Seraphina couldn't breathe.
The mural burned into her eyes—the woman wreathed in flame, her face half-erased, her wrists bleeding beneath thorny chains. It was as if the wall had been painted with memory itself.
She reached out.
Her fingertips brushed the stone.
It was cold.
But under that cold… heat pulsed. Alive. Waiting.
Lucien watched her quietly. No words. No pressure. Just presence.
"It's me," she said softly, as the truth settled over her like ash. "I don't remember her, but I am her. Or what's left."
He nodded once. "The curse didn't just bind itself to this place. It anchored to you. You were the last piece that kept Nightspire from collapsing after the first great fracture."
She turned to him, voice trembling. "Then why did I die? Why did I return three times? Why not let me stay buried?"
Lucien's expression darkened. "Because something in the house won't let you go."
He gestured to the mural. "This place feeds on cycles—betrayal, death, resurrection. You were the first vow. And every time you return, it hopes you'll finish what you once started."
Seraphina stepped back. "And what was that?"
His voice was quieter now. "You tried to destroy Nightspire."
She froze.
"You tried to burn it down," he continued. "Not just the estate. The bloodline. The curse. Everything."
She stared at the mural. A faint gold circle surrounded the painted woman's heart.
An old sigil—faint but visible beneath the soot.
Seraphina pressed her fingers to the same spot on her chest.
The ruby necklace pulsed once, and for a split second, she remembered.
A firestorm roaring through the halls.
Her voice screaming words not of this world.
A sword drawn not from metal, but from memory.
And Lucien—
Lucien, kneeling before her, bleeding from his side.
"You begged me not to go," she whispered aloud.
Lucien's jaw clenched. "And you walked into the flames anyway."
The memories faded as quickly as they had come.
But the feeling remained.
A phantom heat at her core. Not pain. Not fear.
Power.
She backed away from the crypt. "I need air."
He didn't stop her.
Back in her chamber, Seraphina stripped the necklace from her neck and let it fall onto the bed.
The ruby stopped pulsing.
She stood before the mirror.
It was still again.
But now, she didn't fear it.
She stared into her own eyes.
"I know who you are," she whispered to her reflection. "You're me. Or… the first version of me. You burned for a reason. You broke your vow. And now I've inherited it."
No response.
But something flickered in the mirror's depths—like recognition.
A heartbeat later, the candles in the room flared.
All of them.
Seraphina turned, startled. The flames twisted unnaturally, spiraling upward, then curling toward her.
They bent—bowed—like flowers to the sun.
Her breath caught.
This wasn't magic.
This was memory returning to form.
The fire knew her.
The house had known her before she ever stepped inside.
She wasn't just part of the curse.
She had created it.
The door burst open.
Lucien stood there, chest rising sharply, eyes wild. "You felt it?"
She nodded, stunned. "The fire. It moved."
He entered quickly and closed the door behind him. "It's begun."
"What has?"
"Your awakening."
He moved toward her, but cautiously—like one might approach a burning altar.
"I didn't know if it would happen again," he said. "In the second life, you never awakened. You died too quickly. In the third, you came close—but the Crown got to you first."
"And in this life?"
"You're already further than the others. You're stronger now."
Seraphina stared at her hands. The faintest golden shimmer clung to her fingertips like dust. "Is this… magic?"
"No," he said. "It's memory given form. You're remembering what you were. And the house is responding."
"But if I awaken completely…" she began.
"You might finish what you started last time."
Seraphina looked at him.
"And what if I don't want to?"
Lucien didn't smile.
"I don't think you'll have a choice."
That night, Seraphina stood once more beneath the dead willow tree.
The grave still bore no name.
But now she knew.
It wasn't Evelyne buried here.
It was her.
The first Seraphina.
The one who had dared to love the cursed Duke and pay the price.
As she stood there, wind curling through the garden, something cracked beneath her feet.
She looked down.
The stone slab had split.
And from the crack, a single thorned vine crept out.
Dark.
Bleeding.
Alive.
........................
The grave had opened.And the fire inside her had only just begun to rise.