The fire had consumed everything, but the bones of the estate still lingered.
Dorian stood before the blackened ruins of Lenora's ancestral home, his coat snapped by the wind, his eyes narrowed against the falling ash. The morning sun tried to break through the overcast sky but found no purchase in Vullum. The estate was a carcass—its stone arches split by creeping ivy, stained-glass windows shattered like teeth knocked loose from a screaming mouth. Statues loomed in the courtyard, their moss-slicked faces melted by fire and time.
"This is where she was made," he muttered. "And broken."
The map of glyphs they'd traced had led here—perfectly, inexorably. Every murder, every ritual, every blood-soaked lily had drawn a circle around this place. And at its dead heart, Lenora.
He pressed forward through the scorched threshold, boots grinding against soot and shattered bone. The air smelled of mold and distant incense, like memory left too long in a locked box. Something inside the house still breathed, though it had no lungs.
As he moved deeper, he whispered her name. Not loud. Just enough to feel it vibrate in the ruined air. "Lenora..."
A sound. A crack. The floor groaned.
He turned.
And there she was.
Lenora stood at the far end of what had once been a music room. Her gloved fingers hovered just above the blackened keys of a piano that hadn't sung in over a decade. Her mask was in place, her crimson eyes shadowed—but alight.
"You came alone," she said.
"You ran alone."
They didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Dorian's jaw tightened. "There's more below, isn't there?"
She nodded slowly, as if remembering the bones beneath her feet.
"Then we go together. This time, I don't let you face it alone."
Below them, the chapel waited.
The descent was narrow, stone walls closing around them like the ribs of some ancient beast. Candles guttered at intervals—some new, some spent long ago. Blood symbols shimmered faintly on the walls, pulsing as they passed.
At the bottom, the heart of the chapel opened like a wound.
What they saw stopped them cold.
A circle carved into the floor, surrounded by mirrors blackened with age. Lilies bloomed from cracks in the stone, their petals damp with dew that smelled of rust.
In the center—a figure, seated, waiting.
Draped in white. Masked. Mouthless.
The Mourner.
Lenora whispered, "I remember now. She watched the first time. She watches still."
And then the figure turned toward them.
"Lenora," it whispered without sound.
Dorian stepped forward. "What are you?"
The Mourner lifted a hand. From her palm fell a single spider lily.
And from the shadows, another voice answered:
"She is the one who keeps what was broken... until it is whole again."
Cassian.
He stepped into the flickering candlelight—older, thinner, but eyes burning with the same desperate brilliance Lenora had seen in the snow all those years ago.
"You've found your way back," he said, smiling, though it didn't reach his eyes.
Lenora's voice was a whisper under her breath. "Cassian... what have you done?"
"What we started, Lenora. What was taken from us. The rite was broken. You were broken. But I've been gathering the pieces. The ones they left behind. The hearts. The souls. The grief."
He stepped toward the altar, motioning to the blood-marked book lying open before it.
"They thought they could bind you to silence. To fear. But the rite was never meant to imprison you—it was meant to free you. We were meant to be bound, you and I. Heartbinder and Witness. Together. The Mourner watches over what must be severed. I've unbound the dead, one by one. And now, all that's left—"
He held up the ceremonial blade. Not with threat, but with reverence.
"—is to finish what was begun beneath the blood moon."
Lenora didn't move.
Dorian stepped between them.
"You're murdering people, Cassian. Turning their grief into ritual. That isn't love. That's desecration."
Cassian's smile faded. "You don't understand what she is. What I am."
"No," Dorian said, voice firm. "I understand perfectly. You're trying to fix your pain by turning it into someone else's."
Cassian's eyes flared. "She belongs to something greater than you can comprehend."
"She belongs to no one," Dorian growled.
Silence.
Lenora stepped forward then, slowly, her mask catching the candlelight like a mirror to another world.
"I remember now," she said, her voice steady but distant. "The rite was meant to tether emotion to will—to forge a Heartbinder who could balance pain and purpose. But someone interfered. Someone tried to rewrite it. That someone was you."
Cassian's expression cracked.
"You loved me," he said, voice suddenly fragile.
"I was a child," Lenora said. "And you turned that love into chains."
She stepped into the center of the circle.
"This ends with me, Cassian. Not with blood. Not with a blade. With choice."
And as the Mourner stepped back into shadow, the mirrors trembled—and the chapel held its breath.
But Cassian wasn't finished.
His hands trembled as he reached for the book once more, turning its pages with reverence. "You don't understand the gift, Lenora. The ritual—when done properly—melds two souls. Not to imprison, but to illuminate. We would feel no more loneliness, no more fear. All emotion, shared and softened. This city—Vullum—it feeds on fear. We could change that."
Dorian shook his head. "You can't fix the rot of the city by adding more ghosts to it."
Cassian's face turned. "You think I'm trying to fix the city?" His laugh was brittle. "No, Dorian. I want to burn it. Tear it down and remake it with love strong enough to rewrite fate itself."
Lenora stared at the altar. At the blood. At the names etched into the margins. Names she recognized. Victims.
"You wrote their names into the rite," she whispered.
"They gave themselves willingly."
"No," Dorian growled, stepping forward, fists clenched. "You broke them. You fed their pain until they collapsed into your arms. That's not willingness. That's manipulation."
Cassian's voice wavered, but his words were fire. "You weren't there. You didn't hear them weep for someone who could carry their sorrow. I carried it. I gave it meaning. And now I give it to Lenora."
The chapel trembled slightly, an echo in the stone, a whisper too old to translate.
Lenora turned away from Cassian, her breath shallow. The glyphs on her arms glowed faintly—responding to the magic in the air. Her eyes met Dorian's.
"There's more in this chapel," she said. "Below. I feel it."
Cassian's smile returned. "Yes. The foundation was always deeper than the stone. Go ahead. See what you were meant to forget."
Lenora moved toward a panel behind the altar—hidden once, now loose with age and time. She pressed it inward. It gave.
A stair spiraled down.
And the darkness beyond did not wait. It breathed.