Marcella had always believed morning sun was gentler than moonlight. Less cruel. Less knowing.
But here in Ashenholt, morning bled silver. Not warmth, but warning.
Marcella sat before the vanity table as the maid braided her hair. Snow had dusted the courtyards overnight, as if the manor had exhaled its own frost in her sleep.
"You’ve been summoned," Lira conveyed the information to her. "Lady Elyria requests your presence in the East Courtyard for tea."
Not invited. Summoned???
Marcella’s hands stilled over the velvet sash of her morning gown. "Of course," she said, her voice a little too calm. "Tell her I’ll be there shortly."
The East courtyard was white with morning frost. A cold, manicured garden with evergreen hedges shaped like wolves and lilies that never blood. A single table of wrought iron waited under the eastern arch.
Two chairs. A steaming silver tea set. And Lady Elyria Montclair, already seated.
"Mother," Marcella greeted, dipping her head just enough.
Lady Elyria’s eyes slid up to et hers, "You’re punctual. A good habit for a duchess."
"I find punctuality is often the first language of power."
Elyria let a slight smile curl at the corner of her mouth. She gestured to the seat across from her, pouring two cups of steaming amber tea. Marcella took her place, folding her hands into her lap.
"I wanted a mont alone," Elyria sighed, breathing the air around her. "to speak as won, rather than as titles."
Marcella stirred her tea once. "Yes mother."
"You surprised last night," Elyria expressed, her eyes never leaving Marcella. "The capital has taught you... discipline."
"And survival."
"Mm." She lifted her cup. "You sleep well?" Elyria asked.
"Well enough."
"Good. The walls are thick. But they rember things."
Marcella sipped her tea without flinching. "What do they rember?"
"Loyalty. Betrayal. Footsteps that never returned." That was the warning, wrapped in courtesy, served with sugar and steam.
Then Elyria’s tone shifted, a colder kind of casual. "Tell , dear. Have you and Berith... consummated your marriage?"
Marcella blinked once. "We have." A smooth lie, one she had to believe to say aloud.
A flicker of sothing crossed Elyria’s face — approval? Disbelief? It passed too quickly to na. She stirred her tea once, then set the spoon down gently. "I asked only because of the Veiled Crown pact. You do know the terms, yes?"
"Yes, mother. I’m aware," Marcella said calmly. "We’ve honored the terms."
Elyria gave a slow nod, leaning back. "When I entered this house, it wasn’t by pact. A political marriage arranged after two wars, to settle the northern border with Dowraine. I was seventeen. I’d never t my husband before I arrived."
Marcella said nothing, letting her speak.
"I was beautiful then," Elyria said absently, gazing around the surrounding. "Proud. Much like you. And terrified, though I would never admit it. But I gave this house two children. A future. A foothold."
Marcella watched her carefully. "And your husband? The forr duke?"
For the first ti, Elyria’s deanor cracked. Her fingers stilled at the edge of the cup. "He died."
"When?"
"Before Berith took the title of Duke."
Marcella tilted her head slightly. "How did he die?"
Elyria hesitated. Just a beat too long. "He was ill," she said. "Chronic. It took him quietly. Not everything in Ashenholt ends with daggers and curses."
Marcella analyzed the depth of her words, studying the forr Duchess. "One thing confused ," Marcella expressed her concern. "When Berith beca Duke... your family didn’t attend the investiture nor our wedding. Why?"
Elyria’s lips curved. "Tradition."
"Tradition?"
"In the Montclair line, we don’t celebrate inheritance. Dukedom is not a gift here. It’s a burden. We don’t gather for coronations or celebrations. We arrive when needed."
Marcella let that sink in. A family that did not rejoice in power?? It explained Berith’s nature, coldness he carried like it was sewn into his spine.
"You must think us strange," Elyria said after a pause. "The North raises wolves, not peacocks."
Marcella gave a thin smile. "And I’ve always been good with wolves."
Elyria tilted her head, eyes narrowing in interest. "I believe that," she murmured.
The tea stead between them. Sowhere beyond the hedges, crows cawed low.
"Anyways, tell how long you plan to survive in Ashenholt?" Elyria was quick on changing the topic.
Marcella plastered a sluggish smile. "As long as my duties require or until soone ensures I don’t."
Elyria smiled then, a thin, elegant gesture that reminded Marcella of marble statues in shrines: beautiful, reverent, and utterly hollow. "If you want to survive here, Duchess, rember: the pact may bind your body. But what binds a Montclair’s loyalty... is far older."
"May I know what that is, mother?"
Elyria smiled. "Blood. Or the spilling of it." Sothing flashed in her eyes before it disappeared, then she held Marcella’s hand into hers. "I’m not your enemy, Marcella."
"Neither were you my ally in my last life," Marcella nearly said but she bit it back. Instead, she t her gaze with an equal intensity. "And yet we find ourselves sitting across from one another with poisoned curiosity."
Elyria chuckled. "I expected theatrics, pettiness maybe tears. But you’re not like the other girls Berith refused."
"He refused many?"
"He broke many," Elyria corrected. "With silence, with cold. You’re the first I’ve seen hold your spine beside him."
"Does that worry you, mother?"
"No," Elyria said, sipping her tea again. "It intrigues . Though intrigue often precedes disappointnt."
Another beat of silence stretched. A soft wind passed between the hedges, brushing Marcella’s cloak with invisible fingers.
"Berith was not always this way," Elyria said. "There was once a boy who laughed, who read poetry beneath the red willows. He changed after... well. We all changed."
Marcella folded her hands neatly. "Grief has a way of rearranging people."
That earned a look, just for a second — the polished composure cracking. "You are sharp," Elyria noted. "and dangerous."
"I was raised in a church where power wore a priest’s robe. I learned young how to cut through silk and scripture."
"Then tell ," Elyria said, leaning forward just a little. "What do you want? From this marriage. From Berith. From Ashenholt."
Marcella smiled — not wide, but sure. "Peace. Stability. But most of all... I want control over my own fate."
"Fate," Elyria repeated, as if tasting it. "A foolish thing to chase. It belongs to bloodlines and ghosts."
Marcella’s voice didn’t waver. "Then I suppose I’ll have to haunt mine."
A beat.
Then Elyria set her teacup down with a soft clink. "You speak like a queen."
Marcella lifted her chin. "And yet I sit here, a duchess."
"You’ll find," Elyria said, standing gracefully, "that the difference between the two is not always a crown." She walked away then, her steps leaving no imprint on the frost-covered stones.
Marcella remained seated for a mont longer, staring into her tea.
It had gone cold. So had the morning.
Sowhere in the roots of Ashenholt, beneath the stone, snow and secrets, sothing waited. Sothing old.
Marcella Valemont had every intention of unbinding it.
************
Berith stood at the balcony of the eastern watchtower, the wind dragging cold fingers through his coat as he surveyed the frost-laced hills of Ashenholt. From this height, the estate below looked almost serene — marble courtyards, raven-perched turrets, and the small iron table where two won now spoke.
His wife.His mother.
He couldn’t hear the words, as he didn’t need to.
Elyria had summoned Marcella to the sa place she’d once summoned him — just days after his father’s death. That garden was not a place of comfort.
Marcella hadn’t flinched. She rarely did. But she didn’t know how deep the roots of Montclair rot ran.
Marcella didn’t understand Ashenholt. The house would test her. It tested everyone.
Berith traced the rim of the signet ring on his thumb, the Montclair crest etched in black steel, colder than the wind. The sa ring that had once belonged to a man he barely rembered as warm.
Then, he touched his chest as if careful not to draw the attention of sothing sleeping. His hand lingered there. Just over his heart.
The gate.
It was still dormant for now. He could feel it, the thrum of an ancient power bound into his bloodline, buried beneath his ribs like a chained beast. The Montclairs had long called it a gift.
Berith knew better. It was why his father had died. The last two years had seen the forr Duke crumble, surrounded by books he never read and wars he no longer fought. Chronic illness, they called it.
Ashenholt did not forgive the weak and neither did its ghosts. A Montclair devoured from the inside out.
Inhale. Focus.Exhale. Control.
Balance.
Calming the gate was the only way he could remain whole — the only way to stop the darkness from seeping through his bones and turning him into sothing worse than his father.
Berith stepped back into the shadows of the tower’s alcove. He didn’t linger in places where eyes could find him.
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