It was said that Baron Vornic had more than one heart. One in his chest, cold as iron plunged into snow. Another between his thighs, ravenous and cruel. And a third, which he kept in a jar filled with greenish liquid, in the castle's cellar, guarded by three mirrors and a mute watchman. He claimed it was his mother's heart, torn out the day she dared to embrace him.
He was around forty-five, but looked like a young man marked by sin, not by time. Tall, broad-shouldered, always dressed in dark velvet, the baron resembled a shadow dressed in expensive flesh. His voice was low and sharp, with slow cadences of fallen nobility. He spoke rarely, but his words carried weight, like coins tossed into a deep well. He had a sick passion for collections: animal skulls, worn slippers from dead ballerinas, dried flowers from the poisoned gardens of the continent. In one tower, he kept only hair — locks cut from women he had loved, possessed, or killed. He no longer remembered which.
His castle, raised in times forgotten by kings and haunted by names erased from books, was a wound carved in stone. The walls wept with dampness and dried blood, and the tall windows were more like eyes gazing into something else, from another world. Rumor had it that some doors led nowhere. That if you entered them, you'd find yourself in another time, another body, another suffering.
The corridors were lined with ancient tapestries, depicting scenes of crucified saints, screaming angels, and maidens with their eyes gouged out. The spiral staircases led to towers no one climbed anymore, and the basement was divided into rooms that bore only names: Silence, Fire, Mirror, The Breathless Room.
In one chamber, he kept a piano no one was allowed to touch. It was tuned to the frequency of a dying heart. He liked to listen to it at night, when the castle breathed heavily and the walls trembled with cold.
He never stepped into the village without reason. He came in his black carriage, drawn by four horses dark as pitch, with sharp hooves and coal-like eyes. When the heavy wheels struck the stone, women pulled their children indoors, and the men stared at the ground, as if silence were a cloak to cover themselves with.
That day, the carriage stopped in front of the town hall. The baron descended unhurriedly, carrying a cane made of stag bone and a low-brimmed hat, from under which shadows fell over his face like a wax mask. His smile was small, like a wound at the corner of his mouth, and his long fingers were stained with old blood.
"I've come for the girl," he said.
The mayor didn't ask which one. Everyone knew.
"She's wild. Doesn't speak. Won't obey."
"That's exactly why I want her."
He paid with two sacks of gold coins, a barrel of wine, and a promise: that he would never again demand the tithe in flesh. He was received as a savior. With chapped lips and old lies, the villagers smiled and sighed. Not out of pity — but relief.
Elena was summoned to the square. She didn't come. They went to fetch her.
She stepped out of the hut dressed in black, her hair unbound, and a streak of soot on her cheek.
She said nothing. She did not protest. She only fixed her gaze on the baron and whispered:
"Nihil est gratis sub sole." ("Nothing is free under the sun.")
The baron laughed. He was the only one who had the courage to do so.
"What a beautiful child. What a dark miracle you've become."
He reached out his hand. She didn't take it. But she followed him.
Not like a prisoner. Like a queen walking to her own execution, head held high and heart silent.
In the carriage, they didn't speak. Only the driver muttered a prayer, while crows followed them in the sky.
Along the road, the clouds gathered, heavy and wet, as if the sky itself understood the bargain made.
The wind battered the carriage from the side, like a hand trying to overturn everything.
The baron's castle rose above the hills like a plague of stone.
Black towers, cold walls, gates that creaked like stifled cries.
The guard dogs didn't bark. They only watched. As if they knew he was returning with prey.
When they arrived, the servants stepped aside. Not one of them looked Elena in the eye.
But she looked at each of them. And one of them fainted.
The baron led her through long, dark corridors, where the walls were covered in tapestries depicting scenes of hunting and torture.
The floor creaked beneath her steps. Every corner was a shadow. Every shadow, an unspoken promise.
"You'll sleep here," he said, opening a heavy wooden door.
The room was small, but clean. A canopy bed. A chest in the corner. A tall window, barred with iron.
"This isn't a cell. Not yet."
Elena didn't reply. She sat on the edge of the bed and touched her ankle — where a thread of blood was sliding slowly, like a forgotten tear.
That night, she didn't sleep.
She wrote on the walls, with her finger in the air.
Words that lingered for a moment before fading away.
"Caro data est. Sanguis sequitur." ("Flesh has been given. Blood will follow.")
The baron watched her from behind a hidden mirror.
His eyes were wet. Not with guilt. With desire. And fear.
Inside him, something murmured:
"She is more than flesh. More than fire. More than anything I've ever had."
And yet, he laughed.
Because he knew he would take her.
Slowly. Methodically.
Until she became just another broken woman in his collection.