Virtue for the Soal

Chapter 1: Lle-Rhinwedded

Lle-Rhinwedd, a destination off-limits to any soul, or in the eyes of the Llandewisedig-duw residents, a place that should never have seen human construction.For the town below they would describe it as cursed, a hunted place and somewhere that the devil liked to lurk. Once it was beautiful, but it always held an unpleasant darkness that people could never shake.

Its massive gothic windows echoed through to a time from the Middle Ages, inspired by the cathedrals at that time, even the Architect himself would marvel at them to his grave. Something so old and so well built for the time to still be intact was a marvel. But most buildings around the turn of the millennia had started to decline. Without some of its grand glass windows and rotting wood, surprisingly it was still habitable, or so the Morganthorn family thought.

Morganthorn family had resided there for nearly a millennia. The first Morganthorns who called it home were unlike any aristocratic family of the time, they attracted the richest in all the land and held the most lavish balls through the centuries. No one was quite sure how the Morganthorn family amassed so much wealth to build and live in such a place, some said they became wealthy before the black death swept through Europe. Others had their theories of Roman gold that sustained them through the years, whatever had given such wealth to build a cathedral for their home, had long been forgotten by the time of the Industrial Revolution. When greed corrupted the souls of many, Morganthorn's land stretched into the mountains, where gold, cole and other riches were buried.

But wealth and power dwindled as the times changed, wars came and went and the world changed. Cures and superstition were replaced with murder and accidents, The Morganthorn family or what was left of them dwindled in number. The darkness everpresent still lurked in the Mannor and the grounds. By the year 1990, there was only one resident in the house Gwenann. She had grown up in its spender and heyday but his father's sins had been passed on to her, originally one of four, she was the only girl in the family. Her mother passed away the day she was born, she herself nearly passed away that day in June but in the words of the doctor "it was a miracle" that she pulled through.

Her life had been hard, she had been sickly and weak for most of her childhood. She was viewed by the others around her as strange as if she didn't live in the real world, talking to people who weren't there. Her father and two of her brothers avoided her, they thought it would be best to keep her hidden and away from prying eyes. In a way, she felt just like a princess locked in a tower from her storybooks. Her third brother, Michel who was a year older than her, was the only person who truly cared for her.

But it had been a long time since she had seen Michel, her two other brothers, David and Eric, had died many years ago. Her father who had never shown love for her, had in his later years developed a strange disease that plagued him with visions and fits. Instead of leaving she chose to stay and look after him, something that had never crossed Gwenann's father's mind.

The House now lay still, its mosaics broken, windows shattered and doors chained. Gwenanne lay in her bed, now at the age of seventy. Her bed frame was so beautifully carved and ornate, the same for her eroded covers and pillows of the deepest red. The four posts of the bed looked like turrets covered in vines that spiralled up, with the darkest of wood. As she lay there in an empty room, the wind blowing the autumn leaves in through an open window. She knew it wasn't her time yet, as she had too much still to do, all the stories she would need to pass on and the gift she had to give to another. Someone more worthy than her, to finally be free of what had plagued her and her ancestors.