who she wanted to be.
..................
🔥 The house is at peace. But far below its roots, something ancient stirs again—drawn not to the broken, but to the whole. And this time, it remembers her too…
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