I. The Found Journal.
It began with the whisper of a floorboard.
Briar hadn’t slept in three nights. Not properly. Not since the piano. Not since him.
The dream last night was different. It wasn’t about Thorne voice or the cold touch of his breath on the nape of her neck. It was about a woman humming, softly, while staining her fingertips with ink. Her face was Briar’s—only older, and so impossibly tired.
When she awoke, she followed instinct—not memory.
Past the east corridor. Up the servant’s stairwell, where spiderwebs choked the railings. Into the attic.
There, beneath a trunk wrapped in chains, she found it.
An unmarked journal with torn lace tied around the spine.
It belonged to Mirena Elwood.
Her mother.
II. The Entries.
There were no dates. Only entries written in tension—pressed so hard the pen had almost torn the pages.
I was seventeen the first time the manor spoke to me. I thought it was madness. But madness does not ask you questions in your own voice.
The Elwood blood was never meant to survive—only serve. The pact is older than ink. Older than name.
We bind the shadow… so he can bear our sins.
Briar’s breath caught.
Shadow. Bound.
He isn't a ghost. He's the unmade son. The third act of a play the Elwoods never wanted to finish. My sister swears he was stillborn. She's lying.
He sang through the cellar walls the night after I miscarried. And I wept with guilt, because I’d rather hear his voice than silence.
Some entries trailed off midsentence. Some ended in what looked like scratches, too deliberate for carelessness.
They said he should never be touched, or he’ll forget who he is. But when I held his hand, he called me by name. Not “Mistress.” Not “Her.” Me.
He said: “Mirena, you will give birth to the girl who ends this.”
Briar closed the journal with numb fingers.
The last line vibrated in her ribs.
"He dreamed of me before I was born."
III. What the Pact Demands?
For the next two days, Briar devoured the rest.
Between ink-stained scrawl and burned corners, she reconstructed the truth:
The Elwood Line had inherited not power, but debt.
The estate itself was sentient, bound to a deal struck generations ago: hide a secret child below—the witness, the cage-bearer—and in return, the manor would protect the Elwood name from ruin, scandal, extinction.
That secret child was passed from generation to generation like a bruised relic. He lived through rites of silence, starvation, disassociation. Not dead. Contained.
Until Mirena broke the pact. She spoke to him. Touched him. Named him: THORNE.
“He is not a monster. The pact makes him one. But when I kissed his forehead, he said, ‘Thank you for remembering I’m not your punishment.”
The final pages had been ripped out.
But one lingered.
A blood smear shaped like a key.
IV. What the Manor Wants Now?
That night, Briar stood beneath the chandelier and stared up into the rafters. The air smelled of burnt cedar and antique velvet.
The manor trembled.
Not visibly. But within her chest. Like it was waiting.
She felt it in her bloodstream—something turning.
Then she heard it.
A melody.
Low. Slow. Sung from the piano below.
She descended the spiral stair with bare feet. Her nightdress caught on old wood. The nearer she got to the source, the warmer the air became.
At the instrument, Thorne sat. Fingers barely moving.
He didn’t look up.
“She never forgave herself for leaving,” he said.
“My mother?”
He nodded once. “She knew I’d survive. But she was afraid I’d become something surviving.”
Briar stepped closer. Her throat ached.
“What are you becoming, Thorne?”
Now he looked at her.
A slow, dangerous smile unfurled on his lips.
“What you’ll either cage… or crown.”
V. The Truth Beneath.
They stood face to face.
He didn’t move. Neither did she.
“The pact was broken the moment you returned,” Thorne said.
“Then why am I still breathing?”
“Because I asked the house to give you time.”
Her breath hitched. “Why?”
He leaned closer.
“Because I want you to understand that once I’m no longer beneath this place, I don’t plan on being loved gently.”
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