The world outside Blake Castle had dulled into bitter frost and silence, but inside Elise's chest, the violence of the confrontation with his father still burned. Words like curses still echoed in the hollows of his memory — threats of disownment, the demand to submit to the Blake legacy or be cast out.
He had retreated to his room in cold defiance, surrounded by the austere stone and shadows that once felt like safety. But that night, as the winds howled against the castle walls and all lay quiet, a flicker of strange warmth touched the edges of his senses.
It began as a soft pulse in the air. A soundless call — ancient and full of longing.
Elise stood from his bed. The fate point counter in his mind blinked faintly, registering an anomaly. He followed the pull, not with logic, but with instinct. Down the silent corridors, past the family portraits that seemed to sneer at his rebellion, out into the snowy courtyard.
And then he saw it.
A phoenix — but not like Dumbledore's Fawkes. This one shimmered with a deeper hue: feathers of nightfire and dusk, eyes that held both time and grief. It perched silently on the stone railing, waiting. Elise knew, without being told, that it had come for him. And only him.
No words passed between them. The phoenix extended a claw, and instinctively, Elise stepped forward.
In a blink of flame and wind, they were gone from Blake Castle.
Flame enveloped Elise, but it did not burn.
Instead, it warmed him from within, like an old lullaby he had forgotten yet instinctively remembered. The wind howled in his ears for a moment — and then there was silence.
When the light faded, they stood on the edge of a mist-covered cliff in the Scottish Highlands. A small stone house, barely larger than a cottage, rested against the rocky slope, half-hidden beneath snow and old protective wards that shimmered in the moonlight. The phoenix hovered beside him, then landed softly on a branch of a gnarled tree.
Elise stepped forward, boots crunching frost.
The door opened before he touched it.
Inside, the house was warm. Fire crackled in the hearth. Old books, scrolls, and enchanted plants lined the walls. Everything smelled of lavender, ash, and ink. A soft hum of residual magic lingered — magic like his own, but older. Wilder.
The phoenix entered behind him, perched atop a wrought-iron stand by the fire.
It stared at him.
He stared back.
Then the voice came — not from the bird, but from the house.
Not words, not sound, but memory.
A Memory of Fire and Blood
A vision overtook Elise — not forced, but shared.
He stood not in the house but in a grand hall filled with emerald banners and starlit glass. A woman stood at the center — tall, with hair the color of pale silver, and eyes like his own. Her presence was fierce, but gentle. She spoke words in an ancient tongue.
Behind her stood the same phoenix, its flames burning brightly.
"You are not meant to serve the old order," the woman said. "You are meant to challenge it."
Her name returned to Elise like a forgotten word.
Selene Valeheart.
His mother.
Not a Blake.
Not a pawn of pureblood agendas.
She was something else entirely — a witch born of an old bloodline, hidden from records, her legacy locked away after she vanished from the wizarding world when Elise was just a child.
And the phoenix — Aethon — had once been her familiar.
The vision shifted.
He saw Selene arguing with his father in a different memory. He saw her shielding him as a baby from a curse. And he saw her leave — not because she was weak, but because she was hunted by something larger than the Blake family… something tied to the World Council.
Aethon had hidden in magical exile, waiting for Elise to awaken — waiting for him to grow into someone who might reclaim her legacy.
The memory ended with her voice:
"When the old world burns, follow the fire that remembers."
The House of Her Memory
Elise sank to the floor, breath catching.
The phoenix moved to him, resting its head on his shoulder.
Then, with a soft coo, it dropped something from its talons.
A key — made of silverwood and obsidian.
When he touched it, part of the house responded. A hidden door opened in the stone wall, revealing a secret chamber: journals written in her hand, potions he had never seen, and family relics engraved with runes tied to pre-Wizarding World structures — ancient magic that even Hogwarts didn't teach.
He spent hours — maybe more — reading, absorbing, learning.
This was not just a sentimental house. This was a sanctum.
His mother's legacy.
And maybe, his future base of power.
He activated the binding ritual described in one of her letters: it would allow him to access this house from anywhere in the world — like a personalized Room of Requirement, only built with blood and will.
As the ritual burned into his hand, binding the house to his magic, the system chimed in his mind:
[Secret Location Discovered: The Heart of Valeheart]
+250 Fate Points
+3 Legacy Affinity: Maternal Line
+New System Skill Unlocked: Inherited Sanctum Access
→ Allows instant travel to hidden family refuge. Upgradable.
Elise exhaled.
Aethon blinked slowly, then spread its wings again.
They weren't finished yet.
Back to the Castle
Before sunrise, Aethon took him back — flames rising again, spiraling like a comet.
They reappeared just outside Blake Castle's gates. No one saw him return.
Elise slipped inside, past the guards, past the portraits that no longer seemed to sneer at him, and into his room.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror.
He was not just the son of the Blake Patriarch now.
He was Valeheart.
He was Elise.
And he was no one's pawn.