Chapter 17 - The Music Box
Back at the Langhe estate, the heavy tension of war felt miles away inside the fortified north wing.
It was past midnight. The estate was wrapped in absolute stillness, save for the soft ticking of grandfather clocks and the distant whisper of the wind through the vineyards.
Matteo walked down the quiet hallway of the north suite. He stopped outside the door. He didn't enter; he simply listened. Through the heavy oak, he could hear Elena’s soft breathing and the gentle, rhythmic hum of a lullaby being whispered to a sleepy child.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, antique object wrapped in soft velvet. It was a silver music box—an item that had sat untouched inside the locked drawer of Aurora’s room for over a thousand days.
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Matteo hesitated. For three years, touching Aurora’s things felt like desecrating a shrine. But tonight, standing in the hallway outside Luna’s room, the guilt felt different. It didn't feel like betrayal anymore. It felt like passing a torch of light from the past into the present.
He gently set the small silver box down on the polished wooden floor right outside the door, standing it upright against the baseboard. Then, without making a sound, he turned and walked away down the corridor into the shadows.
