Chapter 20: Beneath the Family Seal
The summons came in the form of silence.
Selena found it folded into the corner of her journal—blank parchment, no ink, but when she touched it, she knew. The Pale Assembly wanted her to retrieve something—something hidden beneath the Dumornay archives. Something old. Something true.
She said nothing to Loki at first.
That evening, as they sat on opposite sides of a flickering brazier, she finally spoke. "I need to go beneath the estate."
Loki paused mid-bite. His expression darkened, not from fear—but memory. "You know that's not just a vault. It's a crypt. The walls remember you. The doors ask questions."
Selena nodded. "The Assembly believes there's a fragment of the original pact sealed in stasis below your family's archives. Before the Sequences. Before the bloodlines."
He leaned forward. "And if Magnus catches you?"
"Then I improvise."
Loki studied her for a long time. "You shouldn't go alone."
She met his gaze. "But I must. The wards will reject anyone of Dumornay blood. That includes you."
Something passed between them—unspoken, taut. Not just worry. Not just mission.
Loki's fingers twitched. "Then at least take this." He slid a slender ring across the floor. "It's my old archive sigil. Might open a door or two. Or stall a blade."
She picked it up gently, their hands nearly touching. "You're not as careless as you pretend."
He smiled faintly. "And you're not as untouchable as you act."
A beat of silence stretched between them.
"Come back save," he said quietly.
"I always do."
He watched her leave, the firelight catching in her hair like threads of dusk.
As Selena slipped into the city beneath the veil of dusk, Loki remained behind. But he wasn't idle for long. That night, he was approached in the smoke-drenched corridors of a dying bathhouse—by a figure wrapped in charred cloth and a voice that burned without heat.
"The shadows say you no longer dance with your kin, Loki Dumornay."
He didn't flinch. "The shadows talk too much."
"You shouldn't be left behind, Trickster. Not when there's so much yet to undo."
He smirked, though his eyes were sharp. "Let me guess. Severants?"
"One of many names. One of few truths. We offer you a choice. Join us. Unmake what binds you. Burn the Sequences. Rewrite them in flame."
"Flattery's charming, but I'm not in the mood to light the world on fire."
The Severant leaned closer. "But the world already burns. Your family kindled it long ago. You've seen the rot. The illusion. The control."
He said nothing.
The Severant extended a hand. "You are Dumornay, yes. But you are also the fracture. The error in their lineage. The flame they failed to contain."
Loki stared at the hand.
And for a moment, his fingers moved.
Then he turned, vanishing into the steam.
But something in him had heard the call.
He didn't look back.
Beneath the Dumornay estate, Selena moved like a wraith through corridors lined with marble and runes. The ancestral wards recoiled at her presence, but she carried Loki's sigil. It shimmered faintly, allowing her passage—just enough.
She descended deeper than she ever thought possible. Below the archives. Below the vaults. Into a silence too old to have a name.
Here, the walls curved unnaturally. Here, the portraits blinked. Here, time curled.
At last, she found it: a chamber door etched with the Seeker's mark—old, primal, and not quite human. Bound in thread-thin silver runes that pulsed with memory.
Her hand hovered above it.
"Selena."
The voice was unmistakable.
Magnus.
She turned slowly.
He stood cloaked in shadow, arms crossed. "You move like a thief."
"Maybe I am. Maybe you left this where someone would steal it."
"You shouldn't be here."
She stepped forward. "But I am."
Magnus's tone shifted. "You don't understand what this vault holds. That pact—it is not history. It's a burden. A weapon."
"Then why hide it instead of destroy it?"
"Because even I do not know if it can be destroyed."
Selena studied him. "You fear it."
"No," he said softly. "I fear what it might awaken—in you. In him."
She frowned. "Him?"
Magnus said nothing.
She turned back to the door.
And opened it.
Inside hovered a single feather—black, rimmed in violet light, suspended in amber stasis. Not avian. Not mortal.
As she reached for it, the chamber groaned like an ancient heart. Whispers slithered into her mind. Names. Symbols. A city of glass beneath the world. Images flashed—an eye sewn shut with thread, a spiral staircase descending into an ocean of mirrors, and a faceless figure waiting at the bottom.
She touched it.
And the vault screamed.
Outside, far above, the Dumornay estate trembled. Books fell from shelves. Candles extinguished. Runes flared.
Somewhere in the depths of the city, a child with no name looked up. A symbol shimmered across her palm—half-formed, ancient. She whispered a name she did not know.
And smiled.