Chapter 6- The House of Echoes
1348 Words
Magnus
Magnus entered the Vale estate with thunder clinging to his coat and fury shadowing his spine.
The staff sensed it instantly- his stride was sharp, the click of his cane was louder than usual, echoing through the marble floors like a war drum.
In the atrium, Delyra Vale looked up from the firelight. Her book remained open on her lap, but her attention had long drifted from its pages.
"You went to him," she said softly. "You didn't wait."
Magnus didn't slow.
"He ignored the council," he snapped. "And he paraded her through the streets like she was already chosen."
"Because maybe he has."
Delyra's voice was always elegant, measured. But tonight, there was steel threaded through the silk.
Magnus stopped near the staircase, his shoulders rising with the breath he didn't want to release.
"You remember what happened the last time a Vale broke tradition."
"I also remember what happened the last time Adrien refused to betray himself."
Magnus turned sharply.
"Lucien is no Adrien."
"No," she said. "He's the echo that's ready to finish what Adrien began."
A tense silence bloomed.
Then Magnus moved- swift, decisive. Past the grand hallway, down the passage lined with carved bloodline masks. He didn't stop until he reached the gate that led to the sanctum beneath the council chamber.
His hand hovered above the sigil lock.
If Lucien wouldn't listen, the council would ensure he had no choice.
Behind him, Delyra stood at the top of the stairs, watching his descent.
She didn't follow.
But she whispered beneath her breath, a phrase that Lucien used as a boy when standing in a field of silver- blooming moss:
"Even fate rewrites itself....if you push hard enough."
The sanctum beneath the estate was colder than the season.
Torches flickered in iron sconces, casting long shadows across stone floor etched with sigils-
symbols of binding, bloodline oath, and ancient allegiance. Magnus stepped inside, cane ringing sharp against marble with each stride.
The council was waiting.
Five figures, hooded and seated behind the crescent- shaped table carved from blackwood. Their faces mostly obscured, but Magnus knew them all- by voice, by posture, by scent.
The center spoke first.
"You were summoned to bring the heir. You arrive without him."
Magnus didn't flinch.
"The heir has.... wandered."
A low hum of disapproval rumbled through the chamber.
"His bond to the Hart girl is not sanctioned," said another. "The bloom has been seen. The visions confirm. They walk the echo again."
Magnus stepped closer, hands clasped behind his back.
"I tried to intervene. He would not bend."
Silence. Then-
"Then you bend him."
Magnus's jaw locked.
He had bent Lucien once- after the accident with the wolf, after the failed union rite. But this time it felt different. His son just didn't defy tradition.
He reached for it. Held it. Called it his own.
Magnus looked at the sigil etched in the floor where Adrien Vale stood once generations ago, making the vow that Lucien now echoed.
The blood keeps looping.
He exhaled slowly.
"Lucien has remembered. Fully."
"Then we erase it. Again."
Magnus's eyes flashed.
"He is stronger than Adrien. And the girl- she is not passive."
The council leaned forward, cloaks brushing the stone.
"Then the bond must be broken before the bloom turns to root."
Magnus hesitated.
He had always served the line. The law. The silence.
But this curse had returned more vibrant than ever. And Lucien....Lucien wasn't just repeating history.
He was rewriting it.
Magnus straightened.
"Give me time. I'll make him choose differently."
The center figure nodded once.
"But if he doesn't....we choose for him."
**************************************************
Lucien
Lucien knew before sunrise that something had shifted.
He hadn't dreamt- no forest, no silver mist. Just silence. And that was worse. The kind of hush that sets in your bones before a storm breaks.
His wolf was pacing. Not restless. Protective. Alert.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror- eyes tired, shoulders tense. The leather band sat on the counter like a challenge.
The council knows.
He felt it. The subtle change in the air near the estate. The way birds hesitated to sing. And the memory of Magnus's expression at Mira's gate- controlled fury wrapped in old grief.
Lucien pulled on his coat and texted Mira.
"Something's coming. Don't leave your greenhouse today."
Her reply came fast.
"Already felt it."
His jaw locked.
Magnus wouldn't wait long. He'd press. He'd punish.
And the council....they'd would tear through memory, blood, and bloom to reset the cycle.
Lucien looked at the sigil carved into his ring- family crest forged generations ago, passed to him as a promise.
He slipped it off and set it on the windowsill.
This time, the legacy doesn't choose for me.
**************************************************
Mira
The greenhouse was restless.
Mira knew the signs- vines refused to settle, moss dimming just slightly as if bracing for a blow. Even the lunar bloom has dulled from silver to pewtar, it's glow pulsing unevenly.
She traced her finger along the stem, listening.
"What are you trying to tell me?"
The plants didn't speak- but they remembered. That's what her grandmother always said. Flora stored emotion like sediment. And tonight, they buzzed with warning.
Lucien's message still sat open on her phone.
"Something's coming. Don't leave your greenhouse today."
He wasn't being dramatic. She felt it too.
She moved to her workbench and opened the journal again- Caela Hart's final entries. The sketch of the altar. The scribbled margins. A new phrase caught her eyes, one she hadn't noticed before:
"If the bloom is darken, the bond is targeted."
Mira inhaled sharply.
The petals were darkening.
Before she could finish the translation, the greenhouse trembled- not violently. Subtly. Like energy brushing it's way through her sanctuary, sizing up what she loved.
She turned towards the eastern wall. The vines curled inward, like shielding something. Or someone.
Her hand drifted to her pocket, where Lucien's leather band rested.
A warmth spread through her palm, Protective. Ancient.
"You found me," she whispered. "I'm not giving you up now."
She didn't know who she was speaking to- him, or the bond they'd resurrected.
But the greenhouse settled for a moment
And so did she.
A few hours later, Mira was still going over notes that had written down over at her workbench. She noted what Caela had written in the margins of the journal that was still resting next to her, still opened at where she left. She took note of the energy of the greenhouse.
The greenhouse had never been quite like this.
Not hushed. Hollow.
Every leaf felt suspended mid- breath, every bloom half- closed as if waiting for permission to speak. Mira paced between the tables, her boots thudding against the concrete floor with heaviness that wasn't hers alone.
Lucien's message had stirred her instincts. But the plants-they'd felt it first.
She crouched down beside the silver bloom, now dull at the edges. It's glow- once steady- now flickered like a low battery. She pressed two fingers to the soil and whispered the words Caela had once recorded in the journal.
"We are remembered. Let us remain."
The soil warmed faintly.
She exhaled. She was not alone.
Not in fate. Not in fear.
**************************************************
Magnus
Magnus stepped into the council's lower chamber once again, robes freshly pressed and resentment coiled beneath his skin. He'd met with them only hours ago- but Lucien's silence had unraveled. If anything, it had thickened.
The council awaited in silence, blackwood chairs like thrones carved from judgement.
"He walks with her still," Magnus admitted. "And the bloom continues."
One of the elders leaned forward, voice brittle.
"Then the girl must bend. Or be erased."
Magnus flinched-an involuntary crack in the veneer. Delyra's words still haunted him. He's not repeating the past. He's finishing it.
Another council member tapped a ring against the tabletop, summoning a scroll.
"You know the ritual."
Magnus's gaze darkened.
"He won't accept it."
"Then you return it with his blood. Or hers."
The chambers dimmed.
And Magnus bowed- not to honor, but to delay.
- Writer
