House of Ash and Gold

Chapter 4: The Letter's Seal

The hall was dark and quiet when Cael slipped back down the stairs.

Dinner had ended hours ago. The last of the servants had finally doused the candles and retired to the back quarters. Only the faint hush of wind through the windows kept him company.

He moved bare feet, soundless on the flagstones. The locket beneath his tunic felt hot tonight. The whispers were quiet, but the pressure in his chest hadn't faded since supper.

Something about the way Edric had spoken to the merchant, the Guild, and the unnamed "debt" made his thoughts itch. As if there was a piece of story he found interesting but didn't have the right to understand, but which everyone expected him to carry one day.

The curses whispered about his mother's name kept echoing in his mind too.

Ashveil blood brings nothing but curses…

And yet, that same blood was his.

It brought him here now to the forbidden room at the back of the Varissen keep.

Matilde had once called it Liora's room. That had been enough to make it off-limits. Jorlan and even Edric avoided it, claiming it was "just storage" after she died. But Cael knew better. He had seen the way Matilde locked it herself some nights and muttered prayers outside the door.

Now he stood before it, his fingers resting on the iron latch.

The door opened with a groan loud enough to make him flinch.

Inside, the air inside was thick and stale, dust drifting in the slanting moonlight from the high window.. A narrow bed was in the corner, draped in a faded blue coverlet. The shelves along the wall sagged with stacks of folded linens, a few wooden boxes, and an old chest carved with curling vinework.

The whispers stirred faintly when he crossed the threshold, more presence than sound, like someone breathing down his neck.

He closed the door behind him and stood still for a long moment, waiting to see if the sensation passed.

It didn't.

His hand went instinctively to the locket. The steel felt almost… eager tonight, its etched runes faintly warm under his fingers.

He crossed the room to the chest.

It was heavier than he expected. The iron lock had long since rusted through, so it only took a firm pull to open the lid.

Inside lay a strange assortment of things: a dark green shawl folded carefully atop a layer of yellowed papers, a pair of delicate gloves, a bundle of dried lavender that crumbled when he brushed it. And at the very bottom, a smaller box, black lacquer, banded with gold, and stamped with a seal he didn't recognize at first.

He set the box on his knees and traced the seal.

It was a bird, a hawk mid-dive, wings outstretched surrounded by thorns.

Then he froze.

Because he did recognize it.

It was etched on the back of his locket too.

The Ashveil sigil.

"Cursed but coveted," Matilde's words came back to him now.

He ran his thumb over the wax seal. Whoever had closed the box had pressed the emblem into deep crimson wax.

He glanced back toward the door. The house was silent.

His breath quickened as he slid a nail beneath the seal, intending to crack it.

The moment his skin touched it, the wax flared, not warm, but truly hot, burning like a brand.

He hissed and yanked his hand back.

A thin wisp of smoke curled from his finger. The skin where he'd touched the seal was red already.

The box lay in his lap, looking entirely ordinary again.

He stared at it, his heart hammering.

What was in it that it needed… that kind of protection?

For a moment, he wondered if it would even open for him at all.

But the locket around his neck grew hotter, pressing into his chest. He lifted it free, staring at the matching sigil there, the same hawk, the same thorns.

"...not yet…"

The whisper came then, faint, curling from the stones beneath him.

He jerked his head up, eyes darting toward the walls.

No one.

He tried the seal again, this time with the locket held tightly in his other hand.

The second his finger brushed the wax, it seared him again but this time, faint gold light flared briefly across the seal, then faded.

Still it didn't break.

He set the box gently on the floor and cradled his burned finger.

The whisper hadn't returned this time.

He wrapped the box back in the shawl and slid it deep into the chest again.

For now, it seems better to leave it untouched.

He stood and closed the chest, then quietly returned everything else to its place.

The whispers followed him out, soft and indistinct, no words now just a low hum settling in his mind.

He didn't realize Matilde was waiting for him in the hall until he nearly walked into her, arms were crossed over her chest.

"Was it worth it?" she asked flatly.

He froze.

"You knew I would," he said finally.

"I told you never to open that room."

"You locked it yourself every night. What did you think would happen?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You found it, didn't you."

Cael swallowed but didn't answer.

Matilde stepped closer and reached out, catching his burned hand in hers. She turned it palm-up, studying the welt.

She let out a low, humorless laugh.

"Well," she murmured, "if there was ever any doubt, I suppose that settles it."

"What do you mean?"

"You're hers. All the way through. Ashveil blood runs hotter than most, boy. It always has."

"Why does it burn me? If it's mine?"

Matilde's lips tightened. "Because Ashveil things aren't meant for this world anymore. Not really."

He stared at her. "You know what it is."

She hesitated. Then: "I know enough to stay away from it and so should you."

"That box has my name on it."

"That box," she cut in sharply, "bears a curse older than anything you can imagine. That seal has kept worse things out of this house than you've seen in your short life. Leave it there."

Cael looked down at his burned fingers, flexing them slightly.

"The sigil… it's the same as this," he said, touching the locket.

"I know."

"It matches. Doesn't that mean?"

"It means nothing good."

She took a step back and shook her head.

"The Ashveil line," she muttered, almost to herself, "cursed and coveted... always one or the other. That woman…" she trailed off, then fixed him with a steely gaze.

"Listen to me, boy. Whatever she left you in that room, it isn't meant to help you. It's meant to use you. Do you understand?"

Cael swallowed hard but didn't nod.

Matilde stared at him a moment longer, then turned on her heel and stalked down the corridor.

He watched her go, his pulse still thrumming in his ears.

Later, alone in his room, he sat on the edge of the bed, turning the locket over and over in his fingers.

The sigil stared back at him, cold and inscrutable.

He thought of the box's seal, of the way it had burned and glowed under his touch.

Of the whisper that came just before:

"...not yet…"

And for the first time, Cael wondered what secrets his mother kept. Why she left him something so dangerous that even Matilde warned him against it.