Page 50 of The Vespertine Treaty

The first echoes were a jumble of cold, dispassionate authority. The feeling of being watched, of being judged. The faint hum of fear from unseen servants, moving like clockwork to avoid punishment.

I walked deeper into the estate, drawn to a set of heavy, carved oak doors that stood slightly ajar. I pushed them open and stepped into what had once been a child’s room.

It was a perfectly preserved tomb of a childhood. There were no splashes of colour, no scattered drawings, no mess. Just a single toy: a small, wooden horse carved with exquisite detail, sitting on a shelf too high for a small child to reach.

I reached out, my fingers hovering over the wooden horse.

I felt it immediately. The echo of a child's hand.

Warmth.A tiny, fragile burst of warmth in a world of ice. The sensation of small fingers tracing the wood, whispering stories to the horse because there was no one else to listen.

But the joy was quickly snuffed out by a cold, dispassionate emotion that slammed into the memory like a hammer. The feeling of being watched. The feeling of being graded.

I gasped, pulling my hand back. The residual emotion was suffocating—the heavy weight of expectations, the crushing pressure of a father’s disapproval. It tasted like ash and iron.

“This isn’t just a memory,”Poppy's voice was a low whisper now, her usual sass replaced with a quiet sense of foreboding.“This is a graveyard.”

I moved on, my heart heavy. I wandered through more of the estate, guided by the phantom pain in the air.

I found a study filled with ancient tomes on dark magic and Cenite law. I touched the spine of a book titledThe Discipline of the Voidand felt a sharp, sudden pang of pain.

The feeling of a child’s confusion.Why does it hurt?

Then, terror. The terror of a small boy forced to look at the world as a source of pain and nothing more. He was taught to shut it out, to build walls, to kill the part of himself that wanted to cry.

I found a music room with a grand black piano, sitting in a pool of moonlight.

I sat on the bench, the plush velvet cold beneath me. I ran my fingers over the keys without pressing them, and a ghostly echo of a single, haunting melody filled my mind.

The notes were sad and beautiful, resonating with a deep, profound yearning—the raw, isolated wish of a child who craved escape. It wasn't a complex symphony; it was a simple, repetitive tune, like a lullaby sung to oneself in the dark.

I closed my eyes, letting the phantom music wash over me. I felt a flicker of something I hadn't felt for Cain before—a profound sense of pity. Not for the Prince, but for the boy who had played this song to keep the silence at bay.

Just as I pulled my hand from the keys, a dry, echoing voice drifted down from a high, unseen ledge.

“Don’t stop the music, little Aenite. That’s the only decent thing that ever came out of this miserable wing,” Friedrik’s voice boomed, clear and sharp.

I spun around, searching the shadows. “Friedrik?”

“He hasn’t played that since his sister and mother died,” the gargoyle continued, his voice unusually soft, almost reverent. “Utterly tragic. The poor child had talent, and that brute of a father crushed it, along with everything else. Told him music was a 'leak' in the vessel. Can you imagine? Calling beauty a leak?”

I gasped. The raw confirmation of my deepest emotional find—the music, the sister’s death, the mother's death—was stunning.

My focus sharpened, drawing me inward, away from Cain's ghost and back toward my own. I thought of Aemelia, and the profound realisation hit me: everything I was—my resilience, my inclination to find goodness, and the deep, abiding need for connection—was built on the ashes of my own childhood.

The memory rushed up to meet me, visceral and sharp.

The familiar, cold feeling of the Aeternian schoolyard surfaced, the stone biting at my thin knees. I was twelve, two years past the familiar bond age, yet still the ghost of the Ashworth name.

The older girls from House Valerius—cousins of Caspian—had me cornered behind the training wards. Their cruel laughter tasted like bitter metal in my mind.

"The Blighted Ashworth," one hissed, shoving me against the freezing wall. "Your father was treasonous. Your mother is pathetic. Why do you even bother coming here? You smell like failure."

My cheek stung where she had struck me. I didn't dare use my Empathy; its uncontrolled surge of pain would only fuel their hatred. I stood rigid, tears burning, wishing the ground would open and swallow the Ashworth blight whole.

I felt the dissociative hum starting—the grey fog I used to survive my mother’s coldness.I am not here. I am a stone. Stones don't feel.

My father had died when I was eleven, and the last time I remembered him truly looking at me was to criticise my posture.“Stand straight, Ophelia. You look like a wilting weed. Do not embarrass me.”That was the eulogy of our relationship.