Chapter 44 The ride back to Ashenholt was quiet. Cassar had said nothing since the woods and Berith's silence was thick enough to swallow the world whole. The blood on his gloves had dried into stiffened patches. His coat was soaked, half with snow, half with sweat. His jaw remained clenched with the taste of iron still threading across his tongue. The cold had long stopped biting him. The Gate stirred in his chest like a beast fed, now pacing behind ribs. A predator in waiting. They passed through the frost-bitten gates of the manor. Servants emerged at their arrival and one of them stepped forward, eyes flicking toward the blood smeared across Berith's collar and hands. He faltered. They bowed quickly and vanished just as fast. No one asked. No one dared to comment on the blood. Cassar dismounted with a grunt, shaking snow from his cloak as he led his horse toward the stables. He looked back once, "You'll want to change before supper or don't? "I'm not here to perform." Cassar chuckled, the sound thin and without mirth. "Ah, but everything here is a stage, boy. Even silence gets an audience." Berith said nothing. He watched Cassar vanish through the stable arch and turned toward the eastern wing of the manor not toward his chambers, but deeper. Lower. His boots left smears on the polished stone as he strode through the long corridor. Somewhere above, the wind howled through the teeth of the towers. At the corridor's mouth, Lady Elyria stood by a high arched window, hands folded, gaze trained on the horizon as if watching for something only she could see. The light struck her hair, turning it to copper fire, but her expression remained cold. When Elyria saw him cloaked in blood, she didn't gasp, didn't recoil. Her eyes swept over him, from the crimson at his collar to the smear along his jaw and the torn edge of his coat. There was no surprise, no scolding. "You fed in the woods today," Elyria assessed as though stating the weather. Her voice didn't accuse. "It was necessary." "Was it?" she asked, voice smooth, almost too smooth. "And will the next time be, too?" Berith looked at her just for a heartbeat. His eyes were dark - not furious, not broken - just... shadowed. "Don't ask me questions you already know the answer to, mother." Her mouth curved into something too poised to be a smile. "Then don't walk past me wearing your nature like a crown and pretend it's still a secret. You're becoming him," she added, more to herself than to him. Berith turned from her, disappearing down the descending hallway with only one parting reply: "Good." He didn't look back. The passage beneath Ashenholt was colder than death. Berith passed crumbling archways and long-dead sconces, the chill deepening with every breath he drew. This wasn't the East Wing of noble halls and oil portraits. This was the buried spine of Montclair. At the end of the corridor, a gate awaited - a slab of blackened stone sealed with iron rods shaped like a serpent devouring its own tail. Berith raised his blood-soaked hand and pressed his palm flat to the stone. It pulsed. The iron writhed with a shuddering hiss and drew open, slow and groaning like the bones of the dead. Cold air rolled out like breath. Berith stepped through. The air in the chamber was colder now - colder than death, colder than bone. It clung to Berith's skin like old sin. The chamber was not a room. It was a tomb masquerading as a throne hall - long abandoned by the living, claimed by something older than rot. The pillars curled like serpent spines. The floor bore no rug, only dust and old ash. Berith was now standing before the man who was more legend than memory. Volden Montclair. The first patriarch of Montclair bloodline. He was not a man. Not anymore. His back still faced Berith, his white braids trailing like roots over the throne of darkwood and bone. The candlelight flickered on the silver grooves of the chair's wheels where he was sitting. Berith dropped to one knee, fist pressed to his heart, head bowed. "Patriarch," For a moment, there was only the sound of flame then that voice - aged like rusted iron, emerged from the dark. "Rise." Volden rasped, without turning. Berith stood. His coat still clung to his skin, the dried blood stiff at the collar, his gloves cracked with dark stains. Volden finally turned in his chair, and the two faced each other. Even after all these years, Berith still felt the gravity of the man. Of what he had done. "You've come," Volden said, not kindly - not unkindly either. Simply... factual. "I had to." There was a tic in his jaw. Volden's pale and cataract-veiled eyes traced over him like one might assess the forge-born edge of a weapon. "You have worn your blood well," he praised, fingers curling against the carved armrest. Berith gave a short nod, acknowledging his words. "You're not here for answers," Volden pulled up a cunning smirk, "You already know them. You know why you were born like this. You know the history," he began, "But you know only the version we allow the others to tell." "Pardon, patriarch?" "The Gate is stirring." Volden said, voice dropping like an incantation. "It burns because it has gone wild." he gestured toward Berith's chest. Berith's hand drifted to his chest, over the heart that no longer beat like it used to. "I can feel it," he murmured. Volden leaned back, resting one hand across the strange, bone-inlaid armrest. "The Ashen Flame has been tampered. The pact has been disturbed. You feel it, don't you?" he snapped, his silver-rimmed eyes catching what little light remained. A chill crept up Berith's spine. His thoughts churned: So he knows. Volden's lips twisted into a bitter smile. "She thought she could control it," His fingers tapped the armrest faster, like a ticking clockwork. "That she could be Vessel without the Gate. I knew the moment that girl crossed into my territory." Berith met his eyes, a glint of iron in the darkness. "All I can do now is keep it from burning everything else." Volden leaned forward, shadows deepening the hollows of his face. "Your gate seeks the Vessel; you were meant to balance each other." The threat in his words lingered. "To seal the flame with flesh. To lock the darkness inside your blood." He paused, letting the silence stretch, then spat the final words: "Instead, she tried to carry it alone." The air between them felt brittle, as if the wrong word might shatter it completely. "And if we don't consummate?" Volden's eyelids lowered in a long, deliberate blink. "Then the seal remains open. The Gate unbound. And the devil that sleeps inside you... stops sleeping." His words slid through the darkness. Berith turned away, boots scraping against the stone as he paced a tense circle. "I've kept it in check," he muttered, fingers flexing at his side. "For now," Volden chuckled, the cadence of inevitability in each syllable. "But how long until it checks you?" Berith's eyes darkened. "I won't force her." "Ah. You still think this is about choice?" A thin, humorless chuckle escaped Volden's lips. "That's the difference between you and your father," he continued, wheeling closer, "He denied the devil. You pity the girl. Either way... the pact burns." Berith knew she was already touched by the Flame. But his stubborn Gate wanted balance. Wanted her. Volden rolled back into shadow again, his chair groaning in protest. "You want to live?" he inquired. "Then stop fearing what you are." "I'm not afraid," Berith muttered. "No," Volden countered from the dark. "You're still pretending you have a choice." ******* Marcella stood in front of the wrought-iron archway, breath curling in the frostbitten air. Before her stretched the Winterglass Garden, named after the cold preservation of everything inside it. Thorned vines twined around marble columns, white-blooming lilies spilled over stone planters, and silverleaf ferns coiled like sleeping snakes along the paths. The scent hit her first-- old apothecaries and smoke-charred roots. The air was warmer here, but it didn't make her feel safe. It was a cage made beautiful. "Careful where you step. Some of the flowers bite back." Aurelia Montclair stood beside a stone table draped in dark velvet. Her gown was forest green with her curls pinned half up, a few falling over her shoulder. Marcella didn't flinch, greeting her. "Good evening, sister." Aurelia smiled thinly. "Is it?" The table between them was already set - tea bowls carved from obsidian, a small mortar and pestle, bundles of dried herbs tied with black thread. "You summoned me?" Marcella asked, approaching. "I invited you," Aurelia corrected, voice light. "Though I'm told people hear it the same when it's a Montclair asking." Marcella raised a brow. "That's one word for it." Aurelia gestured to the empty seat across from her. "Come. Let's see what Ashenholt's new duchess knows about healing and harm." Marcella settled onto the bench, smoothing her skirts as her eyes flicked across the display of herbs laid before her. She recognized some from her time at the Cardenia - sage, wildbell, a few sprigs of angelica root used for fevers, coughs, and childbirth pain. But the others... Long, curling leaves with blood-dark veins. Petals so blue they looked black. One cluster of gray berries so pale. She kept her face neutral. Aurelia leaned her chin on one hand. "Pick three. One that heals, one that kills, and one that deceives." Marcella met her gaze. "And if I get it wrong?" "Then I suppose you'll need to watch what you drink at family dinners." Marcella reached out and plucked the first - a pale yellow sprig with a waxy scent. "Sunmirth. Heals deep bruises and frostbite. Turns bitter if steeped too long." Aurelia's brow ticked upward. "Correct. Church herb, isn't it?" "Mostly used for stubborn old priests who fall off horses," Marcella murmured. "Or at least, that's what they told us." A soft chuckle. "Go on." Next, Marcella reached for a dusky green bloom with curled edges. She held it lightly between two fingers. "Wolfhearth. Looks harmless. Smells harmless. But one steeped petal will shut down your lungs in under ten minutes." Aurelia's smile sharpened. "And the last?" she asked. Marcella hesitated. 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...