Chapter 41 The halls of Ashenholt did not sleep. Even in the breathless silence of night, something pulsed beneath the stone - something that didn't belong to the living. It echoed in the marrow of the walls, in the bones of the floor. Like a heartbeat buried deep in the manor's ancient skin. Marcella awoke to it. She sat upright in bed, heart racing. For a moment, she thought it had been a dream - that cold pressure against her skull, the feeling of eyes she couldn't see. But then the sound came again. Footsteps. Not a servant's shuffle. Not a guard's patrol. Marella swung her legs off the bed and rose slowly, listening. The moonlight filtered weakly through the frosted windows. Lira was gone - dismissed hours earlier after the brittle supper with the Montclairs. Marcella hadn't thought to ask for company that night. She regretted that now. Knock. Knock. Knock. Three precise raps on her chamber door. Marcella froze.. Every instinct screamed don't open it. But instinct was a luxury she could not afford in Ashenholt. Not as a woman already under silent trial. She padded across the stone floor and pulled the door open. A man stood on the other side dressed in ceremonial black, a half-hood shadowing most of his face. His gloved hands were folded behind his back. "Her Grace is summoned," he said flatly. Marcella frowned. "Summoned? By whom?" "The patriarch," he replied. "The Rite is to be performed. It cannot be delayed." Her stomach twisted. "No one told me of any rite." "No Montclair bride ever is." And with that, he turned and began walking down the corridor, as if expecting her to follow. Marcella stood frozen for a heartbeat. Berith never mentioned this. She quickly dressed, choosing a thick black cloak over her gown. The fur collar rasped against her throat as she fastened it, fingers trembling. She slid into her riding boots and braided her hair quickly, roughly, as if braiding away the fear. Then Marcella stepped into the dark. The path led downward. Past the grand staircases. Past the servant quarters. Past the wine cellars and forgotten armories. The air grew colder with every step, and the sconces on the walls burned with eerie blue light as though ordinary fire had no place here. The guard said nothing, just led her. Marcella kept her pace, but inside, unease clawed at her ribs. What is this? A trial? A test? They reached a black iron door, etched with runes she did not recognize. There was the crypt chapel beyond the door. She had not known such a place existed in her past life. It felt less like a room and more like a tomb carved into the world's spine. The walls were built of black stone, smoothed to a shine, shaped in a long hexagon. Seven tall windows lined the sides but showed no stars. No moon. Just endless dark, like glass panes looking out onto the void. A ring of ghostly white fire surrounded a raised stone dais. And in its center... there was the Ash Chalice. Her hands grew clammy with sweat. The object seemed alive. Carved of obsidian, rimmed in iron etched, the chalice pulsed. Inside, something dark churned, thick and sluggish. Not wine. Not anything meant for mortals. Marcella's skin prickled. The Montclairs were already waiting for her- Lady Elyria standing statuesque in another steel-colored gown, Cassar with his usual glass of wine, and Aurelia, poised but silent, eyes sharp as ever. But it was the figure seated behind them that made Marcella stop cold. A throne of ashwood. Shadow pooling around his boots. Volden Montclair. The true head of this family. The one they never spoke of aloud. And he was far worse than she'd imagined. Thin to the point of skeletal. Skin stretched too tight. Hair white as the snows outside. His eyes were milky-cracked, like glass caught mid-shatter. He wore a circlet of dark silver, barely more than a twisted thread of metal, but it radiated command. He didn't look frail. He looked preserved like death had tried and failed to claim him and when he smiled, Marcella felt something cold crawl down her spine. "Kneel, girl," Volden said, his voice was dry as paper left too long in the sun. Marcella's chin lifted. "Why?" "Because this is the rite," Cassar said lazily, as if they were discussing an old festival. "Every Montclair bride kneels and drinks." Berith had never spoken of this. Had he forgotten? "I'm not Montclair by blood," Marcella defied. "But your soul reeks of ash," Volden rasped, "as if it had always belonged to us. Long before you took our name." The implication made her stomach twist. Behind her, Elyria's voice rang soft. "This is the weight, Duchess. You swore to carry it." If I back out now... I'm done. They'll never trust me. Marcella clenched her jaw, taking one step ahead. The fire in the torches flickered from her choice. She approached the dais slowly. Every step felt like the floor drained heat from her skin. When Marcella reached the chalice, she stopped. "What am I supposed to prove?" "That you belong," Elyria said. "That you survive," Cassar added with a faint smile. "And if I don't?" Marcella asked. "Then you die," Volden said simply. "As many have before you." The weight of those words hit her like stone. Her hands curled into fists beneath her cloak. Marcella glanced behind her - hoping, aching, for Berith to appear. But the doorway remained empty. So, she did something no one expected. She knelt. The stone bit into her knees. The torches around her flared reacting to her presence like hounds scenting blood. Aurelia stepped forward, holding the chalice in both hands. Gone was her smirk. Gone was the boredom. In its place was something unreadable. Pity? No. Respect, maybe. Or the beginning of it. "The Ash Chalice reveals your anchor," she said. "The memory that binds your soul." Marcella stared at the dark liquid. Her reflection shifted in its surface - flickering between faces she couldn't recognize. She took the chalice. It was heavier than it looked. And she drank. The world vanished. Light died. Heat bled away. The chapel disappeared. Marcella stood alone in memory. A room she remembered only in nightmares - the one she had died in. Blood on the floor. Screaming. Lucian on his knees, gasping, wounded, crawling toward her- Berith, his blade raised, his face... wrong. His eyes black and empty. "Marcella," he had whispered hoarsely, "don't look." Then the sword drove into Lucian's heart. She screamed. Crawled. Shaking. Begging. "Please-don't-don't kill him-Lucian-!" His crown rolled toward her. Still warm. The pain came next - not physical, but cosmic. Like her soul was ripping down the seams. Her Flame crushed. She fell. Marcella came to screaming. Her body convulsed on the crypt floor, limbs flailing. Her breath hitched in shallow bursts. She couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Someone was calling her name. More than one voice. But only one reached her through the haze. Berith. He was there, crouched beside her, his voice breaking, hands gripping her shoulders. "You weren't supposed to touch it-you weren't supposed to see-!" She opened her eyes. Barely. His face hovered over hers, pale with panic. His mask gone. His composure shattered. And for the first time... she saw the man beneath the blade. The one who hadn't wanted to become a murderer. Marcella tried to speak, but no words came. The memory still screamed in her skull. The Flame inside her flickered - not quite broken, but twisted. And the Montclairs stood behind them, watching. Like wolves circling a downed doe, waiting to see if she would rise. ******* There was no ceiling. No ground. No air. Just flame. It moved without sound or smoke, coiling in slow arcs around her sleeping form like a serpent made of memory. Gold at its core. Ash-gray at its edges. It flickered in and out of shapes - wings, eyes, hands that reached but never touched. Marcella floated, her dress drifting like blood in water. Her lips parted, but no breath passed through. Still, she felt the presence. The Flame was watching her. "You shouldn't be here," Marcella whispered. The Flame curled tighter in recognition. It knew her and she knew it. The sensation wasn't like magic. It was older, more intimate. Like waking up and remembering the taste of your first sorrow. The Flame pulsed once - and with it came heat. Not enough to burn. Just enough to unearth. You opened a gate no one could close. Marcella flinched. The dream twisted. Suddenly, she was standing in the ruins of a chapel scorched black by fire. The sky above it was a bruise of red and violet. Statues cracked in half, candles melted into bone and at the center stood a version of herself - her, but clothed in white flame, eyes blank with light. "What are you?" Marcella asked aloud. The other her tilted its head. Then it spoke. "I am the price." "Of what?" "Your survival." The Flame-self raised one hand. Behind it, the ash-filled air peeled open like torn cloth - and through it, Marcella saw everything. Berith. Bound in a circle of iron. Screaming. But the voice wasn't his alone, another growled beneath it. Deep, guttural. Something that shouldn't speak with a man's throat. The devil inside him is fraying...The Flame was never sealed...And now both of you are doomed... Marcella staggered back. "No-no, I sealed the Flame. I chose it. I-" "You broke the pact." "You rewrote the rite." "And the Flame is listening now." The ash-wreathed version of her raised its other hand. In it, Marcella saw a blade of fire. Living fire. "You died once," it said. "You don't get to live again without cost." Marcella's throat clenched. The dream flared. Light bled from the chapel's edges. The statues crumbled. "What happens if I fail?" she asked. "You burn." "And if I succeed?" The Flame smiled with her face. "So will they." When Marcella finally stirred in the waking world, her lips were cracked, her brow damp with fever. The room was dark, her body wrapped in velvet and tucked into a massive bed layered with furs. She couldn't move yet - the dream still clung to her bones. But the heat remained. A small pulse in her chest. A whisper in her blood. The Ashen Flame had claimed her. Dojun, who married out of necessity and immediately left for a foreign country, suddenly appeared at his marital home and then at his company, without any prior notice. He brought with him several pho...