Rose woke up in a chamber where moonlight pooled on velvet rugs and the curtains whispered of forgotten winds. Frost kissed the inside of the windows, blooming in fractal patterns like runes she half-remembered. The bed was soft, but the silence pulled at her.
She rose barefoot, the stone cool beneath her skin.
The hall beyond her door was dimly lit. Candles floated midair, trailing faint wisps of blue smoke. Shadows clung to the corners, but not threateningly. They waited, like old servants, like memories wrapped in silk.
As she walked, she passed paintings, portraits of dark-haired men and women with eyes too knowing, all dressed in clothes centuries out of time. Some bore Ivar's sharp jaw. One frame had no canvas at all, only a mirror that shimmered faintly as she passed.
And in it, for a moment, she saw herself.
But not quite.
She was in a silver gown, hair loose and glowing, standing in a field of stars beside a boy no older than ten. His eyes were Ivar's but too young. His hand clutched hers. She gasped and turned, but the image was gone.
The mirror was just glass again.
She walked deeper, past a door that opened by itself. Inside was a library without dust, endless, warm. She felt it hum. As though the shelves remembered being touched by her.
A book floated down without being touched.
Its cover was embossed with the same crest she'd seen on the gate: flame wrapped around a star.
When she opened it, ink bloomed across the page.
"Line of the Stars- Custodians of the Veil"
She turned another page.
"Ivar, last-born. Marked. Bound."
Behind her, a voice spoke.
"You found it."
She turned quickly around.
Ivar stood in the doorway, shadows clinging to his coat, eyes shadowed not from darkness, but from reliving memories.
"You're not just a blood heir," she said quietly. "You were meant to come back here."
He nodded, stepping forward. "This house doesn't just remember. It keeps. What we were. What we tried to forget."
"And me?" she whispered.
He looked at her for a long time, before saying.
"You were always part of it. Even before we met."
The library smelled of cedarwood, ink, and old light.
The book hovered between them, still open, the name House Elanora glowing faintly on the page. Rose brushed her fingertips along the text, and though the paper felt dry and smooth, it pulsed beneath her skin like something alive.
"I saw something," she murmured. "In the mirror."
Ivar stepped closer. "The house shows what you've buried. What it remembers about you even if you don't."
Rose turned to him, her voice low. "I was there, Ivar. In the reflection. Holding your hand. But I was… older. Or younger. I don't know. Not this version of me."
His gaze did not waver. "That's because we met before. A long time ago."
The air thinned. The library held its breath.
She felt it then not just the magic in the walls, but a tug in her soul, like a string being pulled from the other side of time.
"You don't mean reincarnation."
"No," he said. "I mean binding. You were part of this bloodline before you were born. Or rather… you chose to be."
He touched the glowing page, and as he did, the book turned its own page.
There, etched in flowing script, was a name she didn't recognize—and yet did.
"Rosenyll Elanora – Vowkeeper. Bound by starfire, returned by choice."
Her breath caught.
"I thought I was just... me."
"You are," he said softly. "But you are also something older. Something the house waited for. The magic here remembers you because you helped build it. Or protect it. Maybe both."
She looked up at him. "Why don't I remember?"
"Because the price for coming back," he said, "was forgetting. Until the house was ready. Until I was ready."
They stood in silence as snow fell gently outside the tall stained-glass window. Runes along the floor flickered softly, like breathing embers.
Then Ivar walked toward the fireplace, where an ornate tapestry hung above the hearth. It showed a constellation: seven stars woven into a spiral, wrapped around a black flame.
"This is what we once were," he said, lifting the edge. "Guardians of the Stars."
(Excerpt from the book Rose found in the library, in flowing script)
"The Elanora were born in the age before divisions, when stars still sang to the earth and magic was a river, not a wound."
House Elanora was once the highest of the Watcher Clans, noble bloodlines charged with guarding the veil between the mortal realm and the other realms of raw creation and ruin.
The Hollow Star was a celestial gate, sealed by the first Vowkeepers in an age of great fire. It could not be destroyed, only guarded. To bind it, blood was sacrificed. Memory was locked and one soul was promised to return, should the seal ever fray.
That soul bore many names. The Rose of Stars among them.
"A bloodline bound to a gate of silence. A promise made in flame and forgetting."
Ivar's bloodline fell from power when his great-grandfather betrayed the Vow. The manor disappeared from the world. Only Ivar, as the lastborn, carried the sigil in his blood.
But when he left, the house went quiet. It has only now reawakened because both heirs have returned, Ivar, the marked guardian and Rose, the sleeping Vowkeeper.
Rose stared at the tapestry, her chest tight with awe and grief and something she couldn't name.
"So this was always coming," she whispered.
Ivar nodded. "The Hollow's edge is fraying again. You felt it. That's why the magic answered you. The gate is calling you once again."
She stepped closer to him, her hand brushing his.
"And what happens if it opens?"
His eyes darkened, a flicker of pain crossing them. "Then everything burns again."
The room seemed to dim, the fire's glow drawing inward.
But then Rose turned to face the book again. And her voice was faint, but clear in the hush:
"Then we don't let it open. Not this time."