The Duke’s Reborn Daughter Sometimes Chooses Violence.

I set the paper down in front of me. One of many papers, all of them about the same thing.

I was looking over at our District’s burn rate. A burn rate that had been steadily rising before, but now with Count Calloway’s welfare programs, the opening of the orphanage, the supplies we were sending to Iron Hollow, and whatever price we’d have to pay for food…Yes, the burn rate had gotten extreme indeed. At current projections, House Veyne only had enough in reserve to last three months. Unless we found a new source of money, and fast.

“The vault,” I said. “It’s time.”

Anias paused, just for a moment. “Of course, My Lady.”

I had been to the vault once before. Briefly, just to vaguely make sure they were all even there, before I started to plan all of these commitments out. I had forestalled actually picking out specific Artifacts for as long as I could. Selling Artifacts was rather easy, it was buying them back if I ever needed to that would be so much harder.

So, I had put this visit off for as long as I could. That was going to change today.

The vault was beneath the Manor. Deep beneath it. It was at the end of three flights of stairs, each narrower than the last, past locked doors that required both Veyne blood and mana to open. The air grew cooler with every level. The walls shifted from the stone upstairs to something smoother. By the third door, the stone was almost featureless, and entirely black.

House Veyne had held this estate for more than a century, even before they had been forced to come to Aelheim and make the residence permanent. The family vault was older than any record I had found. My father had used it. His father had used it before him, and back and back it went, into generations I knew only as names in ledgers and faded portraits on walls I rarely looked at.

The final door opened to my blood and my mana both, and the vault lay before me.

It was an almost perfectly white room. The room was large but not gigantic. I had found that the sound here did not echo, which was strange. You’d think it would.

Dozens of Artifacts lined the walls on stone pedestals, each one behind a thin mana barrier that hummed so faintly I could only hear it with my Gift. Every Artifact had a placard beside it. A description, a function or best guess of it, and estimated dates of acquisition.

The handwriting on the placards varied. Some were in my father’s hand, I recognized his messy script from so many of the recent ledgers I’d read. Others were in hands I didn’t know. One placard near the entrance was written in a script so archaic I could barely read it. It was our language, vaguely. Generations of Veynes had stood where I was standing.

Many of the placards had question marks. Several had multiple guesses crossed out and rewritten, sometimes in different handwriting decades apart, as if grandchildren had corrected their grandparents.

I felt my lineage here more than anywhere else in the Manor. Perhaps that was another reason why I had put off actually coming here. It wasn’t like it was truly my lineage.

Sere materialized beside me. She looked around the vault with wide eyes, her notepad momentarily forgotten at her side. Anias stood at the entrance with her hands folded. They were the only two to accompany me today. Both Violet and Damian were in their own homes, dealing with the last of the preparation before we left Aelheim.

I started walking. There were thirty three Artifacts in total. I moved along the wall, reading each placard, and studying each piece. I had read at least something about most of them. Some of these Artifacts were obvious in their value while others looked like junk. Several looked like junk and were worth more than the Manor above us.

The first one I chose was near the entrance. The Everwell Chalice. It was a plain stone cup, chipped at the rim, sitting on its pedestal. The placard, written in a hand three generations older than my father’s, read: “Any liquid poured inside purifies within seconds. Poison becomes water. This is likely the ancestor of every purification rod in the Kingdom. Perhaps even the world.”

A useful device, but one that wasn’t that useful. From what I knew, Purification Rods could detect almost everything this Chalice could. The few things they couldn’t, I was rather unlikely to ever run into. I lifted the barrier and took it. It was lighter than it looked.

The second was the Waystone Compass. It was a brass disc the size of my palm. I did not know why it was called a compass at all, since those didn’t exist in this world prior to the discovery of this Artifact, and I had checked. I had my suspicions about whoever had found this thing. Now wasn’t the time for them.

When held, the Artifact warmed in the direction of whatever the holder sought, be it a person, a place, or even a specific object. The placard, in my father’s hand this time, noted: “The Artifact’s range is unknown. We have tested it to 200 miles and it did not fail.”

I had considered taking this during the expedition, but our maps to Iron Hollow were accurate enough.

The third was the one that hurt most. The Threadlight Lantern sat on a middle pedestal. It was a small iron lantern that produced light without fuel or mana. The light adjusted to the holder’s needs automatically -it was brighter in darkness, dimmer in crowds, and warm in living spaces. The placard read: “This Artifact is the basis for approximately 55% of modern lighting implements.”

This was, by most measures, probably the single most commercially valuable Artifact in this vault. Whoever had first placed it here could not have imagined what it would become -the seed from which an entire industry had grown.

I took it from the pedestal and held it for a moment. It was warm in my hands.

The fourth was the Stillcloak. A folded length of grey fabric, unremarkable in every way. Anything wrapped in it maintained its exact current temperature indefinitely. Hot things stayed hot, while cold things stayed cold. The placard bore my father’s handwriting, and at the bottom, there was a note that made me pause: “This Artifact has medical and preservation applications. My love once used it to keep soup warm for three days.”

I stared at that last sentence for longer than I should have. Then I took the cloak and moved on.

The fifth was the Merchant’s Balance. A set of small brass scales with no weights. Place any object on one side, and the other side sank to indicate its approximate market value. How a scale determined such a thing was a mystery, but apparently, it was surprisingly accurate. Maybe I should try to use it myself?

The sixth Artifact made me hesitate. The Echosteel Mirror was a hand mirror with a dark iron frame. Hold it up to any surface, and reflection within showed what was on the other side. The placard was in my father’s hand, and the note at the bottom was underlined twice: “This Artifact has obvious military and security applications. Do NOT let this leave the Kingdom. No, preferably do not let this levee this vault.”

Selling this was a risk. This was one of the ‘undiscovered’ Artifacts. Which really meant Artifacts that hadn’t been handed over to any researchers for study, and thus had no Magical Implement derivatives. It was also worth a fortune. I took it, and told myself I would sell this last, if I really needed to. I did not want to imagine what’d happen to the world if people were actually successful in copying this, however thinly.

I’d chosen six Artifacts. I set them on the table near the entrance where Anias was already cataloging each one, her Gift holding them suspended. The math should work. Six important Artifacts, sold to the right buyers, would more than quadruple our family’s treasury. That should be enough for any expense I could think of. Actually having to do this was surprisingly painful. The pain would pass.

This vault didn’t have all of the Artifacts our family had. There was one more, kept only in a vault in the capital itself. That was the most valuable thing our family had, for a simple reason: it was a weapon, the rarest kind of Artifact by far. Not a Godblade, but closer than anything could be. Perhaps I would go and find it someday.

I was about to turn and leave when I heard a sound. It was faint and gentle music coming from somewhere behind me. I turned.

Sere was crouched on the far side of the vault, near the lower shelves where the smaller Artifacts sat. She had opened something. It was a small wooden box, carved with birds. The music was coming from inside it.

It was beautiful. It was not a melody I recognized. Gentle, wordless and sad, the sound of it filled the room. It was an Artifact, one I had glossed over in my search. The placard beside it had read, in handwriting so old the ink had nearly faded, just one word: “Beautiful.”

That was all it said. There was nothing about function nor about value. Just that one word. From what I had been able to gather, it turned the user’s thoughts into music.

Sere looked up at me. She was holding the box against her chest with her arms. Her eyes very bright, and she didn’t need her notepad to say what she was asking. A girl who couldn’t speak, holding a box that turned thoughts into music.

Artifacts were precious. Even the smallest, most worthless Artifact was worth more than entire families would make in their entire lifetime. They were hoarded and guarded. There had even been a few smaller wars fought over them.

“That one’s yours,” I said. “Though, you are going to have to keep it safe.”

Sere’s entire face lit up. She pressed the box tighter against herself and nodded so furiously I thought her head might come off. The music swelled for a moment into something brighter, before she closed the lid and tucked it under her arm so carefully she must have thought it might break.

Looking at Sere’s face, I thought perhaps this was what the things in this room were for. I turned to leave, and stopped.

The vase sat on a lower pedestal, almost hidden between two more impressive pieces. I must have walked past it twice already without noticing. My gaze had simply slid off it. I did not recall reading about it either. It was, without question, the ugliest thing in the vault.

It was a lopsided mud vase, crudely made. The kind of thing a child might produce on their first attempt at pottery. One side was thicker than the other. The rim was uneven. The glaze, if it had ever had one, had long since flaked away. There was a hairline crack that ran down it. It shouldn’t have been in this room at all, let alone on a pedestal behind a mana barrier.

A child had made this, or an adult had, in the dark. The placard bore no handwriting I recognized. The script was old, older than any other placard in the vault. Even the placard itself looked like it was coming apart.

Item: An Ugly Thing.

A lopsided mud vase that should not even be able to hold water.

There was nothing at all, save for those few lines. I looked at the vase. There was some kind of liquid inside it. The liquid was an odd mix of black and white. The black was darker than dark, such that it seemed an absence in the world. The white was bright enough that it hurt to look upon.

The vase was tilted and lopsided, and the strange liquid sat perfectly level, as if the laws that governed every other liquid in the world had decided to make an exception for this one ugly pot.

I reached for it. My fingers brushed the mana barrier. Vaelin stirred. The blade’s presence swelled into something urgent, and then it receded, so fast I almost thought I’d imagined it.

I pulled my hand back and stared at the vase. I didn’t know why I had reached for it. I didn’t know why the thought of taking it out of this room made something inside me clench. I didn’t know why Vaelin had reacted to it, when the blade hadn’t stirred for any of the other Artifacts in this vault.

I didn’t know, and that was reason enough to leave it alone. “Not this one,” I said quietly.

The vase sat on its pedestal, lopsided and ugly, holding liquid it had no right to hold. I walked out.