The storm came without warning.
Rain drummed against Verrath's rooftops like fists upon coffins, and the canals frothed black under the weight of it. Selena woke to the rattle of shutters, half-dreaming of bells that refused to stop ringing.
Her lamp had burned out. Only the lightning gave shape to her room: the narrow desk, the half-open chest of scrolls, the locket glinting faintly on her night table. She swung her legs over the side of the cot and listened. Beneath the wind, a sound persisted—three slow knocks at the door.
She froze.
No one visited her, not at midnight, not ever. The knocks came again, deliberate, patient.
Selena grabbed the small knife she kept by the ledger and crossed to the door.
"Who is it?"
Silence—then a voice, muffled and low, distorted by the storm.
"Delivery for S. Virell. Signature required."
Her heart stumbled. No one used that name anymore. She hesitated, then unlatched the bolt.
The door swung open against the wind.
A figure stood in the rain: tall, wrapped in a long waxed cloak, the hood drawn low over a smooth black mask. Water streamed from every edge of him. In his gloved hand, a sealed parcel—the glimmer of crystal beneath soaked paper.
Selena said carefully, "You're from the Guild?"
"No guild." His voice was rough, accented. "I deliver what's left behind." He extended the parcel. "From Lira Virell."
Her mother's name struck harder than the wind. "That's impossible," she whispered. "She's—"
"Sign here." He produced a small slate, the surface slick with rain.
She hesitated, then scrawled an S across it. When she looked up again, the courier was already turning away.
"Wait! Who sent—"
The street was empty. Only rain and the echo of boots fading into fog.
...
Selena closed the door and leaned against it, breathing hard. The room felt smaller now, walls pressing close with damp and shadow. She peeled the paper from the parcel. Inside lay a letter, sealed with wax bearing a crest she hadn't seen in ten years, the six-pointed star and a small vial of clear crystal, stoppered with gold wire.
The vial shimmered faintly, as though it caught light that wasn't there.
She set it on the table, staring.
The letter's parchment was stained at the edges, ink blurred but legible:
To my daughter, Selena
If this reaches you, then Verrath still stands, though perhaps not for long. Within this vessel lies what the Guild sought to bury. It is bound to your blood; none but you may wake it. Guard it, or destroy it. The choice must be yours. — Lira Virell.
Selena read the lines twice, then three times. Her fingers shook.
"Bound to my blood?" she murmured. "What does that mean, Mother?"
She turned the vial in her hand. No liquid moved inside, it was as if mist lived within the glass, swirling slowly like breath trapped in ice.
A knock of thunder made her flinch.
Old Brann's words from that morning drifted back: In Verrath, everything returns. Even the dead.
"Foolish," she whispered. "It's just residue. A keepsake."
Still, she couldn't look away. The mist within seemed to pulse faintly, almost to the rhythm of her heartbeat. She told herself she would examine it properly tomorrow at the Archives, with tools and light and reason.
But curiosity, the one inheritance she could never bury, gnawed at her.
She pricked her finger on the knife's tip. A bead of blood welled scarlet in the lamplight.
Just a test, she thought. Proof that it's nothing.
She let the drop fall onto the vial.
For a breath, nothing happened. Then—light.
A soft, impossible glow spilled from the crystal, warm as sunrise, pushing shadows to the corners of the room. The mist within twisted, forming filaments like veins, and a low hum filled the air. Selena stumbled back, heart hammering.
"Stop," she whispered, as if the thing might obey.
The glow brightened. Letters flared across the glass alchemical runes, her mother's handwriting etched in light: REMEMBER.
Then the voice came.
Soft as breath against her ear.
"Selena."
She froze.
"Selena," it said again female, distant, threaded with echoes. "You found it at last."
Her knife clattered to the floor. "Mother?"
No answer, only that whispering hum rising to a pitch that rattled the windowpanes. The vial pulsed once more, then dimmed abruptly, the light collapsing inward until only a faint ember glowed at its core.
Selena stood shaking, the silence rushing back so fast it hurt her ears.
The storm still raged outside, but the room was utterly still. She could smell ozone, like after lightning, and something sweeter—burned flowers, the scent she remembered from her mother's workshop.
She backed to the wall, clutching her bleeding finger. The vial lay on the table, innocent now, faintly warm.
"Brann will know what to do," she whispered. "He'll know."
But the thought of explaining, of showing anyone, twisted her stomach. If the Guild learned she'd received anything from Lira Virell, she'd be dragged before the Purists by dawn.
Another flash of lightning lit the window reflects her haggard and tired face.
Hours later, the storm quieted. The ash had vanished. Selena sat at her desk again, the vial wrapped in linen, the letter folded carefully inside her coat. Her mind whirled. Every theory collapsed into the same impossible truth: her mother had sent her something alive.
She doesn't even know how to feel about this... happy?
She stared at the covered shape until dawn began to thin the fog. Outside, the city bells tolled unevenly. Three short, two long.
The Guild's signal for contagion.
Selena rose slowly, dread sinking in. She crossed to the window. The first light of morning revealed a street glittering strangely, as though frost had taken it.
But it wasn't frost.
Dockworkers stood motionless below, their forms crumbling to powder, glittering ash catching the wind.
And from somewhere beyond the harbor came the sound of screaming.
Selena looked down at her wrapped hands, the faint pulse still coming from beneath the linen, and whispered, "Mother… what have you done?"