ห้องสมุด
ค้นหา
หน้าหลัก / Romance / Christmas in ashes / CHAPTER 5: When he spoke my true name

แชร์

CHAPTER 5: When he spoke my true name

ผู้เขียน: Vicky PE
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-11-21 13:28:58

  The sound of the front door breaking was not a sound I’ll ever forget.

A thick, heavy CRACK that vibrated through the floor, down the staircase, and straight into my spine. Dust drifted from the ceiling like falling ash. My breath caught in my throat.

Ruby braced himself against the cellar door, her shoulders trembling.“He’s inside the house,” he whispered.

No kidding. Even without the sound, I could feel it. The temperature plummeted so sharply my breath turned white in front of me. Frost crept down the cellar walls like skeletal fingers reaching toward us.

Then Footsteps.

Slow, Calm,Measured,Not rushing. No desperation. As if the creature in my home knew exactly how this night would end.

My heart thudded painfully.

And then he spoke again,my name. My real name.

“Liora…”

That voice… no mortal should have a voice like that. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t threatening. It simply was quiet enough to whisper yet strong enough to make my bones hum.

Ruby spun toward me, fear etched deep across her face.“Don’t respond,” she said. “Not even by accident.”

“I’m not stupid!” “You underestimate him.” I hated that he had a point.

The footsteps moved across the living room above us, slow as death, stopping directly over our heads.

I stared up at the ceiling as frost formed tiny white veins across the wood. The cellar air grew colder, heavier, thinner,like the forest itself had followed him inside.Then the Winter King murmured: “I know you hear me.” I pressed my hands against my ears.

Didn’t help.

“Liora… Little Star… open the door.” Never, Ever,Ever.

Ruby slammed a fist against the cellar wall. “He can’t get through the iron unless you call him.”

“Why does everything depend on ME?” I snapped. “Because you were chosen!”I swallowed hard, my stomach twisting.“I didn’t ask for this.”

“Nobody ever does.”Another step above us—right over the cellar door.I blinked up. “He’s standing there.” Ruby grabbed the iron latch. “Don’t speak. Don’t move.”Too late.

The Winter King’s shadow slipped across the slit under the door. Light,silver and ghostly—seeped into the cellar cracks, swirling across the floor like mist searching for a body.

My body.I backed away… but the mist followed.

Ruby leapt between me and the spreading frost. “Stay behind me.” The Winter King chuckled softly. It slid down the stairs like a cold hand down my spine.

“You cannot shield her, mortal.” “She’s under my protection!” Rowan barked.“She always was mine.”

My chest tightened painfully at those words.Ruby didn’t miss the way I stiffened. “Don’t listen to him. He twists truth into traps.”

The Winter King hummed thoughtfully. “Is it a trap… to tell her who she is?” Ruby shouted, “Stop!” He didn’t.

“Shall I tell her,” the Winter King continued, “why did her mother flee with her? Why did she die? Why does her blood sing for me even now?”

My breath caught.Mother!!Dead!!Fled!!.

Ruby looked like she’d just swallowed a knife. “Don’t speak about her!”

The King ignored him.

“Shall I tell her,” he whispered, “why does she dream of snow and voices in the dark? Why does she feel me even when she does not know my name? Why did she look for me tonight?”My skin prickled violently.

“I did NOT look,” “You did,” he murmured. “Because your soul remembers me.”

Ruby threw a hand over my mouth. “Don’t speak to him!” But it wasn’t speaking I was worried about.It was listening. Because the worst part?

Everything he said felt… familiar. Like my mind was recognizing something my consciousness couldn’t.

Ruby kept whispering frantic warnings. “He’s manipulating you,listen to my voice,don’t let him pull you in”

But the Winter King spoke again, softer this time.

“Liora… come upstairs.”Something yanked deep inside my chest.

Not physically,Spiritually,Emotionally,Wrongly.

I grabbed the shelf behind me to stay upright. The tug grew stronger,like my body wanted to move on its own.

“No,” I breathed.“Yes,” he answered immediately.Ruby shoved me behind him. “Don’t let him pull you!”

“I’m trying!” I gasped. “You’re not trying hard enough,” “Ruby, I’m FREAKING TRYING!”

He pressed a heated iron rod into my hand. The metal burned my palm, shocking me back to myself. “Hold that,” he instructed. “Iron disrupts his influence.”

“Oh, wow,” I said shakily. “Is this a magical restraining order?” Ruby didn’t even roll his eyes. He was too terrified.

Outside the cellar door, the Winter King sighed.

“Do you think iron will save her from what she is?”

“What is she?!” I whispered to Ruby.Ruby swallowed. “Not tonight, please,”

The Winter King answered for him.“She is mine.”

I nearly dropped the iron rod. “I’m NOT yours!”

A pause.Then he laughed,Dark,Beautiful and Terrifying.

“Not yet.”

Ruby gripped my shoulders. “I’m taking you through the tunnel.”

“What tunnel?!”

She grabbed a crowbar and jammed it under a loose stone on the floor. I gasped as it lifted, revealing a narrow passage beneath,dirt, roots, cold air.“You had a secret escape hatch and didn’t tell me?!”

“It’s for emergencies!”

“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!”

She grabbed my arm. “Go. Now.”

“Ruby,he’ll follow!” “He can’t enter the tunnel. It’s lined with” A loud crack cut him off.I looked up.

The cellar door,

The IRON-LATCHED, SUPPOSEDLY SAFE cellar door,was splitting from the top corner.

A thin line of frost sliced downward like a blade cutting butter.Ruby’s face went gray. “she shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Oh good,” I yelled, “so we’re in EXTRA trouble!” The crack spread.Silver light seeped through.

The Winter King spoke softly:

“Liora… open.”

Pure panic rocketed through me.Ruby shoved me into the tunnel. “GO!”

“But you,” “I’ll follow. MOVE!”

He slammed the stone panel shut above us.

Darkness swallowed me.

The air was cold, damp, and suffocating. I crawled forward, dirt crumbling beneath my fingers. Branches snagged my clothes. I scraped my elbows, knees, everything.

Behind me, Ruby dropped into the tunnel, breath ragged.

Then,The Winter King’s voice drifted down through the floorboards above.

“I will find you, Liora.”Not a threat. A promise.Ruby grabbed my wrist. “Crawl faster!”

I did.But the worst part wasn’t the fear.

It was the way his voice echoed inside me long after we left the cellar behind.

Like he was already inside my mind.

Already inside my name,Already inside me.

อ่านหนังสือเล่มนี้ต่อได้ฟรี
สแกนรหัสเพื่อดาวน์โหลดแอป
บทที่แล้ว บทต่อไป

บทล่าสุด

  • Christmas in ashes    Chapter 69: Aftershocks

    Hallowpine doesn’t explode after the hearing. It vibrates,That’s the more dangerous kind of reaction.Explosions burn out fast, Vibrations travel through walls, through routines, through conversations that pretend to be casual but aren’t. By evening, the town feels like a glass held too close to a speaker,every surface humming with something no one wants to name.We don’t go home right away.Lucien insists we circle the long way, past the mill road and the river bend, where the trees grow dense enough to block sightlines. He doesn’t say ambush, but his shoulders are tight, his eyes always moving.“They’ll spin it,” Ruby says from the back seat. “You know that.”“Yes,” I replied. “But spinning takes time. Silence takes coordination. They don’t have that anymore.”Milo watches the passing trees. “People were looking at you like they didn’t know where to put you.”“That’s good,” Ruby says. “That’s the face right before doubt.”The presence stirs, slower now, like something settling aft

  • Christmas in ashes    CHAPTER 68: The Hearing

    They call it a hearing because the trial would be too honest.The word sounds clean and. Neutral,As if what’s about to happen is merely procedural and not a coordinated attempt to compress a living person into something manageable. The notice arrives before dawn, slid under the door like a confession no one wants to own.Emergency Mental Health Review. Community Safety Consideration.Elias’s handwriting isn’t on it, but his logic is. Gideon’s voice hums between the lines, sanctified and calm. They didn’t choose violence because violence leaves marks. This leaves paperwork.Lucien reads it once, then again, jaw tight. “They’re invoking emergency authority. If they control the framing, they control the outcome.”“They won’t,” I say.Ruby snorts. “Bold of you to assume they won’t try.”Milo sits very still at the table, reading the paper upside down. He doesn’t need to understand the words to know what they’re for. “They want you quiet,” he says.“Yes,” I replied. “But they also want wit

  • Christmas in ashes    CHAPTER 67:What they buried still breathes

    Morning comes whether you want it to or not, the light sneaks in thin and gray like it’s not sure it’s welcome, I stay at the kitchen table way past when the sun’s properly up, last night’s memories still looping behind my eyes, twelve years old, snow everywhere, blood that wasn’t mine on the ground, a prayer I said too late when nobody was listening anyway.Ruby won’t sit still, she keeps wiping counters that are already clean, folding and unfolding a dish towel like it’ll keep everything from falling apart, Lucien looks like he hasn’t slept in days, his eyes red-rimmed and restless, Milo just watches us all quiet, the way kids do when they’ve already figured out grown-ups are full of shit but haven’t decided what to do about it yet.The thing inside me, the silver, whatever you want to call it, is quiet for once, not gone, just waiting.Lucien finally breaks the silence, “They’re not gonna let this slide, Elias especially.”“No,” I say, “he’ll run from it as fast as he can.”Ruby

  • Christmas in ashes    CHAPTER 66: The thing that chose me

    The first time the silver said my name, I didn't actually hear it.I just... remembered it. That's the difference, and it's finally clicking now while I'm standing in this freezing kitchen at dawn, gray light leaking in, Milo slumped asleep at the table because he flat-out refused to go back to bed.Memory isn't sound. It's more like something inside you suddenly sitting up and going, Oh. There you are.The presence gives one slow pulse. Not frantic. Not screaming. Just deliberate.“Cognitive barrier weakening,” it says. “Retrieval possible.”I grip the mug Ruby basically forced into my hands tighter. “Retrieval of what?”Lucien snaps his head up. He's been too quiet since last night,way too quiet,like he's waiting for something bad he already knows is coming.The silver doesn't rush to answer.Milo does,“It didn't start here,” he says, so soft it almost disappears.Everything stops,Ruby freezes with one foot still in the air. Lucien turns all the way around. Even the damn house feel

  • Christmas in ashes    CHAPTER 65: When the mirror breaks

    The snow finally quit sometime before dawn, but the whole town still looked frozen in place-sharp, brittle, like one wrong step and something would shatter. Hallowpine was holding its breath,or maybe I was the one holding mine.I woke up heavy, that familiar silver weight sitting right under my ribs, throbbing soft and low like it already knew the day was going to suck before I did. Milo was still out cold next to me, curled in on himself the way little kids do when they feel safe, which just made everything feel more fragile. God, that innocence-it’s the worst kind of shield.Lucien was already up, pacing by the window like he does when he’s restless. “They’re gearing up,” he said, not even turning around. “You can feel it. The streets smell different.”“For what?” I asked, even though the answer was already crawling up my throat.“Everything.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Last night didn’t fix a damn thing. You shoved the truth in their faces. Now they’re scheming the parts they

  • Christmas in ashes    CHAPTER 64: The cost of being seen

    Being seen isn’t free, it just sends the bill later, usually when you’re already tired.The morning after the council meeting, Hallowpine stops acting polite, no more sideways glances or fake smiles, people look right at me now, some grateful, some pissed, most carrying something heavier, like they’ve just realized they’ve been part of something ugly and can’t hand the guilt back.Ruby flips the shop sign from CLOSED to OPEN with a big theatrical swing.“If they’re gonna stare,” she says, “let’s give them something worth watching.”Lucien gives a short laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes.“You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you.”“Chaos is more fun with an audience,” she answers, shrugging.Milo’s perched on the counter, legs swinging slow, eyes sharp and quiet, he’s not hiding anymore, he’s watching everything like he’s taking notes for later.The silver in my chest hums soft and steady.“Post exposure stabilization in progress,” the presence says, “secondary pressure vectors probab

บทอื่นๆ

บางทีคุณอาจจะชอบ

สำรวจและอ่านนวนิยายดีๆ ได้ฟรี
เข้าถึงนวนิยายดีๆ จำนวนมากได้ฟรีบนแอป GoodNovel ดาวน์โหลดหนังสือที่คุณชอบและอ่านได้ทุกที่ทุกเวลา
อ่านหนังสือฟรีบนแอป
สแกนรหัสเพื่ออ่านบนแอป
DMCA.com Protection Status