The old Blackwood estate still stands—rotting, veiled, and forgotten in the hills beyond Noxvallis. But the ground remembers. Beneath its ruins lies the last secret of the bloodline. Asher and Ira descend into the truth that even the Oath couldn't kill. But someone is waiting—something older than them both.
The Journey Back
It wasn't a place on any map.
Even Kalon couldn't find it at first. But Ira knew.
"It was erased," she said, walking at Asher's side. "Not just hidden. The estate doesn't exist in memory, in records, or in spell-indexes. But it still stands. Because some bones remember where they were buried."
Noxvallis loomed behind them like a memory waiting to collapse.
But ahead, in the ash-soaked hills once called the Hollow Verge, a crumbled manor slept.
Blackwood Manor.
The first one. Not the one in the city, not the one Kalon rebuilt under illusion veils.
The original. The true one.
And it was built atop erased bones.
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The Threshold
They crossed through a veil made of silence itself—an ancient forgetfield, flickering in and out of existence like a skipped tape.
Time slowed.
Ira reached out to steady Asher as the two of them stepped across the threshold. The manor before them groaned as if waking up from centuries of false peace.
It had no roof anymore. Just a gaping wound of sky above and roots that clung to black stone walls, grown twisted with names etched deep into them.
"Do you feel that?" Ira whispered.
Asher nodded.
Something was watching them.
No… waiting.
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The Secret of the Erased Bones
Inside, the walls were lined with mirrors—shattered long ago. Not broken by hands. But by names. You could tell. They didn't fall outwards. They folded inward—as if the mirror didn't want to reflect what stood before it.
The floorboards were etched with timelines.
Each plank: a life, a version of the Blackwood line that had been erased.
Ira knelt beside one. "These are our siblings," she said.
Asher froze. "What?"
She ran her hand along the plank. It flickered—a child's face, maybe seven or eight years old, flickering into view and then gone.
"For every heir the Fifth Throne didn't like," Ira said coldly, "the Oath erased them. Removed them from memory, rewrote them. You and I weren't the only ones. Just the most stable."
Asher swallowed. "So the house isn't haunted. It's crowded."
She smiled bitterly. "And they all remember."
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The One Who Waits
In the deepest chamber beneath the floor—a hidden tomb not marked by signs or glyphs—they found it.
Not a corpse.
Not a statue.
But a figure of bone and forgotten ink, cloaked in tapestry threads that spelled every erased Blackwood name. Thousands.
It didn't move.
But it breathed.
When Asher stepped forward, it opened its eyes.
"You came back," it said. "The one who wasn't meant to exist."
Ira tensed. "What are you?"
The voice echoed not from its mouth, but from the names stitched into its body.
"I am the Ledger. The price. The balance for every truth the Blackwoods stole. I was created when the Oath was made. And I remain until all debts are paid."
Asher frowned. "Then you know what's coming."
"I am what's coming," the Ledger said. "I have waited for a Blackwood to reclaim their name. Now I must balance the scales."
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The True Origin of the Blackwoods
Ira stepped forward. "Before you take us, you tell him. All of it. No more riddles. No more lies."
And the Ledger complied.
The story came not in words, but visions—flooding Asher's mind like acid light.
The First Pact:
Long before Noxvallis, the Blackwoods were the custodians of a dying god's language—the last true divine tongue.
They were chosen to protect it, not speak it.
But one of them broke the rule. A girl named Vel-Aira, the origin of both Velvora and Ira, spoke a forbidden word to save her brother's life.
That word rewrote reality—but it also cursed their line to forever carry the burden of memory as a weapon.
The Oath:
The Eschatologers made the Blackwoods swear an Oath of Forgetting.
Every time a name was abused, a member of the family would be erased in exchange.
The family kept growing… and shrinking.
Every powerful Blackwood was a survivor of dozens of rewritten timelines.
"And you," the Ledger said to Asher, "were the anomaly. You were never meant to be born. You were the result of two forbidden names colliding."
Asher stared. "You mean Ira and—?"
"Vel-Aira's soul fractured. One piece became Ira. The other… you."
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The Ledger's Verdict
"You broke the cycle," the Ledger said. "You spoke your true name. Now I am free to act."
Ira stepped forward. "And what will you do?"
The chamber shook.
"Balance the world," the Ledger said. "Noxvallis cannot survive this truth unless its foundation is rebuilt."
"But people live there now," Asher snapped. "They've suffered enough."
"Then offer something in return," the Ledger said. "A new pact. A new cost."
Asher didn't hesitate.
"I'll offer the truth. All of it. No more forgetting. No more erased bones."
[End of Chapter 137]
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The Ledger accepts Asher's offer—but truth has its own hunger. And across Noxvallis, the name Asher Blackwood becomes a beacon. For gods. For enemies. For the buried.
Next Chapter:
Chapter 138 – "A Prayer Made of Teeth"
The city begins to shift around Asher's choice. Old gods demand sacrifice. And in the Gutter Temples, something begins to smile—a thing made of prayer, bone, and names never meant to be spoken aloud.