Lady Seraphine had always believed her walls to be impenetrable. Not the manor’s—they were stone and timber and servants and steel. Hers. The inward fortresses of control. Of planning. Of purpose.

  But lately, she’d come to understand a quiet truth:

  Some of her defenses had been breached.

  Not by outside force.

  By something far more dangerous—from within.

  And worse still, the breach had not been accidental. It had been invited.

  By her.

  She had seen it in his eyes, in that moment in the room—when he looked at her and simply said, ‘Milady… out.’

  And he was right.

  She had thought she was protecting him from the world—too sharp, too fast, too cruel. But she had also been shielding him from growth, from change, from connection.

  And that, she realized, had begun to harm him more than help.

  So, she began the process of loosening her grip.

  Not all at once. She was still herself, after all.

  But she gave her son more time. Her time. They read more books together—some he chose, some she selected, some they reopened from years ago. Not just histories and fables now, but treatises, journals, field guides, volumes full of ideas and techniques she once would’ve deemed too obscure or too practical.

  She began allowing him to ask questions without redirecting them—and more terrifying still, to pursue the answers.

  Sometimes that meant asking the steward about crop rotations or tax ledgers.

  Lady Seraphine had long grown used to unusual questions from her son—he was, by nature, curious, precise, and maddeningly quiet about his reasons.

  But even she was caught off guard the day he asked, with perfect calm and clear intent:

  “White roots?”

  She had blinked. “Pardon?”

  He looked at her with that steady gaze, neither demanding nor uncertain. “White. Root plants?”

  It was not a question she had anticipated—not from a boy who had only recently discovered what the kitchens smelled like, let alone what they kept within.

  So, she summoned the cook.

  The woman arrived, red-cheeked and flustered, wiping flour from her hands and clearly preparing for an inspection, not a botanical inquiry.

  After some confused discussion and a reluctant trip to the cellar, she returned bearing the sum total of white root vegetables currently held within Avalon’s storerooms.

  An onion.

  And a turnip.

  The boy stared at them with obvious disappointment.

  He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The silence itself seemed to sigh.

  Lady Seraphine, unused to being judged by tubers, found herself oddly flustered. “That’s all we grow locally,” she said, as if defending a family reputation.

  But he kept looking at the turnip as though it had failed him personally.

  Later that day, she cornered the steward in the accounts chamber and asked—perhaps a touch too sharply—if there were any white root vegetables grown within the kingdom. Any at all. Wild or cultivated. She did not care if they were used for food, medicine, or decorative insult.

  “And if not,” she added, brushing her gloves clean of dust, “perhaps we should inquire when the next caravan visits the merchant states. Someone must grow something…”

  The steward blinked, opened a ledger, and wisely refrained from asking questions.

  She had no idea what her son wanted with white roots. Or why he had been so specific.

  But she had already learned that when he asked a question, the real answer often came later.

  And it was always important.

  And once—most alarmingly—it meant asking the seamstress for a properly tanned rabbit pelt with the fur left on. Followed shortly by a request for cobbler’s knives.

  “Cobbler’s knives?” she had repeated, eyes narrowed.

  “Yes,” he had said—no explanation offered.

  She allowed it.

  Reluctantly.

  Because the boy wasn’t just exploring—he was testing. Not just his mind, but his strength. His hands. His reach. What he could still do, and what he could become. And his curiosity was a fire she was no longer willing to smother.

  He now met with the freed peoples regularly. Mirelle, Kael, Tamsen, and even Petyr returned to the manor on a rotation, like scholars to a court—except he was the one posing the problems. And when they didn’t know the answers, he seemed… delighted.

  He wasn’t just recovering.

  He was blooming.

  Which terrified her.

  Because she knew—flowers that bloomed too early were the first to freeze.

  And lately, freezing had become a very real concern.

  Lisette.

  Her daughter had begun to manifest her affinity in more visible ways. And louder.

  It began with tiny ice patches on the floor—just small enough to trip over.

  Then came the cups that froze solid on the tray. The shattered vase. The window that refused to defog because the air around it dropped below freezing every time Lisette threw a tantrum.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  And worst of all—the heat. Not from Lisette herself, but from the relentless fires she demanded.

  Layers of wool. Hearths stoked beyond reason. Blankets are stacked high even on warm days.

  She had overheard two servants whispering near the corridor: one speaking of a nosebleed, the other of dizziness. Heatstroke in early summer.

  Lady Seraphine had not raised her voice.

  She had simply written a letter—sharp, urgent, and sealed in wax with the red ring of House Avalon—and sent it to Reiki Master Halvo with the words: Come. At once.

  But the most unnerving part of it all was what didn’t happen.

  When Lisette was with her brother, none of those things occurred.

  No frost. No shattered porcelain. No eerie breath in still air.

  The ice stilled around him.

  She didn’t understand why.

  But she understood enough to let it continue.

  So, she managed. She structured. She planned.

  She instructed the staff, juggled the schedules, reassured the worried steward, arranged for deliveries of leather and rabbit pelts and questionable knives, and monitored every flicker of power and progress like a hawk guarding her nest.

  She did it all—alone.

  And sometimes, in those moments between, when the corridors were quiet and her shoulders ached and the silence pressed too heavily around her, she allowed herself to miss her husband.

  He would have held her hand in the garden. He would have carried the boy when she could no longer lift him. He would have scolded Lisette for setting fire to her own quilt—and then marveled at her for doing it without a spark.

  He would have reminded her that grace and madness often shared a hallway.

  But he was gone.

  So she carried it all.

  And yet.

  In the privacy of the west hall, when no one was watching, the doors shut, the staff dismissed, and the sun slanted through the stained-glass windows just so…

  She had, once or twice, quietly sat in the chair.

  Just to see.

  And it was delightful.

  Smooth. Balanced. Shockingly swift on polished floors.

  She had glided in a wide circle before regaining her dignity, coughed lightly, and stood—pretending that she had only been testing the seat for wear.

  She would never admit how fun it had been.

  But when she saw the boy smile as he turned the wheels, or when Lisette declared it the “greatest invention since bread,” she understood.

  Some things were worth letting in.

  Even when it meant lowering the gates.

  Somanta

  The halls of Telvane Library were quiet in the early hour—just before the bells of Morningrise. Dust drifted lazily through shafts of golden light, catching in slow spirals between the towering stacks of the Orison Wing, where only scholars with special clearance were allowed to read unsupervised.

  Somanta sat curled at a wide oak table, surrounded by scrolls and brittle folios. One hand propped her cheek, the other held a slanted reed pen she had long since stopped writing with. Her teacup had gone cold.

  She was too deep in the words to notice.

  The scroll in front of her was an obscure transcription—scratched in an older dialect of Old Levan, half-erased by water damage and time. But she had read worse.

  Her eyes narrowed as the phrasing coalesced:

  Artifacts are born from the soul, not the hand. Those who carry great weight in their soul essence—whether joy or burden, love or duty—may create one, perhaps two, in a lifetime. But not by craft alone. The act of making an artifact is the act of giving away a piece of oneself.

  Somanta leaned back, her fingers absently brushing a curl behind her ear. She had suspected as much. But seeing it so plainly written... it explained a great deal.

  She turned to her notebook and scribbled quickly:

  Artifact creation = soul-invested. Not replicable. Rare. Deeply personal.

  The scroll continued:

  Such objects outlast their creators. But not unchanged. As the soul that birthed them fades, so too do their strengths. Over time, untethered from a living will, the artifact quiets. Weakens. Sleeps.

  That confirmed another working theory—why powerful relics from the Age of Bronze seemed inert in the modern day.

  But then—something new. Something she had not read before, except in fragmented footnotes.

  And yet, there are those objects that do not seem crafted at all. They appear in tandem with a soul—not forged, not built, but simply... present. These are not the work of a living will. These are not attuned by rite or blood or name. These are true artifacts. Formed by soul-essence itself. These are not claimed. They are paired.

  Somanta froze.

  She read the next line three times, heart rising.

  True Ownership is the theory that some souls and some artifacts are not joined by action, but by existence. One brings the other into being. The artifact does not wait. It arrives with the soul.

  A margin note scrawled in an ancient hand read:

  (Impossible? Unproven. But records persist. See: Crown of Winterglass, The Weeping Quill, Child and Lantern, and the Hollow Gate.)

  She inhaled slowly.

  If true ownership were more than theory—if it could be proven—then certain relics long considered “unclaimed” would not be awaiting wielders. They were awaiting the one soul they had been paired with since the moment of its birth.

  And when that pairing occurred—by fate, timing, or divine design—the artifact would not simply awaken.

  It would become.

  Powerful beyond measure. Untouchable by any other hand.

  She looked again at the margin:

  Crown of Winterglass.

  That one she knew—the Queen, who had never been crowned, but who bore the crown from birth.

  The quill, the lantern—yes, fragments in older myths. But The Hollow Gate?

  She frowned. That one was unfamiliar. It was not a thing. It was a place.

  She reached for the next scroll, heart quickening now—not with panic, but with clarity.

  Artifacts could be built.

  They could be claimed.

  But the rarest ones… were born.

  Suddenly, the great double doors at the end of the Orison Wing banged open with a thunderous crack, echoing through the vaulted chamber like a spell detonation. Scrolls rustled. Quills halted mid-stroke. Apprentices and scholars alike looked up from their work, eyes wide, silence flooding the room in the wake of the impact.

  Somanta looked up too—and saw him.

  Master Havlo.

  To most in the hall, his presence was awe-inspiring. Draped in robes the color of charred ember and dusk, embroidered with the flame-sigil of the Red Rank, he walked with a serenity and weight that made space for him without demand. The red rank of Soul Essence was the highest acknowledged tier of spiritual command in the realm—its bearers were few, and among them, Havlo was a legend.

  Not for battle.

  But for healing.

  He was known across the kingdoms as the Restorer of Spirits, the one who had pulled dying kings back from the edge, who had stitched the soul of a broken archmage in a single night. His name appeared in ballads, temple scrolls, and war chronicles alike.

  To everyone else, he appeared calm. Commanding. Controlled.

  But Somanta knew better.

  She had studied under him for years—long enough to read the smallest shifts, the silence between breaths, the quiver in stillness.

  And something was wrong.

  His steps were too quick. His breath, slightly shallow. His eyes—normally slow and analytical—scanned the chamber too fast, too often. And his grip on the letter in his hand was just a fraction too tight, the edge of the parchment bending with strain.

  She stood before he even reached her table.

  “Master,” she said quietly.

  He didn’t acknowledge the murmuring scholars watching him. His attention was wholly on her.

  “Somanta,” he said, voice low and clipped. “Pack your things.”

  She blinked. “What? Why?”

  “We leave tonight.”

  A ripple of confusion passed through the nearby students, but Havlo’s tone was too firm to invite questions.

  Somanta’s hands hovered above her scrolls. “Where are we going?”

  He paused just long enough for her heart to thump once in warning.

  Then he said it:

  “Avalon.”

  She inhaled sharply. The name hit her like a dropped stone.