The Valemire Manor sat nestled between the gentle inclines of the Caelondor hills, its pale grey stone swallowing the morning light rather than reflecting it. From a distance, it appeared noble — symmetrical wings of carved granite, black-tiled rooftops like folded wings, and tall spires that clawed against the sky. But closer... the cracks showed. Ivy, once trimmed and decorative, had grown wild along the eastern wing. The garden fountains were still, choked by leaves. Even the windows — dozens of them, stretching from cellar to tower — were glazed in a dust no one bothered to clean.
It wasn't abandoned.
Just unloved.
The manor's southern flank stared out into the woods — a dense, brooding forest locals called The Whispering Tangle. A name earned from the wind's strange song through its twisted boughs. No one ventured there, save the guards or the desperate. Some said it had grown thicker these past few years, like the land itself was drawing a curtain around House Valemart.
Within the manor, the cold was not from stone or season, but blood.
Lady Calistra Valemire, elder sister to the Lord, held dominion over the house like a spider across her web. Her posture was perfect. Her words, venom dressed in silk. She called herself the true guardian of the household — a steward during her brother's... unfortunate condition.
That condition being the silent, still body that once belonged to Lord Alric Valemire. Once a famed soldier of the Crown, now bedridden and unseeing. They said he still breathed. They said his heart still beat. But his eyes — pale and empty — stared through the ceiling like he was already buried.
Her son, Alger, was a swollen echo of his mother. Younger, fatter, louder. He wore pride like perfume and wielded cowardice like a dagger. He often paraded through the manor as if preparing for a coronation that would never come. The other family members — cousins, in-laws, distant nobles clinging to relevance — orbited Calistra like moths to a bitter flame.
And the buy named Lucian?
He was a ghost with a pulse.
Heir by blood. Son of a war hero and a feared mage. But no one said her name here. Not anymore. Not out loud. Her name?
Seraphyne.
The Witch of Ruin.
Even now, years after her departure, her presence clung to the house like a curse. Servants paused when walking past her old quarters. Her old books were burned. Her tapestries torn down.
They blamed her for Lord Alric's fall. For the shame. For the rumors. For her magic. For birthing a child touched by the arcane.
And Lucian bore that weight in silence.
When he walked, servants looked past him. When he spoke, they acted deaf. When he entered a room, it was as if the warmth left first. His meals were brought to his chambers, not out of respect, but rejection. He had stopped attending family meals years ago — each chair around the long mahogany table felt like a blade pointed at him.
But even in isolation, Lucian's presence made them uneasy. For the boy had developed a witty tongue and blessed looks, like his mother.
The prodigy mage. The cursed boy. The son of the Witch.
And the unspoken truth — the thing no one dared utter — was that Lucian's magic had been sealed. The "trauma," they said, had taken it. A convenient story. Padded with potions and empty sympathy. But it was not trauma that left his body hollow.
It was treachery.
The manor had become a house in waiting. Waiting for Alric to die. Waiting for Lucian to disappear. Waiting for a new name to take the estate — Alger, they whispered. Calistra's boy.
The Valemart crest, once proudly hung over the hearth — a silver lion under a three-pointed star — now hung behind layers of dust and shadow. Even the walls seemed to groan under the weight of history it no longer wished to carry.
But something was changing.
In the woods, the wind had shifted.
And in a small, high room in the western wing, a boy sat with ink-stained fingers, painting not magic, but a sword.