003: The Vault Of Winter

...CHAPTER 003: THE VAULT OF WINTER...

^^^Thornfield Manor, Yorkshire – 3:17 AM^^^

The manor’s east wing loomed like a carcass picked clean by time. Adrian’s torchlight skittered over collapsed ceilings and vines strangling the remnants of grandeur. Somewhere in the rot, Arthur Lennox had buried a secret for him. For them.

Liora materialized beside him, translucent as mist. “The vault is below the library. The floor will try to drown you.”

Adrian glared at the spectral outline. “You’re helpful tonight.”

“I’m desperate.” Liora’s form flickered, his edges bleeding into the dark. “What’s left of me… it’s tied to the box.”

Adrian didn’t ask what that meant. He’d spent the drive here choking on Eva’s absence—her laughter still ringing in the Land Rover’s silence, her blood still crusted under his nails. Grief was a blade, but rage? Rage was a fuel.

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The floorboards groaned. Adrian pried up a rotting rug to reveal a trapdoor, its iron ring frozen shut. Liora hovered closer, breath crystallizing in the air. “They’ll come. The current Lennox heir. His name is—”

“Silas” Adrian muttered. The quarry owner. The man who’d patted his back at Eva’s funeral with oil-slick condolences. “He ships granite to Prague. Uses the same freight routes as his ancestors.”

Liora stiffened. “You knew?”

“I suspect.” Adrian threw the trapdoor open. A staircase spiraled into blackness. “Stay here. Play ghost.”

“No.”

The refusal hung between them, sharp as the ice thickening on the walls. Adrian descended.

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The Vault

The chamber stank of damp earth and iron. Adrian’s light found a rusted strongbox atop a plinth, its surface etched with serpents. Arthur’s crest. His own crest, if the visions were true.

Footsteps echoed above. Silas’s voice slithered down the stairs: “That’s family property, Detective.”

Adrian unsheathed Eva’s switchblade—the one she’d carried since secondary school. “Come claim it.”

A gunshot rang out. Plaster rained down. Adrian ducked, clutching the box. Its lock shattered under his blade. Inside: a flintlock pistol, a bundle of letters, and a wedding band engraved with Always.

Liora’s scream fractured the air.

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*Vision*

Arthur, 1793, bloodied and breathless in the vault. He stuffs the box with shaking hands. “They’ll come for you, Li. But I’ve bound the curse to our line. As long as a Lennox lives, you’ll return. As long as you return, I’ll find you.”

Liora’s ghostly hand grips his. “At what cost?”

Arthur slides the ring onto his finger. “Everything.”

---

Adrian staggered back, the vision clinging like cobwebs. Above, Silas reloaded. Liora flickered at the vault’s entrance, his form unraveling. “The ring” he pleaded. “Put it on.”

“Will it kill you?” Adrian’s throat burned.

“It’ll free me.”

Another shot. Adrian felt the bullet graze his ribs before he heard the bang. Blood seeped through his coat. Liora cried out—a sound that cracked the walls, frost surging like a living thing to encase Silas’s legs.

Adrian slid the ring onto his finger.

The world split.

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The Threshold

Liora’s lips found his, cold and crushing. Adrian’s blood steamed where their skin met. Memories detonated—Arthur’s hands in Liora’s hair, the taste of lemon cakes, a vow whispered through tears. Adrian’s knees buckled.

“I’m sorry” Liora breathed against his mouth. “For Eva. For all of it.”

The frost spread, consuming Silas’s screams. Liora pulled back, his body luminous, fracturing. “It’s your turn to run, Detective.”

The ring burned. The vault collapsed.

Adrian woke in the moors at dawn, the box clutched to his chest.

In his palm, the ring’s inscription glinted: Always.

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Ephemera

- Arthur’s Final Letter (unopened): Addresses “Adrian” in 1793 script.

- Echoes: Frost now follows Adrian like a shadow.

- Found days later, grinning, a silver hair in his fist, Silias...

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To be continued...