Chapter 3 The Key to the unopened Door

The room to which Antheia retreated in the bleak hours between four and five that winter morning belonged solely to her.

It was part of a private suite-three connected chambers, each furnished with refined elegance and in the tasteful style of the age. The innermost served as her bedchamber.

As she stepped inside, a girl of seventeen rose quickly from a chair near the fireplace. She was as beautiful as an angel, though her modest attire marked her as a dependent. Her wide, questioning eyes searched her mistress's face.

Antheia answered with a single, silent gesture: it was over.

The girl, Lily, flinched at the message-not from grief, but from the calmness with which it was delivered. Her mistress showed no sorrow. But when Lily lingered, uncertain, Antheia waved her away with a sharp, impatient flick of the wrist.

Once alone, Antheia sank into a deep-cushioned armchair near the fire, letting herself fall into thought. Her long black hair tumbled over her bare shoulders. One hand supported her proud brow; her lips, slightly parted, revealed perfect white teeth. Her dark lashes veiled her eyes half-shut in contemplation, and her body reclined with effortless grace against the cushions.

She was stunning-more a vision than a woman.

But then she stirred.

Eyes flashing, chest rising with a sharp breath, her expression shifted-resolve overtaking doubt. She rose in one swift motion, standing tall, majestic. The firelight caught the folds of her robe, tracing every curve of her statuesque figure. Her lips curled, disdainful of anything that might defy her will.

She didn't look like a woman mourning her father.

She looked like a warrior queen-an Amazon in silks.

There was something both beautiful and terrifying about her-a presence that commanded, even in silence. This was not a woman meant to be loved. This was a woman to be followed.

Pulling her robe tighter around her form, she lit a lamp. She was about to leave when something stopped her-the gaze of a portrait hanging across from her bed.

The painted woman seemed to look directly at her, eyes soft and full of unearthly kindness.

It was the portrait of her mother.

The resemblance was unmistakable: the same dark hair, the same sculpted features. But where Antheia's beauty carried the shadow of pride and fury, her mother's was gentle, almost divine. The artist had captured a soul of pure light-a saint, not just a woman.

Antheia stared.

And stared.

There was more than love in her eyes.

There was worship.

Minutes passed. Then, all at once, tears spilled from her eyes-hot, fast, unstoppable.

She wiped them away angrily.

Weakness had no place in what she was about to do.

Without a sound, she left the room.

Moving swiftly through the rest of her suite, she slipped into the corridor. The mansion was silent; dawn had not yet broken. The lamp's flickering flame cast dancing shadows on her pale face as she walked.

At the end of the passage, she paused.

She opened the door.

She stepped inside.

It was her brother's room.

Theseus lay asleep, exhausted from the long vigil beside their father's deathbed. He had fallen into slumber less than fifteen minutes earlier, his mind haunted by the cryptic instructions their father had given him.

Antheia watched him quietly, a triumphant smile touching her lips. Her cheeks, pale moments ago, flushed with color. He was asleep-deeply, soundly.

Without hesitation, she moved to his side.

She searched his coat.

Found it.

The key.

The key their father had placed in his hand only hours before.

She didn't hesitate. She didn't falter. She turned and left as silently as she'd come.

Halfway back down the passage, she stopped again-this time outside her father's chamber.

For one heartbeat, she hesitated.

Her hand trembled.

Her brow furrowed in conflict.

Then her face hardened. Her lip curled.

Fool, her eyes seemed to say. Now is not the time to falter.

She entered the room.

The body lay cold and stiff, bound in a winding sheet. The face-drawn tighter by the band tied around the jaw-was ghastly in the lamp's glow.

The nurse who had prepared the body had gone to rest.

There were no eyes to witness what Antheia did next.

No one to see her cross the room with steady, fearless steps.

No one to stop her as she approached the closet-the locked chamber tied to a secret, a legacy, a warning.

The door loomed before her.

The key trembled in her hand.

And she turned it.