Chapter twenty eight:The room of quiet whispers
The fire in the dining hall had long since dimmed to embers. Silence stretched thickly in the corridors of Thorne Manor, broken only by the occasional distant creak of timber—like the bones of the house settling in the night.
Elira sat at the edge of her bed, fingers curling into the velvet coverlet. Mirelle had helped her change into a silken nightgown earlier, the fabric cool against her skin. But sleep would not come.
Her thoughts spun too wildly.
Lucien's words haunted her like trailing shadows:
"Some want you executed quietly now, before you awaken anything."
"They still think you're the key to something ancient."
But what plan? What awakening?
She pressed a hand to the collar at her neck. The sigil engraved into its center throbbed faintly with a warmth that did not feel her own.
Her gaze drifted to the mirror across the room—the same mirror where she had once seen Calen. And herself. But not herself.
She rose slowly, bare feet pressing to the chilled stone floor, and approached it. The moonlight from the window cast her reflection in silver and shadow. She stared at herself for a long moment.
Was it her face?
She tried to summon memories of her childhood, of her parents, of laughter. All that came was a long corridor of smoke and fog… and Calen's voice, tugging her forward.
"You'll be safe, Elira. I promise."
Her fingers reached for the edge of the vanity, gripping it. She wanted to believe that. But there were holes inside her—hollows where things should have been.
She exhaled sharply and turned away.
Something tugged at her. A weight in the air. A pull—like thread unwinding through her ribs.
She opened her door.
The hallway was deserted, lit only by wall sconces guttering in the dark. She moved barefoot, her nightgown trailing behind her, the manor unusually still. No servant stirred. No whispering wind passed through the walls.
Only that pull—as though something deeper in the house had remembered her name.
She descended the staircase, step by careful step. The air grew cooler, damper. Familiar.
Her path curved left, then right, past the locked door of the east wing. Then down, into the belly of the manor—past the wine cellars and the room with the scorched walls. Her pulse quickened.
The hallway ended in thick stone and iron.
The cellar.
She hesitated.
The last time she had wandered… she hadn't come back the same. And yet something beyond that door called to her like a forgotten name.
She reached out and pressed a hand against the cold handle.
Something waited beyond. Not answers—yet. But a piece. A fragment.
She opened the door.
The cellar swallowed her in darkness.
Elira stepped forward, the door closing with a soft click behind her. Stone walls pressed close, lined with aged barrels and iron racks long emptied. The air was damp and tinged with the metallic scent of rust—or old blood.
She had been here once before, dragged half-conscious under Lucien's arm. But now, with her senses alert and the collar pulsing faintly at her throat, she noticed details she hadn't before.
The brickwork had faint sigils carved in it. Old. Faded. Protective or binding—she couldn't tell. A faint hum tickled her bones the deeper she went.
At the far end, a wrought-iron gate stood ajar.
Elira hesitated only briefly before slipping through.
The space beyond was colder, almost glacial. She wrapped her arms around herself as her eyes adjusted.
There were shelves here, rows of them—stacked with crates, covered with dustcloths. A long-forgotten storeroom. One corner was cluttered with broken furniture and discarded objects, the remnants of another time.
Something gleamed beneath one of the cloths.
Drawn by instinct, she knelt and pulled it aside.
A broken mirror lay beneath—a hand mirror, its ornate silver handle curled like thorns. The glass was cracked but not shattered.
For a moment, her reflection fractured into a dozen pieces.
And then—not her reflection.
A face emerged in the glass.
A boy.
Dark hair tousled, a familiar tilt to his smile. Pale eyes. Her breath hitched. She leaned closer—
"Calen...?"
But the image shimmered and dissolved like mist in sunlight.
Elira recoiled, dropping the mirror. It clattered against the stone and skidded into the shadows.
Her heart thundered.
"No, no, I saw—" She turned in a circle, voice breathless. "That was him."
Something clinked underfoot.
She looked down.
Among the dust and splinters at her feet was a small silver chain, tangled around a half-buried object. She knelt, brushing the grime away carefully.
It was a locket.
Oval, tarnished, its clasp rusted shut. But the design on its surface stopped her breath.
Her family crest.
She knew it—not because she remembered, but because it was branded into her bones.
With shaking fingers, she forced the locket open.
Inside was a tiny portrait—faded but unmistakable.
Calen. And… herself.
She was younger, perhaps ten. Smiling. Bright-eyed.
Her breath hitched.
A thousand questions pressed in on her—Why was this here? Who brought it? Had Calen been down here?
Was he still here?
Her knees weakened, and she sat back, the locket cradled in her palm like a heartbeat.
He was real. He had been here.
The darkness seemed to settle more gently around her now.
But just as quickly, a sharp chill shot through her spine—someone was watching her.
She spun, eyes searching the shadows.
Nothing.
Yet the weight of that unseen presence remained, pressing like a hand at her back.
She backed toward the door slowly, clutching the locket tight in her fist.
The mirror, the locket, Calen's face… none of it was coincidence.
"You're trying to reach me," she whispered. "Aren't you?"
Silence.
Then, somewhere in the gloom—a whisper.
It was too faint to catch, too fragmented to form words.
But it was enough.
She ran.
Up the steps, through the corridor, past the sigiled stones. Her breath rasped in her lungs as she burst back into the main halls of the manor, heart pounding.
She didn't stop until she slammed the door to her room shut behind her and leaned against it, trembling.
Still clutching the locket.