A few hours had passed since the night fractured, yet the morning had not decided to exist. The dark still clung stubbornly to the windows, heavy and reluctant, as though nailed to the glass by its own refusal to die, even while the sun struggled beneath the horizon—bleeding faint, colorless light that barely reached the earth. Its birth was hesitant, uncertain, a glow too pale and too weak to be called dawn, a light ashamed to intrude upon a world that still belonged to shadow.
Outside, the world remained like a corpse refusing to stay buried—cold, pale, and stiff with frost, its stillness stretched thin across the land. The snow lay frozen in solemn drifts, embalmed in silence, while the frost itself had grown fangs, sinking through the glass, through the walls, through the very bones of the house, until even the air seemed to freeze mid-breath. The wind had gone brittle, stripped of all warmth and mercy; it prowled around the manor in restless loops, rattling the shutters with a sound like teeth grinding in uneasy sleep, gnawing at the edges of the dark.
The house, however, was awake. It did not sleep as mortals do; it waited, breathing through the cracks of its own bones. The walls whispered to one another in a language too old for mercy, restless with a presence they recognized but dared not name. Her. The syllable slithered through the timbers like breath through silk—soft, certain, inevitable.
Its silence had changed sometime between the last hour and this one. Once, it had been obedient—measured, reverent, still. Now, it listened too closely. It waited too long between breaths. It lingered at the edge of sound like a secret pressing against its own cage. It was the kind of quiet that knows it's about to be broken—the moment before confession, the pause before a blade draws blood. I could feel it trembling through the plaster and stone, a faint vibration like a pulse caught in the throat of something pretending to be still. The house was holding itself together by habit alone, its composure trembling under the weight of recognition.
I hadn't slept. I rarely do when the air thickens like this—dense, swollen with premonition, heavy with some unspoken answer that has not yet decided to reveal itself. The kind of air that knows it is being watched. The fire in the hearth had long since collapsed into ash, but its ghosts still glowed faintly, breathing their last in the hollows of the grate. I remained before them, half in shadow, half in thought, listening to the corpse of warmth decay into silence. Waiting.
The house hums when it dreams, but tonight, it has gone mute. It was holding its breath for something it already feared. And that's how I knew she was near. I didn't need the sound of the door to tell me. I didn't need the groan of its hinges or the sigh of cold air sneaking through the corridor like a thief of warmth. I felt her long before she crossed the threshold—the way one feels a storm before it breaks, when the pressure bends the air and the bones begin to ache in anticipation. It was not sound that betrayed her, but the change in the silence itself.
The house knew before I did. It recognized her the way old wounds recognize the weather—throbbing quietly beneath the skin, whispering of rain before the first drop falls. The air shifted, grew devout, as if the walls themselves remembered the rhythm of her breath and dared not breathe without her. The silence trembled—not from fear, but from recollection. It shivered, reverent and guilty, like an old servant kneeling before a forgotten master returned to judge its obedience.
So she had come back.
My stray ghost—dragged home by the cold, wrapped in frost and defiance, the prodigal shadow crawling back to the only grave that would have her. She thought herself free, but even her rebellion had the manners of return. How exquisite, that after all her trembling, all her prayers for deliverance, she should come to rest here again—beneath my roof, within my reach, in the coffin I built and called a home.
I didn't move. Not yet. The pleasure of waiting is its own kind of cruelty, and I have always been patient. Patience, after all, is simply power disguised as stillness. I wanted to feel her presence bloom through the manor again—slowly, inevitably—like rot threading through silk, silent but unstoppable. I wanted to sense the exact moment her pulse began to surrender, syncing once more with the rhythm of these walls, with the heart I built for her.
The house shifted around me, uneasy in its recognition. Its timbers creaked like ribs learning to breathe again after being buried too long. It took shallow, timid breaths, afraid to disturb the thing it loved. I could almost hear her on the other side of it—the faint tread of her boots sinking into the carpet, soft as a prayer recited too late. The hush of fabric brushing doorframes. The small, startled gasp as the warmth of the manor—false, perfumed, suffocating—closed around her throat like a velvet noose.
The air here always tastes of roses and dust, that exquisite mixture of decay and vanity. She has always choked on it. I wonder if she will remember now that I told her once: beauty requires suffocation. She'll tell herself it's the cold leaving her body—that the trembling in her bones belongs to the frost, not to fear. She'll whisper the lie the way the dying whisper comfort to themselves, promising that what comes for them is only sleep, that the stillness seeping into their limbs is mercy and not the first soft note of death.
How pitiful. How beautiful.
I rose from the chair, unhurried, the motion deliberate—like a priest preparing for communion, or a surgeon before the first incision. Every gesture has meaning when one holds dominion. The air itself seemed reluctant to part around me, its chill curling at the hem of my coat as though it wished to cling. I began to walk through the corridor, slow and measured, each step echoing through the ribs of the house like a heartbeat stretched to the edge of patience. My reflection glided beside me in the dark glass—tall, immaculate, spectral. The mirror light trembled, unsure which of us was the reflection and which the source.
The candles flickered in my wake, torn between worship and retreat—flames leaning toward me like supplicants desperate for absolution, then shrinking away as though ashamed of their own reverence. Their light stuttered across the walls in thin, nervous breaths. I let my fingers trail along the papered surface; the wallpaper was cool and damp beneath my touch, beaded with moisture, almost breathing. It felt like the skin of a creature that had only just remembered it was alive, and feared what that meant.
Every sound in the house belonged to her now. The faint scrape of her cloak brushing the banister, the shy scuff of her heel as she faltered—small, guilty noises, soft as confessions whispered into a closed confessional. Each hesitation was a prayer she didn't know how to finish. She thought herself unseen, poor fool; she always has. She still doesn't understand that this house was built to betray her—that its silence reports to me, that its shadows are fluent in obedience. Every wall is a witness. Every echo, a servant. It told me everything. It always does. And in the way it trembled, I could hear the truth forming even before she dared breathe it.
She lingered in the music room; I could feel the air tighten there, drawn thin with remembrance. That sentimental sanctuary she still mistakes for her mother's ghost. How predictable. She always goes there first, as though grief were a doorway and not a leash. I could almost see her in my mind's eye—standing before the piano, the cover still drawn, her trembling fingers hovering just above the keys like a sinner daring to touch holy water. She wants to play, of course, she does. The little martyr always wants her suffering to have a melody. But she won't. She remembers who owns silence here.
Good.
I almost laughed then—softly, indulgently. "Do you mourn, little fool?" I murmured to the dark, my voice curling through the air like smoke. "Is that what you think this is? Some tender ritual? A prayer whispered to a corpse that never loved you enough to stay?" I shook my head, smiling faintly at the thought of her standing there, eyes glistening like glass about to crack. "You sentimental creature. You still think sadness makes you sacred." The servants had vanished, of course—wise creatures, bred by terror and kept alive by their discretion. Fear is a flawless instructor; it teaches obedience better than any god. Only the walls dared to remain and witness, those loyal bones that have always known the rhythm of my temper.
I moved through them like smoke, patient and invasive, tasting her in every breath of the house—the faint trace of snow and defiance she dragged in with her. Her presence left a residue, thin and bitter on the air, like perfume left too long on dying flowers. The house trembled in its ribs beneath my hand; the timbers creaked, their sound caught between reverence and warning. Even the stone seemed to hum with restraint, whispering: She's here. She's come home to die beautifully.
"Do you feel it?" I asked the empty corridor, as though she could hear me. "The walls remember your footsteps better than you do. They flinch in all the right places. You were never graceful, Evangelina—only careful. And care is not the same as grace. It's just fear dressed properly." I let the words drift ahead of me, cruel and quiet, the way prayer sounds when spoken by someone who doesn't believe.
Upstairs, she's moving now. I can feel it. The air itself trembles with her—each motion a ripple through the body of the house, as if the walls were nerves and she, their involuntary twitch. The soft murmur of her skirts brushing the rail, the hesitant flutter of her breath when the stair groans beneath her weight—it all reaches me, perfect and precise, like music played by an instrument that doesn't yet realize it's being tuned.
She thinks she's quiet. How endearing. She moves as though stealth were a virtue that could protect her—as if care could make her invisible. Every pause, every shallow breath, is an admission of guilt dressed in caution. She believes that if she moves gently enough, the house might forget to notice her. But the house does not forget. The house is mine. And so is she.
I can see her in my mind as easily as if she stood before me—on the landing now, hand resting on the banister that still remembers her grip from the last time she fled. The wood would recognize her before her shadow did; it would warm under her touch, trembling with the faint memory of disobedience. It must feel almost alive against her palm, that deceitful comfort—the illusion of control, the lie of ownership. She'll tell herself it's only a memory. She'll pretend she can still command what she touches, that the world has not been claimed in my name.
Poor little liar.
She still doesn't understand that even the air she inhales has already chosen its allegiance. The house bends to me. The silence serves me. And she—my fragile revenant—still walks as though she were free, too foolish to realize that every step she takes is permission I've allowed. And all the while, I stand below—listening, smiling, letting the tension unfurl through the air like the slow crack of ice beneath a frozen river. The soundless prelude to collapse. The moment before it breaks has always been the most exquisite; there is something sacred in anticipation, in the hush between patience and punishment. She thinks the silence protects her. How precious. She clings to it as if quiet were a shield, as if stillness could make her invisible. She thinks if she stays small enough, still enough, the house might forget her trespass, and I might forget her existence. Foolish, darling thing.
The cold outside hasn't faded—it waits, loyal and cruel, pressing against the walls like a jealous admirer barred from entry. It claws at the windows, eager to seep in and reclaim her, to whisper her name through frostbitten lips and remind her that the world beyond this house is far crueler than anything I have ever done. And it is, of course. The snow would devour her without ceremony. The wind would gut her tender warmth and scatter it like ash. Out there, she would cease to be anything at all.
I give her meaning. I give her shape. Even her fear has definition because I have drawn its borders. Without me, she is only breath wasted in the cold. She'll feel the frost begging her now, clawing gently at the panes, coaxing her to return to the white oblivion that almost took her. But she won't. She never does. The snow calls, and she answers with trembling silence. Always silent. I wait. I let her climb, let her reach the door of her room, trembling between exhaustion and dread. The house tightens around her like a throat learning to swallow. I can almost feel the warmth of her breath fogging the handle, her pulse stuttering beneath her skin. Such delicate music—the sound of fear rehearsing itself before the overture begins.
And when she opens it—when her trembling fingers finally dare to turn that handle, when she lets herself believe, for one fragile breath, that she is safe again—then I will go to her. Not with anger. No. Anger is too common, too vulgar a thing for moments such as this. Rage is for men who cannot master themselves. I have always preferred precision. I will go to her with a smile instead—the one she remembers from before she learned what it meant. That tender, merciful expression she once mistook for warmth. The kind of smile that makes her question whether the danger was real at all, or if she dreamt it—if perhaps the cruelty she remembers was only her imagination, a misunderstanding born of her own fragility.
That is how you welcome something that belongs to you. Not with violence. With familiarity. With the illusion of gentleness so complete, it begins to taste like love. The silence between us swelled, ripe and trembling, like a vein about to burst. I let it stretch, fattening with dread until the air itself began to bend beneath its weight. The house held its breath—timbers taut, walls waiting—every inch of it complicit, trembling with expectation.
Then, at last, I spoke. Low. Precise. A blade unwrapping itself in sound. "Out again, sister?"
The words climbed the stairs before I did—slow, venomous, deliberate—curling along the banister like smoke that knew where to find its prey. They slithered upward, seeking her, wrapping around her throat before I ever touched her. The morning had not yet decided to exist. It cowered at the horizon like a coward afraid of its own light. The dark still clung to the windows, sulking, half-dead but unwilling to be buried. The sun hid behind the clouds like a guilty child, its weak light paling against the frost. Even dawn seemed to understand that this was no place for redemption.
The frost outside had grown teeth. It bit through the glass, gnawed at the stone, chewed through the bones of the house until even the air whimpered. It was beautiful—how ruin could feel so alive when it knows it has no escape. I stood in it, listening. Smiling. The silence pressed itself against me like a servant desperate to please. The walls whispered, restless and eager, trembling under the weight of a presence they knew too well. Her. The house remembered her—my ghost, my disobedient little thing—and it recoiled, as though torn between worship and disgust. The air thickened, sweet and rotten with her return. I could almost laugh. After all that trembling, all that running, here she was again—back inside the body that always wanted her.
My house. My silence. My creature. Let her tremble. Let her pretend the cold bites harder than I do. It will learn, as she always does, that frost melts. I do not. She froze, of course. She always does. Obedience is the only instinct she's ever perfected. I could almost hear her hand trembling against the latch of her chamber door—the small metallic quiver of desperation trying to disguise itself as restraint. How exquisite, that sound is. Fear pretending to be composure.
I began to ascend, slow and measured, each step deliberate enough to make the silence flinch. I moved with unhurried grace—the kind that mocks urgency, the kind that promises suffering will not be rushed. Every footfall pressed my will into the floorboards, and they groaned in obedience, eager to betray her. The candlelight followed me like a trembling servant. Its flames bent and wavered, uncertain whether to flee or to worship. Even fire has its instincts—it knows what devours it.
When I reached the landing, she still hadn't turned. How devoted she is to her terror. Her silence—her precious, pitiful silence—stood between her and ruin, as fragile as a thread stretched across a blade. I almost admired her for it. Silence is the last luxury of the powerless. The only rebellion left to those too frightened to speak. And how beautiful she looks when she forgets she's already lost.
"Do you truly believe your secrets escape me?" I asked, my tone silk drawn over steel—smooth enough to deceive, sharp enough to wound. "Do you truly believe, Evangelina, that anyone could protect you from me?" Her shoulders tightened, a tremor so small it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else—but not by me. Nothing about her escapes me. The movement was delicate, restrained, the body's futile attempt to hold its own shape under fear. A ghost's breath fogged the air between us, and it vanished before it could find mercy. Even her exhalations know better than to linger where I stand.
I smiled—not warmly; never warmly. Warmth implies the possibility of forgiveness. My smile is sharper than a slap when I choose it to be. It's the kind of smile that cuts without leaving a mark, that makes the victim thank you for the bleeding. I let it unfold slowly, the way one might unsheathe a knife. I leaned close enough for her to feel the heat of my breath, the weight of my words brushing against her skin—close enough for warmth, without the courtesy of comfort. "You are mine to command," I whispered, the syllables slow and measured, almost tender in their cruelty. "And you will remember who you belong to."
She didn't answer. She wouldn't.
Good.
Submission is always quieter than defiance. Silence suits her better—it wraps around her throat more elegantly than any ribbon. Every second she stays wordless, she reminds herself that her voice is a privilege I have not yet returned. I gestured down the stairs. "Downstairs," I said, with the calm of an executioner inviting prayer. No need to raise my voice. Command, when properly bred, doesn't require volume—it carries its own gravity. "We will speak where the walls keep better records."
She obeyed, of course. She always does. Habit is the finest chain; she forged it herself, link by trembling link. She thinks obedience keeps her safe, when all it does is keep her mine. The stairs groaned once beneath her weight, a single aching note that lingered in the air before breaking. The sound pleased me—it was the house acknowledging its hierarchy. Even the wood knows who it serves.
She descended first, her figure small and pale in the shifting light, like a candle walking toward its own extinction. I followed at a measured pace, letting distance do my speaking for me. The space between us has always been the most obedient servant—it stretches when I wish her to breathe and tightens when I wish her to suffocate. The hallway seemed to bend toward us as we moved, walls leaning inward, hungry for confession. The portraits stared down from their gilt frames, their painted eyes dulled with the knowledge of repetition. They've seen this dance before—same players, same steps, same ruin rehearsed until perfection. Dust clung to the edges of their mouths like secrecy refusing to decay.
Every flicker of candlelight elongated our shadows, merging them, confusing where hers ended and mine began. I prefer it that way. It reminds her that even light cannot tell us apart anymore. I didn't take her to the music room. Mercy belongs there, and I had none to offer. That room remembers tenderness, and tenderness is a relic I no longer recognize. Instead, I led her down the oldest corridor—the one the servants refuse to enter, where the air tastes of forgotten prayers and the walls wear frost like penance.
The stones here know discipline; they have absorbed every lesson I've ever taught. They've listened to confessions that never reached heaven, to pleas that froze before they found forgiveness. The walls here don't echo—they keep. As we walked, her steps faltered on the uneven floor, the rhythm of guilt soft and halting. The air pressed close, damp with reverence, thick with memory. Even the candlelight dimmed out of respect.
"Do you recall the conservatory?" I asked, my tone smooth as glass, knowing the answer didn't matter. "Mother used to keep oranges there. Sun trapped in glass while the world froze." The words fell between us like relics from a ruined altar—bright once, now only cruel. She did not answer. She never does when memory becomes dangerous. Silence is her sanctuary, but even that I built for her. At the end of the corridor waited a door older than her fear, its hinges dressed in rust, its frame bowed with time. I reached into my coat and drew out the key—polished, faithful, patient as sin. Its teeth had known this lock more intimately than prayer. I turned it slowly.
The sound it made was beautiful. The lock yielded like a disciple to scripture, obedient and trembling. Inside, the conservatory had become a temple to frost—my kind of sanctum. The air stung with purity, the kind born of things too cold to decay. The glass panes were etched with winter's handwriting, filigreed with the delicate cruelty of ice; each line shimmered like scripture written by a god who had forgotten mercy. The vines that once bloomed along the trellis now hung mummified into lace, brittle and reverent, their death arranged beautifully for my inspection. Even the moonlight seemed hesitant to intrude, diffused through the frost into a pale, trembling haze. It entered as a penitent might—uninvited, but obedient.
"Come," I said, stepping into the center, where the cold thickened around me like an anointing. It bloomed outward from my presence, wrapping me in silver breath, a crown of winter fitting its king. She followed, slow as repentance—each step measured, deliberate, like a sinner approaching the altar where her name was already engraved. Her shadow wavered at my feet, smaller than memory, smaller than forgiveness.
"You walked far tonight," I remarked, running a finger along a frozen vine. The frost bit at my skin like a loyal dog returning affection. "Farther than usual." She said nothing. Her hands folded neatly in front of her, trembling only slightly—the kind of tremor one tries to hide from judgment. She thought I hadn't noticed. But I always notice. Her restraint is the only thing she's ever done gracefully.
"Did you meet someone?" I asked, each word drawn out like the pull of a blade from its sheath. "Someone who believes he can keep you?" Silence. That was her first mistake. Always the same pitiful defense. I could smell deceit before her lips even parted—the air around her soured with it. Silence reeks of lies. It's the perfume of cowards and adulterers.
"Turn," I said.
She did. Slowly, obediently. The sight almost amused me—almost. Snow still tangled in her hair, her lashes wet with ghosts of the storm, her eyes hollow with that feeble, sleepless courage she mistakes for strength. How pathetic that defiance could wear the costume of endurance. I reached past her for the latch and let the door fall shut behind us. The sound it made was perfect—a sigh, soft and final, like satisfaction exhaled through teeth. Then it struck me again—the rumor, the whisper that had crawled through the village like frost through marrow. The man. The nameless thing that moves like a shadow, a rumor stitched into human form. The one they say delivers death but leaves no footprints. The assassin. The ghost.
My smile sharpened. "Tell me," I murmured, circling her slowly, the way a wolf might trace the trembling of its prey, "was it him?" I let the word twist in my mouth, a mockery, a curse. I laughed then, soft but cruel, the sound coiling through the cold air like smoke looking for a throat. "Did he charm you, Evangelina? Did he promise salvation between one heartbeat and the next? Did you think death would make a better lover than I?"
She flinched; I saw it—a flicker, quick as breath. And oh, how I savored it. My voice darkened, the smile dying where it stood. "He's not a savior. He's a myth. A shadow is told to frighten children. And yet—" I leaned closer, my breath grazing her ear, "you ran to him, didn't you? You thought you could hide beneath a ghost." I laughed again, but it wasn't amusement this time—it was hunger. "Tell me, did he touch you? Did you speak his name? Or did you simply stand there, waiting to be rescued like the saint you'll never be?" Her silence returned, fragile, quivering.
"Ah," I said softly, mockingly, "so it's true, then." My tone shifted, lower, colder, cruelty sharpening into a smile that felt almost human. "Don't lie to me, Evangelina. Don't make me teach you honesty the hard way. You wouldn't like the lessons." I stepped closer until the cold between us broke. "If he exists," I whispered, "I'll find him. I'll peel his legend apart. I'll show you what remains of a ghost when you take away its shadow." The frost on the glass quivered. The house itself seemed to recoil.
"Because no man," I said, voice curling into a snarl, "touches what's mine and lives."
"You bring the night indoors," I murmured, my voice quiet, dangerous—the kind of calm that precedes storms and punishments alike. "The least you could do is bow to the house that allows it." She obeyed. Of course she did. Her humility was so well-practiced it nearly passed for grace, the illusion of virtue sculpted by fear. She bowed her head, and snow loosened from her hair, falling in pale fragments at my feet—like offerings from a broken shrine.
"I wondered," I continued, pacing around her, each step a slow orbit of possession, "if you'd forgotten the posture of prayer. It has been some time since we prayed together." Her throat flexed, the movement fragile and deliberate. "We do not pray, Elias." I smiled—slow, humorless. "Oh, but we do," I said softly, the words heavy with mock devotion. I reached out, close enough that she could feel the warmth of my hand without the mercy of contact. "You pray every time you remember to keep still. Every time you bite your tongue instead of speaking. Every time you bow before what you cannot defy."
I leaned closer, my breath ghosting the back of her neck. "Prayer," I murmured, "isn't speech. It's the shape of fear when it's learned obedience." I circled her, unhurried, like a storm deciding where to land. "And you, Evangelina—you've always prayed beautifully."
Then, for the briefest moment, I paused. A shiver crawled through the air—so faint I almost mistook it for breath. The candles trembled, though no wind passed. A soundless shift, like the air had grown aware of itself. The hairs along my arms rose, subtle but certain. Someone was listening. The thought came unbidden—too sudden, too absurd. I turned my head slightly, scanning the glass, the frost, the pale glimmer beyond the panes. Nothing. Only the echo of our silence returning to itself. The mind plays tricks when the night grows too still. That's all it was. A trick. And yet, beneath the floor of thought, something colder stirred—watching, waiting, patient as breath. I blinked the sensation away, forcing stillness back into my limbs. I would not be mocked by my own imagination.
My smile returned, sharper now, steadier for the effort it cost. "Kneel," I said softly. "Let us pray properly." I moved to the candle stand—three flames, trembling like nervous saints before judgment—and carried it behind her. Their light stretched long across the frost-stained floor, painting her spine in alternating ribbons of gold and shadow. The contrast delighted me; agony always looks better in chiaroscuro. "Hold yourself," I said, my tone gentle, measured, unyielding. "Punishment should always suit the sin."
The wax gathered at the rim of the candle until it could hold itself no longer. It fell, landed on her shoulder, and stayed there—bright, perfect, motionless. The skin tightened; the scent of heat and wax mingled with the frost. She didn't move. Not even a sound. Only the smallest tremor ran down her spine. I watched it travel.
The house made no noise. The air leaned closer. In the flicker of the candles, her back looked carved from glass—transparent, fragile, waiting for the first crack. Another drop slid free. It hit the edge of the old burn and spread. Her breath faltered. I could hear it; I could count the seconds she stole before she took the next one. This was how discipline was built: not with rage, but with attention. Each fall of wax is a measure, each silence a line of scripture. She trembled again. I almost pitied her. Almost. "Still," I said.
The flame wavered at my breath, then steadied. A third drop fell, slower than the rest, thick as honey. It hissed when it touched her. The sound pleased me—the honesty of it. Pain never lies. I watched her shoulder rise once, then freeze. She was learning. The body always learns when the will fails. I stepped closer, the light bending around us. The smell of the candles was sweet, almost cloying. "That's better," I murmured. "Now you understand what quiet means." Her silence filled the room until it became another voice—thin, shaking, but present.
The frost on the glass deepened, clouding the moon. For a moment, I thought I saw movement outside again, a ripple of dark against the white, but when I looked, it was gone. Only my own reflection stared back—steady, composed, dusted with light. I turned my gaze to her once more. "You see," I said softly, "discipline is mercy. It teaches you what to fear and what to keep." I lifted the candle slightly, watching the wax begin to pool again. The light danced across her neck; her pulse fluttered there like a trapped moth. "Remember this," I told her, and waited for the next drop to fall.
"You think I don't know his name?" I said at last. My voice carried through the glass and the cold, pitched not for her but for the air itself—to reach whatever phantom might be listening. "I can feel him here, breathing through the cracks. I can smell him on your breath." The candles hissed as if the air recoiled. I stepped closer until the shadow of us blurred together on the floor. "Do you think I won't carve him out of you if I must?" Her jaw trembled. That pleased me most. Fear, when it goes quiet, becomes beautiful; it refines itself, sharp as crystal.
"Say my name," I commanded, the words meant for two audiences—her, and the ghost I knew was near. Let him hear what belongs to me. Let him hear what worship sounds like when it's learned through obedience. She hesitated, just long enough for the air to thicken. Then:
"Elias." The sound slipped from her throat, fragile as a candle's last breath. I wanted the walls to hear it. I wanted the frost to carry it outward to whatever shadow waited beyond. "Again."
"Elias," she said louder this time. The name echoed against the glass, dull and final, the syllables trembling with the frost that tried to swallow them. Somewhere outside, the wind shifted as though listening. I closed my eyes and let the sound settle over me like a benediction, cold and absolute. "Good girl," I said softly—not praise, but a verdict. The kind of word that leaves no room for argument. The silence that followed was complete, the kind that smothers rather than soothes. I kept my gaze on the frost, daring it to move, daring the unseen listener to make himself known.
Nothing answered. Only the faint hum of the candles, the whisper of her breath, and the echo of my name—still hanging in the air, too heavy to fall. I extinguished the candles, one by one. Each flame died with a sigh—obedient, final. Smoke coiled upward through the dark, wrapping around her like a shroud drawn by invisible hands. The faint hiss of the last wick was almost human, like the room itself exhaling relief.
I stepped forward into the quiet I had made. The air still trembled, as if uncertain whether to breathe again. I reached for the ribbon at her throat and straightened it with the precision of habit, not affection. My fingers brushed her skin—a tremor, a threat, a memory that refused to die. Her pulse leaped beneath the touch, and for an instant the world shrank to that single beat. "Pretty," I said softly. Not kindly. Never kindly. "As you should be."
Then, just as gently, the sentence that ended every confession: "Go to your room. And leave your window latched. I dislike drafts." She nodded, her obedience heavy as mourning, and moved past me. The skirts of her dress brushed the air where the smoke still lingered. For a moment, she seemed half made of it—a spirit departing its own body.
But as she passed, something shifted. A scent caught on the edge of my breath—cold, sharp, alien. Not the house. Not me. It was the smell of something clean enough to offend, metallic and wild, the ghost of snow before it falls. It lingered a moment too long, like a word whispered and then erased. My smile faltered. I turned my head slightly, scanning the shadows, the glass, the seams of the door where the cold still pressed to get in. Nothing moved, yet the air felt newly occupied—as if the frost itself had learned to breathe.
The house had grown still again, but it was not my stillness. Something foreign had threaded itself through it, something that watched without eyes, listened without sound. I stood there a while longer, the last smoke curling upward around my hands, thinking of the assassin, the ghost, the myth they whispered of in town—the man who moved like silence taught to kill. And for the first time in years, I did not trust my own silence. When the door closed behind her, the silence that followed was immense—alive, trembling, listening. I turned toward the frost-streaked glass.
Outside, the courtyard slept beneath its white shroud—untouched, unbroken, immaculate in its stillness. Except for one interruption. A trail of red roses against the snow. They lay beneath the window of her room. The sight was so precise, so obscene in its beauty, that for a moment I couldn't move. No footprints marred the surface. No indentation betrayed a hand or foot. The air itself seemed unbothered, unswayed by any living passage. And yet—there they were. Roses, fresh and glistening in the cold, blooming in perfect defiance of the season, arranged with elegance so deliberate it mocked me.
They hadn't been there before. I would have seen them. The house would have told me. It always tells me. And yet now, these flowers had appeared beneath her window—as if left by some invisible hand bold enough to write its defiance in red. A message. A trespass. A dare. I stared, the frost blurring my reflection into something spectral. The air inside the conservatory had grown dense, viscous, almost solid. I could feel the pulse of it pressing against my throat, begging for release.
Something in me recognized those roses before my mind dared to. Their color—violent and tender at once—spoke of him. The one whispered about in taverns and behind church doors. The nameless thing that moves like smoke and leaves only ruin where it passes. The assassin. The ghost. The myth. For weeks I'd dismissed the rumor as superstition—a distraction for lesser men. But now the thought uncoiled and sank its teeth deep.
What if he was here? What if he'd stood beneath that window?What if she'd seen him? What if she'd let him? The questions came quick and sharp, tearing through composure like claws through silk. I pressed my palm to the glass until it bit my skin with cold. The roses blurred, then sharpened again, glistening like a wound that refused to close. My breath fogged the pane; behind it, the courtyard swam in mist and moonlight, mocking me with its silence.
"What if?" I whispered. The words tasted like iron. The thought of him—of that man—standing there, watching, reaching for what was mine—it split something in me. A sound left my throat, too low to be called laughter, too soft to be human. My reflection grinned back through the frost, fractured by cracks of light. If he exists, then he's touched what belongs to me. If he exists, then he's already dead.
The house around me seemed to pulse, struggling to match the rhythm of my breath. I felt the frost trembling on the glass, the air vibrating with that same unseen hum I'd felt before. For the first time in years, I didn't know if it came from the world outside— or from the fracture beginning to open inside my own mind. I felt it—instinct. The primitive recognition of danger. Could it be him? The one who moves without sound, who bends the air until it obeys his pulse?
The one who never leaves proof—only consequence?
I pressed my palm against the glass. The frost bloomed outward beneath my hand, cracking into thin, delicate veins that mirrored my own. The cold stung, but I didn't draw back. I wanted the mark there; I wanted the house to remember the shape of my hand. The roses did not move. They only waited. I could not be certain. But the stillness outside was too complete, too deliberate—an artistry of quiet that only the living can perform. The kind of silence that isn't absence, but attention.
I let my hand fall and exhaled. The glass fogged and cleared again, revealing nothing. Only the blood-bright blossoms in the snow, blooming with the patience of threat. Whoever had left them knew the language of precision—and of warning. The house, usually so eager to please me, said nothing at all. Its silence was cautious, deferential. It feared what I might become next. And I—though I could not prove it—knew. Something had come to my threshold. And it was not finished.
Very well.
If this unseen phantom thinks to test my dominion, to whisper her name beneath my roof, then I will give him something worth fearing. I will fill every corridor with her presence until she cannot breathe without my echo. I will haunt her every glance, every thought, every pulse, until no man alive or dead will dare to touch what has already been claimed. Let them whisper of assassins, of shadows, of men who walk between breaths. Let them speak of death given form.
I am no myth. I am the hand that closes around the living, the breath that decides who may speak and who will be silent. And if he means to take her, then I will make sure the world remembers whose name she carries, whose shadow shapes her, whose claim is written into the very pulse beneath her skin.
Let every whisper in the village, every trembling servant, every god still pretending to watch—
know this:
She is mine.
Her silence, my scripture.
Her fear, my proof.
Her breath, my signature upon creation itself.
And if that faceless ghost dares to touch what belongs to me, then the roses he left will serve as his epitaph.