She disappeared from the manor. She's not here. She must have been trying to see if she could escape me again. The thought came like a spark and caught in my chest—bright, consuming, almost amusing at first. A tremor of disbelief wrapped in pride. The girl never learned. Every door she ran to still led back to me. Every breath she borrowed was one I allowed. Evangelina. Even the name sounded like defiance dressed as grace, a melody that forgot who composed it.
The corridors were silent now—too silent. The servants moved carefully, their steps shallow as if they feared to wake something sleeping in the walls. They should. The house listens only to me. It has learned my temper the way others learn prayer. Every creak, every whisper of the wind knows the sound of my displeasure.
I caught my reflection in the tall mirror by the staircase—clear, unflawed, regal. The candlelight kissed the gold in my hair, the precision of my features, the composure I had taught myself to wear like armor. I looked immaculate, as I should. Not a soul alive could mistake me for one of them—for the trembling, stunted creatures who serve and scurry through my halls. How unlike me she is—how disappointingly human. My twin in name only. Her beauty is fragile, easily ruined by tears, her spirit clumsy and unrefined. I have tried to mend it, to sculpt it into something worthy of the blood we share. Yet she resists perfection, as if ugliness were a virtue. As if suffering made her pure.
I gave her everything that mattered—discipline, grace, meaning. Before me, she was a formless thing, all sentiment and softness. I corrected her. I refined her. And this is how she thanks me—by running, by defying the hands that shaped her into something almost divine. I let the silence breathe, the manor itself bending to my stillness. Beyond the window, snow fell—soft, immaculate, untainted, like me. The storm would hide her tracks, but it would not protect her. The cold cannot love her as I do. It cannot understand the devotion I have shown—the patience, the art.
She believes she can run from me, but she is only running deeper into what I have made of her. The world will look at her and see my design. Even her fear belongs to me. Her every breath will echo my name, because I am not just her brother—I am her creator. Let her run. Let her shiver, let her beg. The world is cruel, yes, but not cruel enough. I will show her what cruelty looks like when it loves.
I moved through the hall, slow, deliberate. My footsteps made the portraits tremble in their frames. The servants scattered before I spoke. They knew better than to meet my eyes when the air around me began to thin like this—when patience turned sharp. The house listened; it always did. I built it that way—every wall a confession booth, every corridor a leash. It kept her secrets for me, whispered them back at night when she thought to herself alone. I could hear her still if I tried hard enough—the echo of her breathing, the rustle of her dress, the small rebellions of movement she thought went unnoticed.
I could feel her absence immediately; it left a hollow in the air, a gap in the rhythm of the place. She was the pulse of this house, even when she tried to hide from it. Everything she touched remembers her—the worn banister on the stairs, the porcelain cup on her table, the faint impression of her body against the chair where she used to read when she still thought she could ignore me.
I walked through her room slowly. No struggle. No note. She had gone quietly this time. I could respect that—almost admire it—even as it infuriated me. She always thinks silence will save her. She thinks my silence means blindness. But silence is the finest form of sight. It teaches people to reveal themselves. I have mastered it better than she ever could. The door to her room hung open, the pale curtains breathing against the windowpane as if mourning her. The air was colder here, touched by snow and absence. Her scent lingered—rose and wax, the faint sweetness of fear, a ghost of the garden she tended as if life could root in this place. The window stood ajar, its breath mingling with winter's. Beyond it, the world stretched white and soundless, vast and indifferent.
I walked inside the room, letting the floorboards groan softly beneath my weight. Even they seemed to flinch. My gaze moved to the small things she'd left behind—a comb on the vanity, a shawl half-folded on the chair, the faint outline of her hand against the dust of the desk. She vanished delicately, as though she meant to erase herself without consequence. I smiled, "Quiet," I murmured to the room. "Always so quiet." I could almost hear her voice hiding in the corners, her breath trembling behind the walls. She never understood that silence is mine. I invented it. I can hear her even now.
I brushed my hand along the edge of her bedpost, tracing the patterns carved into it—patterns she once admired but never truly saw. "You always forget," I whispered, my tone soft, almost tender. "This house knows me better than it knows you. It keeps what's mine. Even when you run, it keeps you." The snow outside shifted in the wind, its reflection flickering across the walls like faint candlelight. I walked to the window and stood before it, watching the pale expanse beyond the gate. The storm would cover her tracks, yes, but it would not hide her for long. The cold might embrace her for a moment, but it is a cruel lover. It doesn't protect—it punishes.
I let my hand rest on the sill where hers must have been. The chill bit into my skin. "You think the world will take you in?" I said quietly, my breath fogging the glass. "You think it will be gentler than I was?" I smiled again—beautifully, cruelly. "You'll see, my darling. The world devours what it cannot keep. And I—" I tapped the glass lightly, as if knocking on her ghost— "I keep everything."
The curtains stirred against the windowpane, as though the house exhaled. The sound soothed me. For a moment, I could almost believe she was still here—trapped between the walls, trembling, waiting to be found. I turned from the window, the calm returning, slow and serpentine. "You'll come home soon," I murmured to the room, to the air, to myself.
A single set of footprints broke the untouched snow below, trailing toward the trees like a thread pulled loose from the edge of the world. I followed them with my eyes until they disappeared into the dark, swallowed by distance—or by something waiting. She had gone quickly, foolishly. No cloak. No gloves. Not even enough sense to fear the cold before it reached her. The thought drew a quiet laugh from me. The world beyond these walls will not cradle her. It will bruise her, starve her, whisper my name when she tries to forget it. The cold will be her first lesson, hunger her second. And when fear begins to speak my language, she will listen.
I turned back into the room, the hush of it almost reverent. My fingers brushed the edge of her vanity, where dust had begun to gather like neglect. The mirror, an obedient thing, showed only me—sharp, composed, flawless. As it should. There was no room in reflection for ghosts. A comb lay beside the mirror, its teeth bent slightly from her clumsy hands. I picked it up, studying the fragile thing as though it might confess her thoughts to me. A single strand of her hair clung to it, catching the last of the evening light. It gleamed like fine gold, warm against the cool ivory of my fingers.
I wound it once around my finger, then again, tighter, until it bit into the skin. The pain bloomed sweetly, sharp and intimate—proof that she was still here, even in absence. My blood rose against the thread of her hair, and I smiled. "See, Evangelina?" I whispered. "You never really leave. You only change where you haunt." The wind outside sighed through the open window, carrying snow and silence alike. I let the comb fall back onto the vanity. The sound it made—small, hollow—felt like the closing of a door.
"So this is your rebellion," I murmured, tracing the air where her scent still lingered. "You flee, and yet every step still belongs to me." For a moment, the anger faded, and something else took its place—something dangerously close to awe. No one had ever tested my patience this long. Not once. Not in all the years I've spent teaching people their proper place. But she does. Every day. Every look. Every breath that isn't permission feels like defiance made flesh. The word find echoed in my mind like a promise—no, a certainty. She would not have gone far. She was brave, yes, but bravery and recklessness are twins, and she was always a little of both. That was the curse of her kind heart—it made her believe the world beyond these walls might spare her. It never does.
I turned from the window and let the thought settle, heavy and clean. She believed her escape was an act of strength, when in truth it was only another way of reaching for me. Even in flight, she moves by the rhythm I set for her. Even her rebellion is choreography I designed. She thinks herself a free creature, but every step she takes is an echo of my will. How exquisite, to be so completely misunderstood. To be worshiped through fear, adored through defiance. She does not love me—she cannot—and yet I live in every tremor of her thoughts. Her hatred is merely love in disguise, stripped of understanding.
I laughed softly, the sound curling in the still air. "You don't even realize it, do you?" I whispered. "You can run, my darling, but I'm still the gravity that pulls you back." The house creaked in answer, the walls shifting as though they understood. I felt its pulse, her pulse, the strange tether that never seemed to loosen, no matter how far she strayed. She could no more escape me than I could stop breathing. We were bound—by birth, by blood, by choice, by me.
I took a slow breath and straightened my cuffs, a gesture of control for no one's benefit but my own. "Let her think she's free," I said softly. "Let her dream of mercy. I'll find her soon enough—and when I do, she'll remember what it means to belong." The silence folded itself neatly around my words, obedient as ever. Beyond the glass, the snow fell thicker, the sky darkening into a bruised violet. Somewhere out there, she stumbled through the cold, and I wondered if she could still feel me thinking of her.
Because I could feel her. I always could.
I paused halfway down the stairs, my hand resting on the polished rail. The wood was smooth beneath my palm, worn by years of her trembling fingers. How many times had she clung to this banister, thinking it could steady her? How naïve to believe the house would save her from me. It has always been my accomplice—my choir of wood and breath and echo. I reached the landing and looked toward the great hall. The air there still remembered her presence; it trembled faintly, as if reluctant to let it go. Her absence was not emptiness—it was vibration, the faint hum of something unfinished. She belonged here, in this quiet orchestra of obedience and decay. She made the silence meaningful.
I walked toward the hearth. The embers had cooled to a dull red, a wound refusing to heal. I stirred them absently with the poker, watching the ash bloom upward like gray petals. "You should have stayed," I said to the dying fire. My voice sounded calm, almost tender. "You could have had warmth, Evangelina. My Warmth. You could have had peace, My peace. All you ever had to do was be still." The thought made me smile. Stillness had always suited her; she wore it beautifully, like a hymn sung under breath. The way she froze when I drew near—the delicate restraint in her shoulders, the way her lips parted but no sound came—it was art. A quiet performance of submission that only I could conduct.
I turned from the hearth, my reflection catching in the tall mirror above the mantel. I looked immaculate, untouched by the cold or the hour. How could she not see the mercy in what I offer? Out there, the world would chew her up in silence, swallow her beauty, forget her name. But here—here, under my gaze—she mattered. I made her matter. The thought steadied me. I could almost feel her in the air again—the ghost of her footsteps on the upper floors, the whisper of her breath in the walls. She would tire soon. The storm is a cruel tutor, and she has always been a slow learner. When she returns, she will understand what her defiance has cost her. And as I turned toward the door, the floorboards creaked beneath my feet—not in protest, but in praise.
She does not understand that this—we—is love perfected. She has confused freedom with safety, and both are illusions. What is freedom, if not loneliness gilded in rhetoric? What is safety, if not the cage built by someone who cares enough to close the door? She does not see the mercy in confinement, the kindness in control. I have given her purpose, structure, and a sense of identity. Without me, she is a question without an answer, a voice without language. The house sighed again, and I almost pitied her. Out there, the cold would not whisper her name the way I do. It would not crave her breath or mourn her silence. The world would only take, while I always gave.
The house smelled of smoke and silence. I liked it that way. No laughter, no footsteps except my own. When she was here, it was different. Her presence filled the air with something dangerous—hope. Hope is unruly; it breeds insolence. I saw it in the way she lifted her eyes when she thought I wouldn't notice, in the way she dared to dream of mornings that did not begin with my voice. That is why I took it from her, piece by piece—so carefully she mistook the theft for affection. I taught her that smiles were currency and obedience was the only language worth speaking. I broke her laughter until she learned to whisper my name in apology.
In the music room, the piano sat beneath its shroud of muslin, a monument to her half-hearted rebellion. I drew the cover back, and dust rose in elegant spirals, catching the dying light like ghosts of sound. The air smelled faintly of wax and old wood—the scent of memory preserved in stillness. Her sheet music remained on the stand, a page half-turned, the ink smudged where tears had fallen. How poetic—grief staining what was meant to be beautiful. She played as if sound could redeem her. She never realized that redemption was not hers to seek—it was mine to grant.
I sat before the instrument, tracing the ivory keys with the tip of my glove. They were cold, mute, but her touch lingered in them like an afterthought. I pressed one, and the note shivered—faint, uneven—the echo fading too quickly, like her voice when she lied. I remembered the way she used to sit here, shoulders drawn tight, every movement careful, controlled. She would glance at me between phrases, as if asking permission to continue. And I would grant it—with a nod, with silence, with the satisfaction of knowing that even her music existed because I allowed it to.
I sank onto the bench and pressed another key. The note rose higher this time, sharp and thin, trembling through the air like the last cry of something realizing it is trapped. The sound rippled through the empty room and vanished into the walls, obedient to its own death. I imagined her standing by the door again—hands clasped, breath caught between plea and prayer. She looked at me then the way prey looks at the predator: half in terror, half in awe. She despised that contradiction, but I cherished it. It meant she still saw me. And to be seen—truly seen—is the purest form of devotion.
The sound faded, leaving the air trembling. I let my hand hover above the keys, fingertips grazing the ivory that still remembered her touch. Each note she played had been a confession, whether she knew it or not. Her trembling, her pauses, the way her breath caught when I drew near—all of it was music written in my language. She thought she was playing for herself, but every sound she made was a hymn to my patience.
I closed my eyes, listening to the memory of her playing. Each hesitant note had been a prayer, though she never understood to whom she prayed. I was her god, her confessor, and her executioner—all wrapped into one convenient truth she refused to worship properly. What greater devotion could there be than fear shaped into harmony? What purer faith than submission disguised as grace?
She thought herself delicate, but she was built to endure me. I made her so. Every silence I carved into her, every tremor I placed beneath her breath—it was all a kind of artistry. She believed I was cruel, but cruelty is only precision misunderstood. I was teaching her how to be whole. I laughed softly, and the sound fractured against the walls. "You never did finish the piece," I murmured, letting my hand fall flat against the keys. The dissonant clang that followed was aching, imperfect—beautiful. "Perhaps that's why you left," I said, tilting my head, a faint smile ghosting over my lips. "You wanted to see if freedom had a better tune." I paused, listening to the echo die. "It doesn't," I whispered.
The dust shimmered in the dying light like the remnants of an unfinished hymn, rising, swirling, and settling again. I closed the piano lid slowly, the soft click of it sealing the silence like a confession forgotten. "You'll come home," I said to the quiet. "When the music ends, you'll remember who wrote it." The music room answered in its old language—wood settling, dust descending, silence holding its breath. Even the house seemed to agree: she would learn soon enough. Out there, the cold would strip her down to truth, and truth would sound like me.
Every man desires to be adored, but adoration fades. Fear endures. Fear does not wander or betray; it kneels. It listens. It remembers. Love, on the other hand, is fickle—too easily swayed by the warmth of a sunrise or the illusion of freedom. But fear—fear belongs to me. Fear never questions. It never dreams of mornings without my voice or corridors that don't echo my name. Fear is honest. It does not flatter or lie. It keeps its place. It holds its breath when I enter the room. It waits to be told what to feel. And that—that—is what I have given her: a life without confusion, without choice, without the burden of thinking she could ever exist apart from me.
I rose from the bench, smoothing the front of my coat, and looked once more around the room. Everything here had learned obedience—the instruments, the furniture, even the light. Nothing dared to move until I allowed it. That was peace, true peace: a world perfectly still beneath my hand. She called it cruelty, once. I remember the tremor in her voice when she said it. Cruelty. As though the word could wound me. As though she understood the difference between cruelty and care. What I do is not cruelty—it is cultivation. I prune her, shape her, strip away what's diseased. She should thank me for every scar, for every bruise in her body that taught her how to kneel.
I turned toward the door, the room dimming behind me as if in reverence. "You'll understand soon enough, my darling," I murmured. "The world is colder than I ever was. It will remind you of what warmth truly meant." The echo of my steps followed me into the corridor, sharp and measured, each one a vow. The house exhaled, long and low, as if to carry the sound of my certainty through its bones. "Fear," I said softly, almost to myself. "Fear never leaves home."
The clock struck somewhere in the hall—long, hollow notes marking the hours I'd wasted on gentleness. I laughed softly, the sound dry and humorless. Gentleness. What a foolish experiment that was. I thought affection could civilize her. That perhaps she might bloom in gratitude, learning the comfort of belonging to me. But kindness—kindness only fattens the spirit before the slaughter. It teaches defiance to disguise itself as innocence. She took my mercy and dressed it as weakness, believing my touch meant she was safe. Safe. The word itself is an insult. I should have taught her sooner that safety is not the absence of pain—it is the privilege of surviving my temper.
She wanted to be loved; I offered her purpose. She wanted freedom; I offered her meaning. And still, she runs. Ungrateful, delicate little fool—she will learn soon enough that the world beyond my walls does not love her as I do. Out there, she will find no music, no warmth, no voice whispering her name with such devotion. Only the cold. Only hunger. Only the echo of what she was when she was mine. The air around me was still vibrating faintly with the echo of her name. I had spoken it without realizing—like a prayer, or a curse. Evangelina. It tasted bitter now, sharp on the tongue. The sound of it no longer comforted me; it stung. It reminded me of defiance. Of betrayal. Of her walking through my halls with downcast eyes that still somehow managed to burn.
How small she looked when she begged—how exquisite in her submission. Her tears were always pure then, cleansed of pride. She doesn't understand that I gave her something sacred: the beauty of obedience. She thought she was surrendering; she never realized she was being perfected. I stood, crossing to the window. The world outside lay pale and endless, a cathedral of frost and silence. Even the trees bowed beneath the weight of winter, their branches gleaming like sharpened bones. Beyond the gates, the forest shimmered with cold light—a graveyard dressed in white. She would not last an hour out there. Not with the cold biting her skin, not with her fragile lungs that caught at every breath like glass.
I imagined her stumbling through the drifts, clutching at the folds of her dress, the snow swallowing her footprints as quickly as she made them. Perhaps she would whisper my name when the dark began to press against her ribs, when the silence became too heavy to bear. She always whispered it in the end. The thought soothed me. There was something exquisite in her suffering—a slow, inevitable surrender written in frost and fear. It pleased me to think that even now the world itself was conspiring to return her to me. The cold would carve humility into her skin where my words could not reach. The wind would remind her what true captivity felt like—how soft the cage had been, how gentle the chains. Out there, she would learn the difference between my cruelty and the world's indifference. Between punishment and extinction.
I pressed my hand to the glass, the chill seeping through my glove. "You think this world will keep you?" I murmured. "It does not know how. It devours its delicate things." My breath fogged the pane, and I traced a small circle through the mist with one finger, as though marking the shape of her face. "You'll come crawling home soon, won't you? You'll remember where warmth lives."I watched the snow drift past the glass. The night outside had deepened, heavy and blue. Somewhere in that frozen distance she was wandering, fragile and foolish, believing herself free. I could almost see her—a smudge of white against the black trees, trembling, her breath fogging the air like confession.
"Do you miss me yet?" I murmured. "Does the silence speak my name?" The frost crawled across the pane beneath my fingers, as if the cold itself answered. The storm shifted, the wind rising like a voice—distant, hollow, almost human. For a moment, it sounded like her: a faint, broken plea threading through the howl of the snow. My reflection stared back at me from the window, lips parted, eyes alight with something close to hunger. I didn't move. I didn't breathe. I only listened.
Then it was gone. Only the wind remained.
I let my hand fall from the glass, the ghost of her name still burning on my tongue. "You'll come back," I said softly, to the empty room, to the night beyond. "And when you do, you'll thank me for showing you what the world really is." The house groaned in agreement, its timbers shivering with the cold. Outside, the snow thickened, erasing everything but the certainty of her return.
Let her wander. Let her shiver and weep beneath the trees that do not know her name. The world beyond my walls is not merciful; it never has been. It devours the weak and crowns the cruel, and she is neither. I am both. Let her learn what that balance costs. Let her beg the wind for gentleness and find it as pitiless as truth. The forest will not cradle her. The snow will not answer her cries. The cold will creep into her bones and whisper my name there, syllable by syllable, until she confuses agony with remembrance. She thinks herself free now, but freedom is nothing more than a longer leash. Every road she takes still curves back to me. Every breath she draws still belongs to my design. She may flee my voice, but she cannot flee the echo it left inside her. I am in the rhythm of her fear, the tremor of her pulse, the cadence of her prayers when she believes she is speaking to no one.
The cold will teach her that I am warmth; the dark will teach her that I am light. The world will strip her bare until even her defiance remembers its master. And when she finally crawls back—trembling, hollow-eyed, starving for the comfort she once despised—I will open the door. Not out of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a gift for equals, and she has none. I will open it to remind her who it is that grants it, who names her suffering, who writes her salvation. Because love is not mercy—it is authority. And mine was never meant to be kind. The house creaked around me, a sound like bones settling into rest. The clock in the hall ticked on, patient as a heartbeat. I straightened, drawing my coat tighter around me. There was no anger now, only certainty—quiet, absolute.
And yet—this time, something in me shifted. The air itself felt different, as though the house had drawn a breath it did not mean to take. Every sound, every shadow seemed to listen. Even the silence leaned closer, waiting to see what I would do. The air thickened, alive with a tension that felt almost sentient. It pressed against my skin like a warning, or perhaps a dare. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath, listening for a name they feared to hear. The chandelier trembled slightly above me, though there was no wind. The candle flames guttered, shrinking as if to hide.
The air no longer obeyed me; it vibrated with an unfamiliar pulse, as if the house itself had begun to doubt my dominion. It was a strange, electric quiet—one that belonged not to me, but to whatever had entered my world unseen. The hearth gave a faint hiss, a whisper of dying heat, as though it too knew to be still. The air carried an echo that did not start from me. It was as though the walls that once mirrored my will had turned their ears elsewhere—listening to something beyond my reach. The thought unsettled me, and I despised it for doing so. I do not like it when the world forgets who it serves.
I stood very still, my pulse loud in the silence. The air felt heavier by the second, swollen with a presence I could not name. For the first time in years, I had the distinct, absurd impression that I was not alone. The manor that had always bent to my temper now seemed to shrink away from me—as though it, too, feared something greater. My reflection flickered faintly in the window, the faintest movement behind my shoulder—a trick of the light, no more. And yet, the air quivered with anticipation, as if bracing for intrusion. I felt my throat tighten. "Enough," I said aloud, though to what, I couldn't be sure. The word hung there, unanswered. The house did not respond. It only listened. For the first time, I realized how vast the silence truly was.
There have been rumors lately, whispered by the villagers who still think their tongues are safe when they speak my name. Rumors of a man. A shadow. A presence that moves through the woods and leaves no tracks but death behind. They say he delivers ruin quietly, like a plague that chooses its victims by scent. That no one sees his face long enough to remember it. But when he is near, you feel it—the hair at your nape rises, the air turns colder, and the world holds its breath. I remember hearing it and laughing. Ghost stories. Peasant fears wrapped in superstition. Tales to frighten servants into obedience. But standing there now, at her window, the laughter would not come. The air pressed against my skin like a warning, heavy and deliberate, as if it too had chosen sides.
No, I do not think this creature is a ghost, nor some romantic demon conjured by frightened minds. The dead do not kill with such precision. This is something far simpler—and infinitely more dangerous. A man, yes, but one honed by purpose. A craftsman of endings. The kind of man who kills not for hunger or wrath, but with the patience of a surgeon, the efficiency of ritual. A professional. The kind whose reputation arrives long before he does. And yet, there is something in the thought of him that unsettles me. It lingers—not as fear, but as irritation, like a splinter beneath the skin. I have ruled this place long enough to know the measure of every sound, every shadow, every trespass of air within my walls. Nothing moves here without my consent. Nothing dares. And still… The air moves differently now. The silence no longer bows to me.
Could he be real? Some nameless wraith of blood and precision stalking my forest? Absurd. No man would dare. Not here. Not where my word is law, where even the soil remembers the weight of my will.
And yet… the stillness persists.
I find myself listening to the dark beyond the glass, the snow shifting in soft intervals like breath. There is rhythm in it, deliberate, almost human. Too measured to be the wind, too patient to be chance. My reflection blurs against the window, my own face staring back at me with a question I refuse to name. If there truly is such a man—this phantom who deals in death and silence—then he should come. Let him. Let him see what kind of darkness has already made its home here. Let him measure himself against me and discover what it means to look into the face of something older than fear, something that does not kneel to death.
Still… the air does not move right. The house does not breathe the way it used to. For the first time, I feel its silence not as obedience—but as waiting. They say he takes contracts that no one else dares touch. That when he comes for you, it is not vengeance—it is certainty. There is no pleading, no chance of mercy. Only the quiet afterthought of your own name fading from the world.
I should have dismissed it. I always have. Yet as the wind moved through the cracks of the window, I felt something I could not name—an unease that did not belong to me. It was as though the night itself was no longer mine to command. As though he had already stepped into it. And the thought—the ridiculous, impossible thought—came to me like a splinter in the mind: perhaps she hadn't merely run from me. Perhaps she was running to someone. My instincts—those same instincts that had kept me alive through every betrayal and uprising—whispered that he was near. That whatever haunted the forest had finally turned its gaze toward my house. Toward me. And she had chosen this moment to flee.
No. Not chosen. Drawn. The word slid into my mind like a blade. Drawn to what, exactly? To whom? The thought almost made me laugh. Almost. How absurd. How utterly impossible. There is no one for her to run to—no one who would dare take what is mine. The villagers? Spineless creatures who avert their eyes when I pass. My servants? They would not risk their lives for sentiment. A lord? Marriage to demand money? And a stranger? What could she offer him—except a frail body, a frightened heart, and a name that exists only because I gave it meaning?
And yet…
The air still felt wrong. I could taste it—something sharp, electric, threaded through the stillness like breath behind a door. A sensation I did not recognize. The house, once so loyal, seemed to hesitate in its silence. The walls no longer echoed back my thoughts; they listened to something else. I stepped closer to the glass, peering into the blue-black expanse beyond the gate. The forest loomed—still, vast, indifferent. And yet, there was a rhythm in it, a heartbeat I could not name. I felt it in my throat, under my skin. My pulse matched it before I realized I was listening. "Ridiculous," I muttered. "A child's story." But the words rang hollow.
For the first time, I felt the limits of my reach—the edges of a world that might not bow to me. The possibility that someone else could walk unseen through the places I have already claimed. No, not someone. A man. A presence that does not kneel, that does not fear, that dares to trespass where even God has the decency not to look. And she—my Evangelina—had walked straight into his shadow. The thought struck with a violence that stole my breath. My jaw tightened; I forced the laugh that came out too sharp. "No," I said aloud, to the room, to the house, to myself. "She wouldn't." But the silence answered otherwise.
The villagers' whispers returned to me—of the man who moves through snow without leaving a trace, who kills without noise, whose face no one remembers. I had dismissed them as superstition. As fear gives form. The weak always need their monsters; they cannot bear to admit that evil wears human hands. But now, with her gone and the forest so still, the idea no longer seemed entirely absurd. The air itself carried a strange gravity, a weight that did not belong to me. Still, no. It was impossible. Ridiculous. She couldn't have gone to him. She doesn't even know what waits beyond the gates. She's fragile, naive—barely brave enough to look me in the eyes when she lies. There's no way she could have reached for something like that, for him.
And yet again… the thought persisted, stubborn as a wound that refused to close. I tried to shake it off, to smother it beneath reason and contempt, but it pulsed beneath my ribs, sharp and insistent. So it was true then—or rather, it could be. She hadn't run blindly into the snow. She had gone to him. Or at least, she thought she could. No. She wouldn't. She couldn't. The idea was absurd. And yet, the longer I stood there, the less certain I became. Perhaps that was what unsettled me most—the thought that she could feel him too. That some part of her misery had called to him. That in the hollow I had carved into her, something had answered. The idea lingered like smoke, clinging to the corners of my mind.
I shut the window hard enough to rattle the glass. The sound echoed through the room, satisfying in its violence, as though the house itself recoiled at my anger. "There is no man," I said aloud, as if volume could make it true. "There is only me." The words hung there, trembling, fragile things pretending to be truth. The silence that followed felt heavier than before, thick with something that refused to vanish. The house seemed to breathe once more—uneven, uncertain—as though it, too, doubted me.
The words hung in the air, trembling, fragile as a web stretched too thin. I could almost hear the house listening, questioning. For a moment, even the fire seemed hesitant to crackle, its embers dimming as though uncertain which master to obey. I turned away, unwilling to feel the silence accuse me. At the sideboard, I poured myself a glass of wine, watching the dark liquid catch the firelight like spilled blood. The scent was sharp, metallic—alive. I drank deeply, letting it scorch the doubt from my throat. The warmth slid through me like a promise I no longer believed, sweet and venomous in equal measure.
For a moment, the house seemed to shift, its shadows lengthening as if in agreement, bending toward me like loyal servants eager to be absolved of their fear. The fire hissed softly in the grate, a serpentine whisper of warmth and warning. I could almost imagine the walls murmuring their devotion again, eager to please, to remind me that all things here still bent to my will. I smiled. A thin, deliberate thing. The kind that knows it is a mask. "There is only me," I said again—quieter this time, more to the walls than to myself. The lie tasted sweeter with every sip.
The glass trembled faintly in my hand, the wine catching the firelight like a heartbeat. I raised it again, laughing softly under my breath. "Only me," I whispered, testing the words as though they might echo back differently this time. The room swayed a little, or perhaps I did. The edges of things seemed softer now, pliant. Shadows leaned closer. The house felt warmer—obedient again, restored to its hierarchy. Yes. This was how it should be. Order. Silence. Devotion. I took another drink, slower this time, savoring the illusion. "There is no man," I murmured, voice slick with confidence. "No savior. No ghost in my woods. There is only me."
The words dripped into the air like confession, dissolving into the quiet. Somewhere in the walls, a timber groaned—a long, low note that almost sounded like laughter. The wine burned on the way down, bitter and bright, curling in my gut like fire trying to find a home, like something alive clawing for space inside me. I poured another, and another, until the edges of the room began to sway with me, until the floor itself seemed to pulse in time with my heartbeat. The shadows leaned closer, stretching long and liquid across the walls, curious, listening. I laughed at them. At the house. At myself. The sound broke against the air like glass. "There is only me," I said again, louder this time, slurring the truth into something unrecognizable, something holy in its blasphemy.
The thought came crawling back despite the drink—the man in the woods, the faceless thing the peasants name in whispers. The shadow with no face. The one they pray to behind locked doors, as if superstition could stop a blade. The one they whisper about as if his name might save them. "He won't kill me quickly," I muttered, pacing, my steps uneven and slow. "Men like him—heroes—they like to linger, don't they? They make speeches. Big, grand speeches about mercy, about justice, about balance and all those other pretty words that sound righteous until they break their teeth on reality." I raised my glass to the dark window, to my reflection's sneer that seemed to smirk back at me like a rival. "Let him come then! Let him see what mercy looks like when you strip it naked! When you cut the poetry out of it and leave only the bone!"
The echo came back distorted, mocking, as though the walls were laughing too. I slammed the glass down too hard, red spilling across the floor like something arterial, alive, writhing in the firelight. The sight of it pleased me. It looked honest. It looked like the truth spilled open—vulgar, perfect, irrefutable. Because I do not beg. I do not kneel. Not for saints, not for shadows, not for anything that crawls or breathes and pretends it can look me in the eye. If he thinks himself my punishment, he'll learn the depth of my endurance before he delivers it. He'll learn that pain does not frighten me—it's the only prayer I ever answer.
I staggered toward the door, shoving it open so violently that the hinges cried out in protest, the sound splitting the silence like a wound. The corridor waited—long, cold, accusing—its shadows stretched thin, clinging to the walls like witnesses too afraid to speak. Her absence still hung there, soft as perfume, cruel as memory, wrapping itself around me with the intimacy of a ghost that refuses to be dismissed.
I could almost hear her, whispering behind the walls—pleas, apologies, that little trembling voice I had shaped to perfection, molded until every syllable carried the weight of my will. "You see?" I laughed, dragging my hand across the plaster, feeling the house pulse faintly beneath my palm as if it remembered her touch. "She knows her place. I taught her. I taught her everything!" My voice cracked somewhere between triumph and mourning, between love and madness, and I wasn't entirely sure which side it fell on.
And yet… she ran.
That was her flaw. That ridiculous, childish hope still squirming somewhere inside her like a dying flame that refused to go out. Hope for what? Deliverance? Salvation? The words tasted bitter, sour, laughable. I laughed again—too loud, too long, the sound ricocheting off the walls until it no longer sounded like mine. "Deliverance!" I spat the word like poison, the syllables slurring, wet with wine and disdain. "From what? From me? From the only one who's ever given her purpose?" My laughter twisted into something ugly, breathless. I stumbled against the wall, my breath thick with wine and fury, my reflection flickering faintly in the gilded mirror across the hall—a ghost wrapped in arrogance and despair.
"There's no one out there," I hissed. "No savior. No man worth dying for would crawl through snow for her. She has nothing left to offer. Nothing!" I slammed my hand against the wall, the vibration traveling up my arm like a heartbeat. "I took it all. I made her better. I made her mine." The word echoed, low and trembling, reverberating through the empty corridor until even the silence seemed to recoil from it. My chest heaved, each breath dragging through me like glass, hot and uneven. The words hung in the air, trembling, drunken, alive—refusing to die, echoing off the walls as if the house itself wanted to keep them breathing. They shimmered there, fragile things stitched from wine and pride, from the unraveling thread of what I still dared to call conviction.
No one would come for her. No one could.
I knew that. I knew that as surely as I knew my own name, as surely as I knew the beat of this cursed house that mirrors my pulse. And yet… I couldn't stop listening. My head tilted toward the dark, to the corners where the light didn't reach, to the still air that seemed too full, too expectant. Listening—for footsteps that never came. Listening—for a door that would not open, though I willed it to creak. Listening—for her voice. That soft, fractured melody I had trained into obedience, that trembling sound that once filled these halls with purpose. But there was nothing. Only the rhythm of my breathing, too loud, too human. Only the groan of the manor's bones, settling around me like an audience holding its breath.
And the silence… laughed with me.
It was a low, knowing sound—not real, but cruelly convincing—the kind of laughter that hides behind the walls and waits for you to break before it answers. I descended the staircase, my reflection trailing me in the mirrors that lined the hall—splintered, warped, multiplied into grotesque variations of myself. A hundred eyes stared back, none of them mine, all of them echoing the shape of a man I could no longer fully claim to be. For a moment, I didn't recognize the face that watched me. The cold light stretched across my skin, making me look spectral, thinned out, as though something had already begun hollowing me from within, eating me quietly from the marrow outward.
I paused on the last step, gripping the banister until the wood groaned beneath my hand. I forced my features to calm again, rearranging the ruin into something controlled. She must not see me like this when I find her. Fear works best when it wears a steady mask. Fear, after all, is theater—it crumbles when the actor forgets his lines. The corridor ahead seemed longer than I remembered, the air heavier, thicker with the ghosts of touch and sound, saturated with memory that pressed close against my skin. Each step echoed differently, as though the floor itself had learned to flinch beneath me. The portraits on the walls leaned forward in the dimness, faces twisted in disapproval or pity—I could not tell which.
At its end waited the small chapel I had built long ago—my monument to repentance that never came. It had been meant for prayer once, or so I told myself in the days when I still pretended such things mattered. But no god had heard a word from this place in decades. The air itself had forgotten how to carry the sound of forgiveness. Whatever sanctity it once held had long since been replaced by silence—and me. I stepped inside. The cold greeted me like an old friend, slipping beneath my clothes, running its fingers along my spine. The air here was still and reverent, but not in worship—no, in fear. The candles stood dead and unlit, their wax cracked and sagging from disuse, their wicks long surrendered to dust. Dust veiled the altar like a funeral cloth, soft and gray, untouched by prayer or mercy.
And yet there it was—her rosary, still hanging from the pew where she used to kneel. A fragile loop of devotion, forgotten but not forsaken. The beads were dull with time, but they caught the faintest whisper of light, trembling as though they still remembered the rhythm of her hands. I reached for it, the chain cool against my skin. The beads rolled between my fingers like tiny hearts, and beneath the dust they still smelled faintly of her skin—salt, sorrow, and something unbearably human. I closed my hand around it, tighter, until the crucifix bit into my palm. The pain was small, clean, and almost welcome. For a moment, it felt as though she was there again, kneeling in the same spot, whispering prayers to a god who had abandoned her to me. I could almost hear her breath, the quiver of her voice as she tried to hide her tears from a heaven that no longer listened.
The silence deepened, pressing close, intimate as breath, wrapping around me like a living thing that had learned to mimic affection. It filled the chapel, seeping into every crevice of stone and shadow, smothering even the faint memory of sound. The mirrors upstairs had lied—I was not spectral at all. I was substance, I was weight, I was the thing that haunted the sacred. I had taken holiness and made it obedient. I looked down at the rosary again, at the symbol of all she once believed could save her, and I almost laughed. The tiny crucifix glimmered weakly in my hand, pitiful in its promise. Faith. It was always the purest form of surrender—and I had taught her both. I had shown her that prayer is only another way of saying please, that devotion, in the end, is indistinguishable from obedience.
I asked emptiness, my voice breaking against the stone, "Did you beg for someone to save you?" The words fell flat, swallowed by the cold air, lost before they could echo back to me. Silence answered—patient, heavy, deliberate—its weight pressing against my chest like a hand that meant to still my heart. Then, a faint sound—the wind outside, perhaps, or something older, older than prayer, older than forgiveness itself. It whispered through the cracks in the chapel walls like breath through a dying throat, slow and rattling, as though the building itself was remembering how to die.
I almost laughed again. Salvation. The word itself tasted spoiled, like wine left too long in the mouth, cloying, rotten at its core. Salvation is a story the desperate tell themselves, a bedtime tale for the broken, a lullaby to quiet the terror of their own insignificance. No savior is coming. There is only one who stays when all others leave. Only one who remains to bear witness to what they've become.
The air grew colder, dense and watchful, the kind of chill that sinks deeper than skin. The candle wicks trembled, unlit, as if remembering the warmth they'd once known but dared not seek it again. I sank onto the nearest pew, the wood groaning beneath my weight like something alive, like something warning. The rosary still hung from my hand, the beads clicking softly as I turned them between my fingers, each one a heartbeat, each one a confession. It sounded almost like prayer—mockery made holy, devotion distilled into something cruel and perfect.
I murmured to the empty air, my words unraveling into the quiet like a confession meant for no one. "Forgiveness? Deliverance?" The sound scraped my throat raw, hoarse with something I refused to name—something dangerously close to sorrow, or perhaps remembrance. "You don't even know what those mean anymore," I whispered, my lips trembling with something between rage and reverence. "I took them from you. I took everything." My laughter followed, breaking free in a low, hollow wave that rolled across the stone walls and folded into the chapel's stillness until I could no longer tell if it came from me or from the walls themselves. It sounded older than I was, too dry, too weary to belong to any living thing. It echoed back like a sermon, like judgment wearing my own voice.
"There is no god left for you," I whispered finally, leaning back against the pew, eyes half-lidded, the words dragging themselves out of me like smoke. "Only me. And I am not merciful." The sentence hung in the air, heavy and absolute, settling into the cracks of the chapel like dust reclaiming stone. The silence did not protest. It never does. It only listened, devout as ever, faithful to its own kind of worship.
In the dining hall, the fire had gone out. The absence of light felt like punishment. I sat before the ashes and stared into their gray depths, watching the ghosts of flame curl and die within them, one by one, as if ashamed to be seen. The room smelled of smoke and emptiness, of something long burned away and never replaced. The chairs stood neatly in their places, lined in perfect symmetry, waiting for an order that would never return. Even the air here seemed disciplined—trained to obedience, stripped of warmth. She had been here last night—silent as always, her eyes flicking to mine between each heartbeat, as though afraid her gaze might linger long enough to become a crime. I remember how her hands trembled when she poured the wine, careful not to spill, careful not to breathe too loudly, as if the air itself belonged to me and she borrowed it at my mercy. I had asked her to play the piano after dinner, and she had obeyed. She always obeys at first.
Her fingers had trembled over the keys, the notes soft, uncertain, like confessions whispered through tears, each sound breaking itself against the stillness I demanded. I watched her as the melody dissolved into hesitation, watched her eyes dart toward me like a bird testing its cage, fluttering between terror and defiance. When she finally looked up and saw me smiling, she stopped. She always does. The silence that followed was almost tender, almost holy.
That was the last time I saw her.
The memory flickered in the ashes, fragile as light trapped in smoke, twisting and curling as though it might vanish if I dared to blink. It hovered there—beautiful, ghostly, cruel—a moment replaying itself over and over, too delicate to touch, too venomous to forget. How long has it been since I felt anything resembling peace? The word itself feels foreign, ornamental, a relic from a language I no longer speak. Even now, rage feels cleaner than regret—purer somehow, less fragile, less human. Regret stinks of weakness, of longing, of an open wound that refuses to scar. Rage, though—rage burns. It purifies. It sharpens the soul until only the essential remains.
She is gone, yes—but she will not remain so. She never does. None of them ever do. I have shaped too much of her for the world to recognize her without me. She carries my shadow like a second soul, stitched into the seams of her being. Every part of her that was once her own now bears my fingerprints, invisible but absolute. The way she speaks, the way she stands, even the rhythm of her silence—it all belongs to me. When she breathes, she will remember the sound of my voice between the silences. When she dreams of freedom, she will dream in the language I gave her, the one that curls around her throat like silk and wire. She will speak it even in sleep, that trembling dialect of devotion and fear—her prayers, her gasps, her broken pleas, all translated into me.
You cannot free what does not know it is bound. You cannot rescue what believes captivity is love. That is my art—binding without chains, caging without walls, reshaping the mind until obedience feels like grace. And she wears it beautifully. Every gesture, every breath, every silence she offers the world is a hymn to me. Even her rebellion is worship, her escape a kind of pilgrimage back to the only truth she has ever known. The fire whispered its last sigh, collapsing into itself, and I felt something like laughter rise in my chest—quiet, cracked, almost tender. Let her run. Let her gasp beneath the weight of the sky and call it liberty. The air will turn on her soon enough. The cold will remember my name, even if she pretends to forget it.
Because I made her. And what is made does not unmake itself.
Outside, the snow began again—soft this time, gentle as deception. It fell without sound, cloaking the world in a hush so complete it felt deliberate. The storm would cover her tracks, hide her from sight, and bury every trace of her fragile rebellion beneath a blanket of purity she did not deserve. But she was not beyond my reach. She never would be. I rose, slipping the rosary into my pocket. The beads clicked together softly, a hollow echo of prayer. In the window's reflection, my face stared back at me—calm, composed, terrible. A portrait of restraint drawn over ruin. "You can run," I whispered to her. "You can even believe you've escaped. But you'll never leave the part of you that belongs to me."
The words fogged the glass and lingered there, ghostly, before fading back into silence. And in their absence came the realization—cold, absolute. It settled over me like ice cracking through bone. Something inside me fractured—not rage, not grief, but a slower, crueler breed of fury. The kind that does not shout, does not tremble. It moves with precision, not haste. I brushed the soot from my hands and straightened, each motion deliberate, ritualistic. She thinks she has slipped beyond my reach. Foolish girl. Every path from this place winds back toward it. The forest, the river, the road—all lead home. The house is the center, and she is its pulse. She cannot live without it. She cannot live without me.
Still… that unease remained. A faint pulse beneath the skin of the world. The sense of being observed by something patient, waiting. I turned again to the darkened window. The storm had thinned to a drifting mist, snow glimmering faintly beneath the bruised sky. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw it—a figure among the trees, distant but deliberate. Too still to be human, too solid to be mist. The shape stood in defiance of the wind, as if it belonged to another world entirely.
I blinked—and it was gone.
The silence afterward was not peaceful. It was the sound of something thinking. Watching. Deciding. It pressed against the house like a held breath, and for the first time, the stillness did not feel like mine. I let out a slow exhale, forcing the tremor from my voice. "Let it watch," I said softly. "Let it come closer, if it dares." Outside, the snow thickened again, swirling in restless circles, as though the night itself had begun to turn its face toward me. I poured myself another drink, the sound of liquid breaking the stillness like a blade through glass. The scent of wine filled the room—sweet, thick, and suffocating. "You can have your stories," I murmured, voice slurred with something too heavy to be certainty. "But she's mine."
The glass trembled in my hand. I stared at it, watching the ripples of red settle inside the crystal, and for a moment, I saw my reflection there—distorted, feverish. I set it down gently before it shattered. The restraint almost pleased me. What right has anyone to take what I have built? I have given her everything—shelter, order, meaning. Before me, she was nothing but a trembling thing, fragile and directionless, a creature of soft ideals and borrowed faith. I made her something enduring. I shaped her fear into grace. I carved obedience into devotion. I taught her what love looks like when it is honest—when it costs.
And this is how she repays me? With flight? With the insult of distance?
I laughed softly, though it sounded more like a cough dragged through smoke. The sound echoed off the walls, hollow and familiar. The wine made my head hum, a low and constant vibration. I rubbed my temple, shaking my head. "There isn't a man," I muttered. "There can't be." The idea was ridiculous—childish even. Some faceless savior, skulking through the trees like a ghost out of bedtime stories. I almost laughed again. Who would come for her? For Evangelina? She has nothing left to offer the world—not her beauty, not her innocence, not even her defiance. I took it all. I refined it.
And yet the thought still lingered, stubborn and stupid, like an itch I couldn't quite reach. What if someone had heard her cries? What if some fool mistook pity for courage? I closed my eyes and felt the fury pulse once, sharp and clean, like glass cracking under pressure. Then it passed, leaving something colder—resolve. She belongs here. She belongs to me. Not because I demand it, but because it is the truth. I am her gravity, her language, her reason to exist. She can wander into the snow, whisper prayers into the void, call to ghosts—but every sound she makes will still echo my name.
I poured another glass but didn't drink it. I just watched the wine catch the firelight, dark and trembling, like a heart that refused to stop beating. "Let her run," I whispered. "The world is patient, but I am eternal." If there truly is a man—if such a creature exists beyond the gossip of trembling mouths and peasant tales—then let him come. Let him crawl out from the dark and prove himself. Let him look at what I have made and try to take it from me. Let him touch what bears my mark, and I will show him what creation demands in return. Because she is not merely mine by claim—she is mine by craft. I built her with my hands, my voice, my patience, my cruelty. I tore the trembling child from her skin and molded what remained into something beautiful, something enduring. I gave her structure. I gave her purpose. I taught her what love truly means—how it bleeds, how it yields, how it learns to stay.
Yes, love. That's what this is, though the word sounds strange now when I say it aloud. Love—real love—is not kind. It does not free. It binds, it shapes, it refines through pain until only devotion remains. That is the kind of love that lasts. The kind that keeps its shape even when it's broken. If there truly is a man, then he knows nothing of that. He will think he's rescuing her, poor fool. He will whisper gentle lies about choice, about freedom, about new beginnings. He'll see her as something to save, not something sacred. He won't understand that what I gave her—this love, this order—is more than life. It is identity. Without me, she is nothing but air, trying to remember how to breathe.
Ungrateful. Misled. Perhaps she thinks herself brave now, hiding behind stories of deliverance. Perhaps she even believes that someone could love her enough to defy me. The thought almost makes me laugh. Love her? For what? There's nothing left for another man to take—nothing unclaimed, nothing untouched. Her beauty is branded, her voice sculpted, her soul carved into my likeness. She would not even know how to be loved by another.
Still, if he truly exists—if some phantom dares to call himself her savior—then let him learn the truth of what he's taken. Let him see what devotion looks like when it's stripped of romance, when it breathes and bleeds and calls itself holy. Let him witness what love becomes when it is refined to its purest, cruelest form. Let him stand before the thing he thinks he's rescuing and realize it no longer belongs to the world—it belongs to me.
I will bring her back. Not out of need. Not out of mercy. Mercy is for men who doubt their own power. I have no such defect. I will bring her back because she is the prayer that dies if I do not speak it, the word that loses meaning without my voice to define it. She is the flame that exists only because I keep it lit, because I have tended it, fed it, starved it, taught it to tremble in rhythm with my breath. And I will not let her die. Not in this world. Not in the world beyond it.
Not in his hands. Not in the fantasy he's built for her—a dream of freedom dressed up in another kind of servitude. He would make her into something small again, soft again, simple. He would tell her that love is gentle, that it saves, that it restores. How quaint. How unbearably human. Because if there truly is a man—this assassin, this ghost in the snow, this fool who mistakes pity for courage—then he'll soon learn the cost of touching what is mine. He'll learn that possession, once complete, cannot be undone. Once I have built something, it remembers me forever.
It does not forgive.
It does not yield.
It devours.
And when he looks into her eyes and sees the echo of my name there, trembling beneath her breath, he will understand that salvation is not stronger than ownership—that even his triumph will speak in my voice.