What the House Buried

Aurelia returned home with three conclusions. Minister Vale’s assassination had never been as simple as she remembered. Her seventeen-year-old body carried wounds it had never received. And something beneath Veyne Manor knew her name.

She disliked all three equally.

The carriage had barely stopped when Aurelia opened the door herself.

“My lady–” Mira began.

“I need Father.”

“The Duke is in the east wing.”

Aurelia crossed the entrance hall before the footman could announce her. She had almost reached the stairs when Lucien appeared in the corridor, holding a book and an apple.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“That answer has become increasingly threatening since yesterday.”

“I need to find Father.”

Lucien followed her. “Why?”

“I need to ask him about the manor.”

He hesitated...Barely.

Aurelia stopped. “What do you know?”

“Nothing.”

“You paused.”

“I breathed.”

“You paused before breathing.”

“That is generally when breathing happens.”

“Lucien.”

He sighed. “There are old sections beneath the western wing. Storage rooms, wine cellars, family archives. Theron and I found one when we were children.”

Aurelia’s attention sharpened.

“What did you find?”

Lucien’s humor faded. “A door.”

He pulled her into an empty drawing room before explaining.

They had been fourteen and twelve. Behind the old wine cellar, they’d found a passage leading underground to a sealed black door.

“Black thorns around a silver eye?” Aurelia asked. “Eight grooves?”

Lucien’s face lost color.

That was answer enough.

“Father found us there,” he said. “I’ve never seen him that angry. He made us swear never to return.”

“Swear how?”

Lucien frowned.

“The exact words.”

After a moment, he recited them.

“I swear by the blood of House Veyne that I will not cross the sealed threshold beneath this house.”

Aurelia went cold.

“Did Father cut you?”

Lucien stared. “How did you know?”

Before she could answer, the door opened.

Theron stood there, he looked at Lucien.

“You told her.”

“Apparently,” Aurelia said, “everyone in this family knows about the underground door except me.”

“You were seven,” Theron replied.

“I was still a member of the family.”

“You ate candle wax.”

“That has nothing to do with this.”

“You thought it was cheese.”

“I was seven.”

“Precisely.”

Aurelia glared at him. “Father made you swear a blood oath.”

Theron’s amusement disappeared.

“Our family’s Inheritance comes from blood-witnessed oaths,” she continued. “Father knew exactly what he was doing.”

Neither brother answered.

Then Lucien said quietly, “Grandfather used to hear voices.”

Aurelia froze.

Duke Edric Veyne.

White hair. Trembling hands. Years confined to the western wing while servants whispered that his mind had deteriorated.

And suddenly, Aurelia remembered a song.

She was six, perhaps. Sitting beside his bed while rain struck the windows.

Seven crowns for seven graves.

Seven names the world still saves.

Then–

Nothing.

Her head began to hurt. For a moment she heard another voice beneath her grandfather’s. A woman’s.

Eight.

Aurelia opened her eyes.

“Take me to the door.”

Both brothers answered immediately.

“No.”

It took Aurelia forty-two minutes to escape them.

She considered that humiliating.

The western wing was older than the rest of the manor. Pale marble eventually gave way to dark mountain stone, and Aurelia began noticing details she’d ignored all her life.

Above one archway, the Veyne eye was surrounded by eight black thorns.

Eight.

She found the old wine cellar and, after several minutes of searching, discovered scratches beneath a shelving unit.

Behind it was an iron ring.

The stone panel resisted her strength, so Aurelia found a poker and used it for leverage.

“Better.”

A narrow passage opened.

Cold air touched her face.

She took a candle and descended. Dust covered the stairs, but not evenly. Someone had been here recently. At the bottom, covered portraits lined the corridor. Aurelia pulled the cloth from the nearest.

A woman stared back at her, she had dark hair and gold eyes. A white streak hidden beneath the black.

Aurelia lifted the candle.

The woman’s name had been deliberately scratched away. The next portrait showed the same features. The third had been cut from its frame entirely. Then Aurelia reached the door, black stone, silver eye. Eight thorn-shaped grooves. Exactly as she’d seen it. Her heartbeat.

The door answered.

THUMP.

Aurelia stopped.

THUMP.

“So it was you.”

Ancient writing surrounded the frame.

WITNESS.

Parts had been destroyed.

REMEMBER.

Near the bottom, one sentence survived.

WHAT IS WITNESSED CANNOT BE UNMADE.

“That seems ominous.”

Something clicked behind her.

A recess had opened in the wall.

Inside sat a black book stamped with a silver eye.

It was obviously forbidden.

Probably dangerous.Almost certainly the reason her father had nearly murdered two children. Aurelia picked it up.

Of course she did.

Inside were generations of Veyne names, births, deaths and oaths. Some had been scratched away so violently the paper had torn.

Then Aurelia turned a page.

Eight names.

Seven belonged to houses she knew.

Edrienne.

Mareth.

Solvair.

Sorn.

Arcel.

Two others.

The eighth had been buried beneath black ink. Underneath them was a sentence.

THE SEVEN SHALL FORGET.

Aurelia turned the page.

THE EIGHTH SHALL BE FORGOTTEN.

Her breath stopped.

Seven kingdoms.

Seven crowns.

Yet everywhere she looked, eight.

She turned again.

Most of the page had been torn away.

One sentence remained.

AND VEYNE SHALL REMEMBER FOR THEM.

The door slammed behind her.

Her candle died.

Darkness swallowed the corridor.

Then a woman’s voice whispered beside her ear.

“You came back.”

Aurelia’s dagger was in her hand instantly.

“Show yourself.”

Nothing. 

“Who are you?”

The answer came from the walls. “Not who.”

Aurelia went still. “Then what?”

“Memory.”

“Whose?”

A pause.

“Yours.”

Something struck her mind. Snow. Fire. Caelan screaming her name. Her sword through his body. Her execution. Then memories she had never lived. A woman standing before eight thrones. Seven rulers kneeling.

An eighth man bleeding.

A girl holding a crown.

Aurelia dropped to one knee. Ruby flooded her eyes... “Stop.”

The voice whispered again.

“You asked us to remember.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You will.”

Light suddenly flooded the corridor.

“Aurelia!”

Theron came down the stairs with a lantern and sword, Lucien directly behind him.

Theron reached her first.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

He stared at her ruby eyes.

Then at the book.

“That is becoming my least favorite word.”

Lucien arrived, breathing hard. “We told you not to come down here.”

“You told me you wouldn’t bring me. Different statement.”

Theron looked briefly homicidal.

Then Aurelia glanced down.

The book had changed.

Every page was blank.

“No.”

She flipped backward.

Nothing.

“There were eight names.”

Theron crouched beside her. “What?”

“The founding houses. Eight of them. It said the Seven would forget, the Eighth would be forgotten, and Veyne would remember.”

Theron’s expression tightened.

“Aurelia…there are only seven founding houses.”

“I know.”

The words came out sharper than intended.

Behind them, one of the eight grooves in the door began glowing red.

Lucien stared.

“That wasn’t there before.”

Aurelia grabbed Theron’s arm before he could approach.

“Don’t touch it.”

“Why?”

She thought of the Crown opening beneath her blood.

The voice.

You came back.

Aurelia released him.

“We’re getting Father.”

For once, neither brother argued. Duke Alaric Veyne was already waiting in the wine cellar. Seraphine stood beside him. His eyes immediately found the black book in Aurelia’s hands. Every trace of color left his face.

“Where did you get that?”

“Behind the door.”

“You opened it?”

“No.”

He took the book and flipped through the blank pages. His hands were shaking.

Aurelia had never seen that before. “Father. What is it?”

“You should never have gone down there.”

“I’ve gathered that.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“I know.”

Her temper finally broke through.

“For two days, everyone has known pieces of my own life that I don’t. A dead man’s blood showed me his intentions. A healer found wounds in my body that haven’t happened yet. I keep finding eight where there should be seven, something beneath this house knows my name, and now I’ve read a book claiming an eighth founding house was deliberately forgotten.”

Alaric went completely still.

There.

Aurelia saw it.

“You know.”

“No.”

“There were eight founding houses.”

“No.”

“Then tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong.”

Too fast.

Aurelia smiled without humor.

“You taught me better than that.”

She stepped closer.

“What did Grandfather mean when he warned you about the dead remembering through us?”

Alaric’s eyes widened. “And what does this mean?”

Aurelia spoke the words she’d heard. “We shall witness what others refuse to see…and when the world forgets us–”

The book fell from Alaric’s hands.

Nobody moved.

Aurelia looked at her father.

“How does it end?”

He stared at her as though she’d spoken with a dead woman’s voice.

“Who told you those words?”

“The Crown.”

Alaric closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he looked frightened.

“Aurelia…you didn’t go back in time.”

Silence.

“What?”

“I believe you remember twenty-six years of life. I believe you remember wars that haven’t happened, deaths that haven’t occurred and people none of us have met yet.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Alaric looked toward the passage beneath their home.

“House Veyne does not inherit sight.”

His voice dropped.

“We inherit memory.”

Far beneath their feet, the eighth groove began to burn.