Chapter 55 The Truth Within the Vault
Valenticia's POV~
The four-poster bed in my room felt like a battlefield, my silken sheets binding my legs as I struggled, footless, to find rest, my body tossing all night, craving for peace. Crawford vault, tomorrow, the “M” note taunts. My brain wrestling with Rosanna’s ledger exposing Gregor’s 1999 serum that wiped my memory clean. Fear had its claws in my chest, with a cold and dread whispering: What if the past is a truth I cannot survive? A dart of sweat coated my forehead, and my heartbeat drummed rapidly.
I threw off the sheets and my bare feet hit the oak floor’s cold, then I reached for my robe, the smell of lavender a pale reminder of Rosanna’s warmth. Feeling miserable, I shuffled to the toilet and stared at the mirror above the sink - my eyes sunken, haunted by shadows. I threw cold water onto my face and the droplets trickled down my cheeks like tears and a wisp flared light in my brain: That’s it, I can’t sleep over the lost time, it’s a waste —I have to look, I have to research my past now. It was a lifeline, and with fear giving way to determination, I made up my mind to search the archive room of the estate.
The hallway was silent, with only the sound of my slippers. When I was close to the archive, I heard something rustling inside and I stood paralyzed, my heart pounding — someone was in there. Fear bloomed, as my mind flashed to Gregor’s spies, the unwatched eyes following me. I shook the brass doorknob, sweat greasing my palm, and shoved the door open. Its creak screamed in the silence. Shadows danced up and down the mantel of towering bookshelves, and candlelight and I swallowed a gasp, terror surging: What if I wasn’t alone? Then a well-known silhouette appeared, glinting silver hair and all.
“Grandmother?” I murmured, relief washing through me, my heart still pounding. Rosanna turned with the leather journals before her, her fierce face weary, eyes strong and haggard with a mother’s sorrow. “Valenticia, wake up,” she said, voice low and urgent. “I couldn’t sleep– your father’s journals are the key to your past.”
She motioned me over to the oak table, so scarred by time, and placed in my hands a tattered journal, its cover leather cracked. "Read that, child,” she exclaimed, her voice shaking with sorrow. I unfolded it, felt the faint trace of the ink against my fingers, and read an entry in my mother’s script: The vault below the wine cellar, built to protect our legacy—Eleanor’s refuge.
My breath sucked back and I was afraid and reverent and the words were a bridge to my mother’s love. “Mother built this?” I said trembling and looking at Rosanna’s face. She sniffed and a tear welled up in her eye. “She broke down and told me before they got her, Valenticia. She stashed something in there to spite Galde.” Her fingers folded over mine, as she pressed a key, dull-edged in my hands. “Search it for yourself, and alone,” she bade me, fiercely, “so that Gregor’s spies may not find out.” I held the key, fear whispering: What if it’s a trap? But determination burned hotter. “I will find it,” I declared in a steady voice, “for her, for Clawford.”
The wine cellar was a descent to the underworld, slick stone stairs with accumulations of dampness. My flashlight beam shook as I tried to keep myself from jumping out of my skin. My robe swished along the floor, the key cold in my sweating palm, and I darted my eyes over the walls, my heartbeat increasing. A rusted iron door appeared, half-concealed, its lock old but solid. My breath was rapid and shallow with fear —what secrets lay beyond? My hand trembled as I slid the key in. The door opened with a screech scraping against the stone, and I entered a small chamber, dust motes swirling at my light’s nudge, the air stale.
A stone table carried a single file: Subject V, 1999, its pages sharp, cold, detailing my serum-induced amnesia, Gregor’s spidery signature at the bottom, a traitor’s stain tumbling over my sight. Next to it was a vial winking in the beam of my flashlight, another vial labeled Antidote Prototype, and a note written in my mother’s uncharacteristically graceful script: My daughter—seek Marrow.
My tears burned, and I crumpled to the stone floor where hot tears and anguish tore through me. “Mother,” I wept, my voice breaking, chest rocking, “you fought for me, even then. “I’ll find Marrow, for you, for us.” I took the vial, a solemn weight in my pocket, and my determination rekindling. As I started to lift myself from the ground, a soft thump sounded — a dusty bottle tumbling out of the earth-cellar racks, clattering over stone, filling the silence signaling that I was not alone.
I stopped in my tracks, my heart pounding, my hands shaking, and fear gripping my chest.