I knew the day was going to be absolute crap the moment my egg hissed at me.
Not sizzled,not popped. Hissed,like a snake with unresolved trauma.
"Great," I muttered, poking at the egg with my fork like it might lunge for my face. "Another cursed breakfast."
The yolk blinked at me.
Yep. Definitely cursed.
I sighed, got up from my rickety chair, and grabbed the iron tongs I kept near the fireplace specifically for mornings like this. The egg hissed again, this time in a language I didn't recognize, which was always a good sign I needed to stop eating at Morty's Tavern.
I tossed the possessed breakfast out the window and wiped my hands on my cloak, which was already stained with three different shades of magical regret.
"ELORA!"
That was my landlady, Mrs. Thatch, screaming from downstairs. Probably because she found another goblin in the plumbing. Again.
"What now?" I shouted back, grabbing my satchel of curse-cleaning tools. I didn't have time for a landlord breakdown. I had three appointments, two unpaid invoices, and one rapidly approaching existential crisis.
But downstairs wasn't what I expected.
It was worse.
Mrs. Thatch stood in the middle of the hallway, clutching her cat, Pickles, who had grown a second head and was singing sea shanties in bass harmony.
I stared at the double-headed feline in horror. "Why is it always me?"
"Because you live here!" she snapped. "Now fix him! I pay you rent and let you curse-scrub the bathtub!"
"Fine," I grumbled, already reaching for my salt pouch and a sprig of dry irony root. "Hold him still."
Pickles glared at me with all four eyes, tails lashing. "♪ Fifteen men on a dead man's chest yo-ho-ho and a bottle of fur! ♪"
I've dealt with possessed cows, a haunted toilet, and one very dramatic garden gnome, but a sea-shanty-singing double-cat was a new low.
I sprinkled the salt and muttered, "By ash and bone, by sneeze and moan, I send this curse back to its home."
Nothing happened.
Pickles licked his second head and started singing a ballad about krakens.
I tried again, louder, and this time with a slap to the cat's left ear for good measure.
Poof.
Both heads merged into one. Pickles barfed up a starfish and looked at me like I was the problem.
Mrs. Thatch didn't thank me. She never did. She just handed me a moldy slice of banana bread and muttered, "Don't forget your appointment in the Rotten Quarter. The plague wizard's wife called again. She said your last spell made her husband bald in new places."
"I told her, side effects vary depending on beard length," I snapped. "Not my fault he's 90% hair."
The Rotten Quarter smelled like expired soup and broken promises.
I arrived right on time (late), naturally and the wizard's wife, Drella, was already waiting with her arms crossed and her eyebrows threatening to launch into orbit.
"You said you'd reverse the damage," she barked, dragging me into their cluttered tower.
The wizard sat in the corner, wrapped in a floral robe, looking like a peeled ferret. "I've never been so… smooth," he whispered, stroking his bald elbow.
"Look, I'll fix it," I said, digging in my satchel for the right ingredients. "Just give me—"
BOOM.
The tower shook. Dust rained from the ceiling. And somewhere below, something roared.
"Oh no," Drella breathed. "It's happening again."
"What is?" I asked, already backing toward the door.
"The vaults." Her face had gone pale. "They're opening again."
I froze.
No one had mentioned the vaults in years,not since the last time someone opened one and accidentally unleashed a plague of sentient onions. The kingdom hadn't recovered. We still had posters warning people to boil their stew vegetables alive.
"You don't think—" I started.
"Yes," she said grimly. "It's coming from under Grimevale Castle."
I swallowed. "You mean my—uh, the old royal vaults?"
She squinted. "Did you just say 'my'?"
"Nope. Definitely not. You're hearing things."
But the truth itched at my spine like a poorly applied hex. I had some kind of link to the vaults. Ever since I was a kid, I'd dreamt of them—whispers through iron walls, keys made of bone, names I never said out loud.
Something was calling me.
And I hated that I wanted to answer.
By dusk, I was back in my attic room, staring at the map I swore I'd never use again.
It was old. Burned on one corner. Written in a language that mostly resembled gibberish unless you happened to be a blood descendant of the cursed Grimevale line.
Guess who that unlucky idiot was?
I traced a route through the tunnels beneath the castle. They'd been sealed after the last Vault Disaster. Only someone with royal blood or enough magical stupidity could open them again.
I had both.
Lucky me.
Outside, thunder cracked. Perfect.
I closed the map, stuffed it in my coat, and picked up my dagger. If the vaults were opening, if the curse was stirring again…
…I was going to need more than salt and sarcasm this time.
By nightfall, the streets of Grimevale turned mean.
Not just "lock your doors" mean, but "your shadow might mug you" mean. I kept one hand on my dagger and the other on a pouch of garlic dust standard issue for anyone who didn't want to be abducted by sewer witches or enchanted raccoons.
I crept through the back alleys, dodging puddles of glowing sludge and the occasional beggar whispering riddles that may or may not have been time-sensitive prophecies.
The castle ruins loomed ahead like a dead god's skeleton.
Broken towers,shattered stained glass. A courtyard overtaken by angry mushrooms. Nobody went near the place except the desperate, the cursed, or the royally stupid.
And I qualified as all three.
My boots crunched over gravel as I approached the secret entrance: a crumbled garden wall, covered in thorny vines that hummed when you touched them. I sliced through them with a muttered apology. They moaned like disappointed relatives.
Behind the wall was a stairwell. Jagged,narrow,cold as a lich's handshake.
"Here goes everything," I muttered.
I stepped down into the dark.
The tunnels were worse than I remembered.
The air was thick with old magic, the kind that smells like wet books and betrayal. My fingers tingled. My chest tightened. I could hear the vaults whispering already calling me by the name I hadn't heard since I was ten.
"Eloria…"
Nope. Not today, creepy voices.
I lit a charm-stone and pressed on, deeper and deeper, until the walls opened into a circular chamber. Dead center: a vault door as tall as a barn, etched in runes that shifted when I blinked.
It was humming.
No—not just humming.
Thudding.
BOOM!
BOOM!!
Something was on the other side.
Trying to get out.
I reached for the bone key around my neck. I didn't remember where I got it, only that it had always been mine. Always waiting.
"Eloria Vane," a voice called behind me.
I spun.
A tall figure stood at the tunnel's mouth, cloaked in shadows,sword on hip,boots too clean for someone from Grimevale. His face was half hidden, but I saw the smirk first.
"Not many people survive the Vault's call," he said. "Let alone answer it willingly."
I raised my dagger. "You following me?"
"Not exactly." He stepped forward, the charm-light catching his eyes—storm-gray, infuriatingly calm. "I'm here to stop you from opening that vault."
"Cute. What are you? Some secret royal guard?"
He didn't smile. "Something like that."
"Well, unless you've got a better plan, I'm going in."
"No, you're not."
"Oh really?"
"I'm not letting you die tonight," he said, stepping between me and the door.
And for one breathless second, something in me stalled. Like my magic, like my heartbeat. Like the cursed vault was listening to him too.
"I don't even know your name," I said quietly.
He looked me straight in the eye.
"Call me Kael."
Before I could make a sarcastic remark, the vault screamed.
That's the only word for it. A howl of steel, magic, and something very, very old. My charmstone shattered in my hand. Kael shoved me behind him, sword out.
The door buckled inward, groaning.
"No," I whispered. "It's too soon—it's not supposed to awaken yet—"
A hand burst through the cracks.
But it wasn't human.
It was bone and shadow and dripping black fire.
Kael pulled me to my feet, his face hard. "We have to run. Now."
I didn't argue.
The chamber shook as we bolted into the dark, the vault tearing itself open behind us.
And just before the tunnel collapsed—
—I heard it again.
"Eloria… come home."