The West Wing Sisters

Cassian arrived not through the gate, but through the wall—a whisper of light as his portal cracked open inside the sealed hallway of the Lynden West Wing.

The moment he stepped out, he heard it.

The clash of aether-steel.

A blast of wind magic.

And then—

The screaming.

Three voices. Female. Furious.

He moved silently through the corridor, boots brushing dust off tile mosaics of ancient Lynden victories. This part of the manor was off-books. Even the spellglass surveillance didn't reach here.

At the last corner, he slowed.

One step more—and he saw it:

Veyna—cloak torn, aether scars bleeding light, dagger flashing in a backward grip. Fast, feral, and cornered.

Syra—younger, eyes wild with fury, unstable energy rippling around her, voice hoarse from yelling.

And at the center of the hall, calm as fire in a palace—

Elira.

Perfectly dressed. Unmarked.

And winning.

Her hand traced arcane sigils mid-air—pure bloodline glyphs—and each pulse sent force rippling through the air like invisible blades. The sisters ducked, screamed, struck back.

"STOP TRYING TO SAVE ME!" Syra shouted, hurling a bolt of raw willpower that cracked a mirror.

"Then stop acting like a fool!" Elira shot back, deflecting it with a single flick.

"You think you know everything just because Father lets you speak in the council?" Veyna growled.

"I know more than you because I read, not scream!" Elira hissed.

Cassian's eyes narrowed.

Veyna wasn't supposed to be here yet. And Elira—

She wasn't supposed to be this good.

He stepped into view.

Syra was the first to see him. "Cass—"

A glyph struck the floor at her feet, sending her flying into a bookcase.

"Don't get sentimental," Elira snapped. "We're not done."

Cassian raised his hand, fast.

A single pulse of magnetic inversion.

The glyph in Elira's palm shattered. Her arm twitched violently, forced open.

He stepped into the circle.

"Are we fighting," he said calmly, "or are we just airing out generations of emotional constipation?"

All three froze.

Elira's chest rose and fell.

Veyna's blade was still raised.

Syra staggered upright, bloody and furious.

Elira's voice was ice. "You shouldn't be here."

Cassian looked around. The walls were pulsing faintly—beneath the wallpaper, hidden runes glowed like veins. This place wasn't just secret.

It was alive.

"I go where the Chain grows weakest," he said. "And right now, it's you three."

Elira straightened. "This is a family matter."

"You're right," he said, pacing slowly. "One big, dysfunctional, blood-drenched, backstabbing family tree. And like all Lynden things—it's rooted in lies."

Syra wiped her mouth. "She attacked us."

"She warned you," Elira snapped. "I told you not to come here. I told you what would happen."

"And you attacked me for it?" Veyna barked. "You tried to bind my name to the manor seal!"

Cassian raised a brow. "You tried a blood-bind glyph on your sister?"

"She's not my sister," Elira said coldly. "Not by name. Not by purpose."

Syra screamed, "You're protecting Father's work!"

Elira turned slowly to her. "I'm protecting everyone. Because if you unseal that door—if you open the vault underneath this wing—you don't just tear apart a house. You unravel the spell that holds the Chain together."

Cassian went still.

"The Chain runs through the manor," he said.

Elira didn't answer.

Syra did.

"She's known all along. That's why she's stayed. That's why she stayed engaged to Thorne. It was never about politics."

Elira whispered, "It was about control."

A long silence.

Veyna lowered her blade.

Syra's fists trembled.

Cassian looked at Elira.

And in a soft, deadly voice:

"You could've told me."

She looked back at him. No fear. Just the exhaustion of someone carrying too many secrets.

"I was twelve," she said. "When I first heard the Chain singing through the walls. I didn't tell anyone then, either."

And that was when the floor began to vibrate.

The vault.

Waking up.

Cassian's voice dropped.

"What's beneath us, Elira?"

Cassian's voice was flat. No wit. No provocation. Just a scalpel aimed at the heart of the answer.

He took a single step closer, cloak trailing like a shadow, boots echoing across the stone tiles warped by age and heat. The manor was humming with noise, but pressure. Every wall felt dense. Thick with secrets. Ready to rupture.

"Elira," he said again, eyes locked. "I'm not asking out of curiosity."

Elira met his gaze.

And she understood.

Cassian Vale was many things vengeful, brilliant, cruel when cornered but when he asked like this, in this voice, he wasn't asking as a rebel or a lover.

He was asking as an engineer.

Someone about to take something apart.

Elira exhaled slowly.

Then walked toward the wall.

"Do you know why the Chain holds?" she said, facing the glass-paned mural etched with House Lynden's ancestral line.

Cassian didn't answer.

Elira reached into her sleeve and withdrew a small sigil disc. Burnt iron, lined in blood.

She pressed it into the mural.

It hissed. The illusion cracked.

And the wall folded open into a stairwell spiraling down into blackness lit by no visible source. Just a pulse.

A living rhythm.

A heartbeat.

"The Chain isn't just magic," Elira said quietly. "It's memory. Bound, stored, layered in inheritance."

Cassian's jaw tightened.

"You mean it's not powering the nobles," he said. "It's feeding off them."

Elira nodded once.

"And beneath us, buried under the family who kept its song clean, is the first sacrifice. The origin point. The blood-rite that binds all others to the Chain. My family was tasked with guarding it. Preserving it. Never opening it."

Veyna stepped back. "You mean like a… body?"

"No," Elira whispered. "Not a body."

Cassian stared down the dark.

And for the first time that night, his voice broke its even edge.

"You've been standing over the kill switch of the entire system," he said. "And you still stayed."

"I was waiting for you," Elira said.

Syra gasped. "What?"

Elira didn't take her eyes off Cassian.

"I knew you'd come for the Chain. For revenge. For answers. But I also knew… only someone like you could choose what to do with it."

Cassian stepped toward the stairwell.

"No more riddles."

"No more riddles," Elira agreed.

She handed him the disc.

The stairs below pulsed slowly. Like something was breathing beneath the manor.

Cassian looked down.

And for once, said nothing.

Because whatever waited below wasn't just an artifact.

It was the truth behind everything they'd burned, built, and betrayed to get here.

And he intended to see it for himself.