Chapter 2 The Inheritance
Snow falls the day we bury my grandmother.
Of course it does. She always said winter was a season that listened and one that wrapped what you loved in frost so time couldn’t steal it away. As a kid, I thought it was poetic. Sweet. Magical.
Now it just feels cruel.
The churchyard is quiet except for the low murmur of breath and fabric and the crunch of ice beneath hesitant steps. Every head in attendance bows at the front, all somber black coats and gloved hands clutching tissues.
Except mine.
I stand apart. A few feet. A few years. A thousand miles.
That’s how long it’s been since I last saw Grandmother Eira. And now she’s the only person I can’t apologize to.
Mom stands stiffly beside me, everything about her perfectly pressed, coat, makeup, expression. If grief can be sculpted, she has chiseled hers into something cold and immaculate, something that dares the world to comment. My father, forever the diplomat, keeps close but quiet, his hand hovering just behind her shoulder as if afraid to touch her and shatter the fragile poise she’s clinging to.
And then there’s me.
Twenty-three.
Unemployed.
Uncertain.
The family disappointment disguised as “free-spirited independence.”
My boots crunch forward as the pastor speaks words that skim over my ears like frostbitten whispers. I don’t hear him. My attention keeps drifting, to the coffin lowering into the earth. To the garland of winter roses. To the willowy carvings etched along the wooden sides.
To the small box resting atop the coffin.
My inheritance.
I didn’t know she left me anything. I didn’t even know she remembered me.
But when the lawyer called three days ago with the news, something in my chest tightened with a strange pull. It felt like gravity. Or destiny.
Or a warning.
The ceremony ends with a sigh of winter wind rolling through the graveyard, brushing against my cheek like a cold kiss. People disperse in neat, quiet lines. Not me. I step closer to the coffin, throat tightening.
“Hi, Gran,” I whisper.
The name feels like glass in my mouth and sharp, fragile, and cutting all the way down.
“Sorry it’s been a while.”
A bitter laugh huffs out. “Okay well more than a while. But I’m here. And I… I really wish you were too.”
Silence falls around me, the kind that feels almost alive. Listening.
Always listening.
A shadow moved from the corner of my eye. It was my mother.
“Clara,” she says, tone clipped. “The lawyer is waiting. We need to finalize the signing.”
“Can I have one more minute?”
She hesitates. Just a heartbeat. Long enough to tell me she wants to say something kind. Human.
Long enough for her to decide against it.
“We’ll be in the car.”
She walks away, heels sinking into snow. Dad sends me a look that is soft, worried, but follows her.
I’m alone again.
Perfect.
When the last guest leaves, I reach for the small box lying atop the coffin. It’s beautifully carved and dark cherry wood, inlaid with frost-pattern filigree that glints like silver. A tiny metal latch engraved with a snowflake secures it shut.
The moment my fingers touch the lid, warmth spreads through my hand and is unexpected, sharp, intimate. I jerk back.
The warmth lingers.
“What the hell…?”
Curiosity and dangerous, familiar and it pulls me in. I lift the box and tuck it under my arm. My pulse kicks harder the closer I bring it to my chest, like something inside is answering the beat of my heart.
The pull I felt earlier strengthens. A magnet in my ribcage.
And then.
A whisper.
Soft.
Barely there.
Cold as breath fogging glass.
“Clara…”
I freeze.
The entire graveyard seems to inhale.
I look around and nothing. No one.
Just snow. And shadow. And the wind brushing gently past my ear.
Right. Grief is making me hear things. Perfectly normal.
I shake myself and head toward the parking lot. Mom and Dad wait by the car, talking to a man in a slate-gray coat. It was the lawyer, I assume. His glasses fog in the cold, and he gestures for me to join them.
“Ms. Winters .” He smiles politely. “I’m Mr. Whitlock. Your grandmother left specific instructions that her private request be delivered to you today.”
I lift the box slightly. “This?”
“Yes.” His expression flickers. “And one letter. To be opened only by you.”
He hands me an envelope thick with age, sealed in deep blue wax pressed with the shape of a snowflake.
Mom’s lips are thin. “She could have sent anything to us. Instructions. Keys. Something practical.”
Whitlock clears his throat. “It was her wish.”
Wish.
The word settles in my bones like weight.
We sign papers. Exchange pleasantries that feel more like cold drafts. Then everyone climbs into the car. Except me.
“I’m going to walk home,” I tell them. “It’s not far.”
“It’s snowing,” Dad says gently. “And you’re not dressed for it.”
“I want the air.”
I need the air.
Mom doesn’t argue and she’s too wrapped up in her own storm of emotions to pry into mine. The car drives away, tires hissing over ice.
I stand alone again.
Just me, the snow, and the strange, warm box tucked under my arm.
I walk.
The wind picks up. Hard enough that I have to lean into it, my scarf whipping against my throat. With every step, the box pulses. Warm. Then hot. Then.
Thrum.
Like a heartbeat.
I stop dead.
My breath fogs sharply.
My skin prickles.
“Okay,” I mutter to the box. “You’re freaking me out. Cut it out.”
Naturally, it does not cut it out.
Instead, the warmth spreads and into my palm, my wrist, up my forearm. Not burning. Not painful.
Inviting.
Seductive.
I swear the snowflakes swirl faster around me, forming a slow, circling dance. Like something is watching. Waiting.
I grip the box tighter. “We open this at home. That’s the rule. No creepy magical surprises in public.”
The warmth pulses again.
Like laughter.
I walk faster.
By the time I reach my apartment, a snug, creaky second-floor walk-up that smells faintly of cinnamon from the bakery downstairs. And I’m half convinced I imagined everything. Funeral emotions. Childhood nostalgia. Frostbite-induced delirium.
Right?
Inside, I peel off my coat, kick off my boots, and set the box on the small kitchen table. The envelope lies beside it.
The wax seal catches the warm light.
Another pulse shivers up my fingers.
“No,” I say flatly. “Not doing this tonight. I’m eating soup and watching holiday baking shows until I pass out.”
Silence.
Then.
A soft click.
The box’s latch lifts.
By itself.
My stomach drops. “No. No. No, don’t you.”
The lid opens.
A rush of cold air spills out and not natural cold.
Magic cold.
Ancient.
Hungry.
Inside lies a Nutcracker.
But not like the decorative kind you put on a mantel.
This one is tall, carved from dark polished wood, armor painted in deep crimson and midnight. Its jaw is slightly open, teeth sharp and gleaming. Its eyes, deep sapphire, had seemed to glow as they met mine.
My breath catches.
The room shifts.
The lights flicker.
A wind sweeps through the apartment, swirling hard enough to slam the door shut behind me.
The Nutcracker glows.
The whisper returns.
“Clara…”
Then.
The world fractures.
The lights explode. Frost cracks across the walls. Air roars. Shadows twist into small shapes and with huge shapes and brutal shapes.
I stumble backward as four figures tear through the light, falling into my world like meteors.
Tall. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Breathing frost and fire.
Eyes locked on me.
The tallest steps forward, snow steaming from his shoulders.
His voice is a low, hungry growl.
“The seal is broken.”
Another steps beside him with pale hair flowing, a wicked smile. “Our queen has awakened us.”
A third, golden, warm, devastatingly gently reaches a hand toward me. “Clara…”
And the fourth, shadowed, violet-eyed and whispers.
“The Rat King will rise.”
The Nutcracker cracks its jaw open.
And the curse begins.