chapter four : Threads of the Past

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# Cursed Heart

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The library was the oldest part of Crowhurst manor, its walls lined with towering shelves of books whose spines had faded to dust-colored hues. Some were family records, others grim tomes of history and lore, and many were locked behind iron clasps that only their mother carried keys for.

Ash stood in the lantern’s glow, fingers brushing over cracked leather bindings, restless with purpose. Sleep had not come since Rose spoke her name into the night. Her voice still lingered in his veins, and the warning in her eyes had burned itself into him. *Bound.*

Nyra trailed behind him, clutching a candle. The wavering flame cast long shadows across her face, but her eyes gleamed with both fear and curiosity. “Ash,” she whispered, “if Mother finds us here…”

“Then she’ll have to tell me the truth,” Ash muttered, pulling a heavy volume from the shelf. He let it fall onto the table, sending up a cloud of dust. The title, in faded gold script, read *Legends of Ebonvale*.

Nyra hesitated. “You think Rose is in there?”

Ash opened the book, pages brittle under his fingers. He skimmed lines of myth and folklore: accounts of spirits that haunted rivers, trees that bled when cut, lovers who turned to stone in the moonlight. But then his eyes caught on something—an illustration of a girl cloaked in mist, her eyes inked in violet.

His breath caught.

Nyra leaned over his shoulder, her hand flying to her mouth. “That’s her.”

Ash read aloud, his voice rough.

> *In the year of the Black Moon, a maiden of great beauty was betrayed by one she loved. Bound to the forest by blood and grief, her spirit lingers between the realms of life and death. She is known as the Cursed Heart of Ebonvale. To speak her name is to call her forth; to seek her is to risk one’s soul. It is said she waits for the one who can break her chains… but the price is eternal.*

He fell silent, the words echoing in his mind. *Eternal.*

Nyra swallowed. “Ash, if this is true—if she really is the cursed maiden—then she’s dangerous.”

“No,” Ash said, too quickly. He turned to face his sister, fire burning in his chest. “She’s not dangerous. She’s suffering. She’s trapped.”

Nyra’s eyes softened, but fear lingered there too. “And you think you can free her?”

Ash didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

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Later that day, as the rain beat harder against the windows, Thalia Crowhurst found her children in the drawing room. Her expression was unreadable, but Ash saw the subtle tension in the way her hands clasped together, the faint crease in her brow.

“You were in the library last night,” she said flatly.

Nyra paled. Ash straightened. “Yes. We were.”

Thalia’s eyes narrowed on him, sharp as blades. “And what foolishness did you uncover?”

Ash clenched his fists. “The truth. About the cursed maiden of Ebonvale. About Rose.”

The name landed like a thunderclap. For a fleeting moment, his mother’s face broke—fear, grief, anger—all flashing through her eyes before she masked them again.

“You will not speak her name in this house,” Thalia said, her voice like steel.

“Why?” Ash demanded, stepping forward. “Why do you forbid it? Who was she to you?”

Thalia’s lips pressed thin. “She was no one. A story, nothing more.”

“Lies,” Ash spat. His heart thundered with frustration. “She’s real. I’ve seen her. I’ve spoken with her. She’s not just some ghost in a story. She’s alive—trapped, but alive.”

Nyra’s eyes darted nervously between them. “Mother, please—”

But Thalia silenced her with a single look, then turned back to Ash. “You don’t understand what you’re meddling with. That girl is cursed, Ash. To seek her is to doom yourself. Do you want to share her fate? Do you want your soul bound to the forest for eternity?”

Ash hesitated, the warning sharp in his ears. But then Rose’s eyes returned to him in memory—violet, aching, desperate.

“Yes,” he said finally, his voice trembling but unyielding. “If that’s what it takes.”

Nyra gasped. Thalia’s hand tightened around the back of the chair, her knuckles white. For a moment, silence reigned, broken only by the storm outside.

“You are your father’s son,” she said bitterly at last.

Ash froze. “What do you mean?”

Thalia’s gaze turned away, her eyes shadowed by memories she did not wish to recall. “Your father thought he could change fate too. He thought he could wrestle with curses and win. And it killed him.”

Ash’s heart clenched. His father, Orin Crowhurst, had died when Ash was young, leaving only fragments of memory—a tall figure, a gentle voice, a laugh that filled the halls. Thalia had never spoken of how he died. Until now.

“He… knew of her?” Ash asked, his throat dry.

Thalia’s silence was answer enough.

The storm raged louder, rattling the windows as though the forest itself was listening. Ash felt the ground shift beneath him, as if the pieces of his life had been rearranged, forming a pattern he hadn’t seen before.

Rose. His father. The curse.

He met his mother’s eyes, defiant. “Then I will finish what he started.”

Thalia’s face hardened, sorrow buried beneath steel. “If you love your life, you will stay away from her. If you love your family, you will not drag us into her shadow again.”

She turned and swept from the room, her presence leaving behind a chill heavier than the storm.

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That night, Ash lay awake in the dark, Nyra’s quiet breathing steady in the room beyond, his mother’s warning still echoing. He thought of his father, of a man who had once stood where he stood now, pulled toward the same impossible fate. And he thought of Rose—her sorrow, her name, the way her voice trembled when she begged him to go.

*Bound.*

He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the thud of his heartbeat. It was no longer just his own—it carried her ache, her loneliness, her curse.

And no matter what his mother said, he could not let her remain in chains.

Ash rose before dawn, cloak in hand, and stepped once more toward the mist of Ebonvale.

The forest awaited.

And so did she.

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