The morning sun struggled to reach Nightspire. Its beams landed broken across the frost-touched windows, painting everything in silver-blue. Elira sat at the long-forgotten breakfast table, its wood veined with cracks, a single candlestick flickering beside her tea.
Lucien had left at dawn—again.
He didn't say goodbye.
But this time, it didn't ache.
He had kissed her forehead in sleep. He had tucked the notebook beside her pillow.
She knew he would return.
Yet, the silence around her was no longer empty. It was pregnant with waiting.
Outside, the frost crunched under her boots. The world had tilted. The manor had shifted. Things no longer whispered—but watched.
She walked the perimeter of the east wing garden, where frost-covered roses stood like ghosts. There was a statue buried deep in ivy she hadn't noticed before.
A woman with wings—not angelic, but torn. A blindfold over her eyes. A sword buried point-down in her own chest.
At the base: "Judicae Dormit"
Elira traced the inscription. "Judgment sleeps," she whispered.
The wind sighed.
Then the ground trembled.
It wasn't an earthquake.
It was pulse.
From beneath.
Like a heartbeat waking under the stone.
Elira stumbled back. Her vision darkened—not from fainting, but from a memory not hers.
She saw—
A throne room of shadows. A woman standing barefoot in a pool of blood. A circle of nobles screaming her name in rage.
And the sword. That same sword.
In her own hand.
She gasped and fell to her knees, gripping her head as the vision vanished.
Back inside, she climbed to the northern wing—the attic no one dared enter.
She'd never been up here.
But the thread was tugging again.
Each step moaned under her feet.
The door creaked open.
Dust. Sheets over furniture. Old portraits.
And a mirror.
Not cracked. Not broken.
Whole.
It reflected her.
But behind her stood the woman from her vision.
Wings torn.
Sword in chest.
Eyes uncovered—and blazing.
She turned.
But the room was empty.
Except for a single line scratched into the floor:
"If you wish to survive the bloodline, you must finish what Lioren began."
Elira's breath caught.
Her past lives weren't just pain.
They were incomplete.
...............
Next: Elira descends into the sealed hall of judgment—and finds not just echoes of herself… but someone who has been waiting for her return.
..............
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