Elvira woke with her lungs half full of screams.
The dream had gripped her like frostbite, curling fingers around her spine, pulling her down into shadow and voice. Her mother had stood at the edge of a cliff, dressed in white torn with blood, her eyes hollow and glowing with something not entirely human.
"Elvira," she had said. No, begged. "They've found me. Help me. You must remember who you are."
She had run toward her mother, wind dragging her backward, ground shattering beneath her feet—but she never reached her. The moment their fingers were about to touch, the dream fractured.
And now—
Her ceiling was blank and cold.
Her breaths came in shallow stutters. Sweat glued the sheets to her skin, and her fingers clawed at the air like the nightmare still hadn't let her go. She sat up, palms against her chest, feeling her heart race like a hunted thing.
The memory of the dream lingered like the scent of smoke.
Her phone blinked silently on the nightstand. No new messages.
But the words from the unknown caller last night echoed louder than any ringtone:
> "They know who your mother is. And they know you saw him."
---
Atelier 7 was already humming with the sound of shuffling chairs, dragging easels, and paint-stained voices when Elvira arrived.
The scent of turpentine hit her first, followed by the bitter comfort of charcoal and varnish. The air was cold, the windows still fogged from morning breath. She pushed her sleeves up, fingers brushing along the buttons of her jacket—once, twice, again—before entering fully. Her routines kept the world still.
She noticed the smudged footprints on the floor. One darker than the rest. Not symmetrical. It made her heart tick unevenly.
No. Focus. Order it.
"Ah, Miss Truth-Speaker," drawled Professor Linvere, the atelier's resident peacock with a jawline far too aware of itself. He leaned lazily against a wooden table, arms crossed in that way that suggested he believed every inch of him was art.
She stiffened.
"Could you help reorganize the supply alcove?" he asked, his tone flirtatious under the veil of polite instruction. "You have the… keenest eye."
Her stomach turned, but she nodded.
The alcove was chaos. Paints spilled, brushes mismatched, canvases stacked unevenly. She set to work with methodical focus: reds arranged by tone, brushes by bristle width, canvas by grain. It had to be right.
The symmetry calmed her. One, two, three. She counted strokes. Checked angles. Realigned until it all breathed with invisible balance.
Behind her, Avegar watched.
He hadn't meant to stare. But the moment her fingers began rearranging the brushes—pausing each time to align their edges perfectly—something tender and raw bloomed inside him.
He didn't know it had a name until much later.
It was OCD.
But he recognized the ritual. The control hidden in repetition. The way her breaths evened out with every act of order.
He mimicked her—childishly at first. Tilted his own brush. Matched her angles. Quietly swapped one pigment for another and waited for her to fix it, just so he could watch her hands again.
She noticed. Of course she did.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, a crooked half-smile on her lips.
"Becoming an expert in sacred brush placement," he replied. "Under your tutelage, obviously."
She raised an eyebrow. "Mockery doesn't suit you."
"Neither does peace," he said softly.
They looked at each other, and the air between them tightened—playful, sharp, magnetic. Always dancing just close enough to the flame.
Avegar exhaled.
And then she smiled. Not politely. Not out of defense. Just… freely.
And something inside him shifted—quietly, violently.
When I look at her smile, he thought, it makes me wonder if maybe this—
all of this—could be worth it.
He hated that thought. Not because it wasn't beautiful. But because it didn't make sense.
He'd never been drawn to women before. Not like this.
Not like the way Elijah had consumed him—body, mind, soul.
That had been fire.
This was something else.
Warmth. Stillness.
And it terrified him more than desire ever had.
---
They ended up at a café.
It was old and shadowed, tucked between a violin shop and a bookstore that smelled like forgotten things. They sat in a corner booth. She stirred her tea three times counterclockwise before she drank it. Avegar noticed.
"You okay?" he asked eventually.
Her fingers twitched. "I keep thinking about the call. The dream. My mother." she thought.
Avegar studied her. Her eyes were too calm. That kind of calm was a storm waiting.
"I'll protect you," he said, surprising himself. "Even if I don't know what from yet."
Before she could reply, the waiter arrived. He was tall, dressed in a black apron and half-shadowed by the flickering light above them. Elvira didn't notice anything strange at first.
Until he placed the tea down and slipped a folded note beneath her cup, meant to be for Avegar.
Only his mouth was visible—curved, amused, too familiar.
She unfolded the note.
> We have the queen. Come alone. No tricks.
A drop of tea slipped from her hand onto the paper. Her breath hitched. Her entire body trembled.
Avegar was on his feet in a second. "What is it?"
Her lips parted, but no sound came.
"I'll be right back," he whispered.
He walked toward the back of the café. Through the narrow kitchen door, heat and spice curled in the air—but the waiter was already waiting there.
"Elijah," Avegar snarled.
Elijah's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Miss me, Ave?"
"You shouldn't be here."
"I shouldn't do a lot of things. But rules were never really our thing, were they?"
Avegar grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall. The kitchen clattered with the force. Elijah didn't flinch. His hands reached up—slowly, languidly—fingers brushing Avegar's jaw.
"I remember this fire," Elijah murmured. "The way you used to look at me. Like I was the only light in your cursed little darkness."
Avegar's grip tightened.
Elijah laughed softly, breath ghosting against Avegar's neck. "You still smell the same. Ink. Ash. Regret."
He moved closer. His lips hovered a breath away from Avegar's—not rushing, but inevitable, like gravity was guiding him forward. His eyes held Avegar's with a quiet, agonizing intensity. And then his mouth claimed him.
Not a kiss—a reckoning. It struck like a match to dry leaves, every memory set aflame. Elijah's hand curled around the back of Avegar's neck, the other pressing hard to his waist, drawing him in like he had every right to him. Avegar gasped against it, struggled—but Elijah held him firm, insistent. There was desperation in the way their mouths moved, like neither of them knew where pain ended and hunger began.
For a moment, Avegar drowned.
Then he shoved Elijah back, chest heaving.
"Don't touch me again."
Elijah tilted his head. "Still conflicted? You can't run forever, Avegar. Either bring us the queen… or we take the girl."
"You touch her, and I will rip you apart."
Elijah's smile didn't fade. "Tonight, then. Rowegan Castle. Let's see what your heart is truly loyal to."
As he turned, a small, ornate key fell from Elijah's coat. Avegar didn't notice at first.
But when he returned to the table, shaken and silent, he placed it on the wood—absently, maybe out of instinct.
Elvira looked down.
Her breath stopped.
The symbol on the key's handle. The curve of the metal. The exact replica of her childhood memories—her mother's stories.
Rowegan Castle.
It wasn't until they left the café that Elvira realized what she'd done.
Avegar had placed the ornate key on the wooden table absently, lost in thought, and while his fingers hovered beside it, she saw something shift in his expression. Something distant. Distracted. And that was when her hand moved.
A flick of fingers, a breath between heartbeats. She slid it into her coat pocket as if it had always belonged there. He didn't notice. Or perhaps he let her. She couldn't be sure.
But the moment they parted ways, her feet carried her through the narrow fog-wrapped streets of New Bellcair, her pulse matching the storm that was rising behind her ribs. The key was warm in her pocket. Not with heat, but with memory.
---
The rain was relentless, a steady chorus drumming against the pavement as Elvira fled into the night. Beneath her coat, the stolen key felt as though it had its own heartbeat — cold, rhythmic, insistent. In the café's dim light, it had glinted, beckoning. In her pocket now, it pulsed like a living thing. Her breath fogged into the cold air, and each exhale was a curse she didn't dare speak aloud.
She didn't glance back. The world blurred around her — the glow of streetlamps, the distant rumble of thunder, the shuttered shops whispering with stale wind. Every breath she took burned in her lungs. She recalled Avegar's face: torn between concern and confession. He'd noticed the key disappearing but said nothing. Perhaps he didn't want her to. Perhaps he knew it was hers all along. She saw him trying to nurture her, console her for her mother's absence, but she didn't know how sincere it was.
By the time the towering spires of Rowegan Castle appeared through the mist, her knees were weak, her heart dancing in her throat like a bird trapped in a cage. The key's symbol — a serpent coiled around a crown — shimmered faintly in the moonlight. She recognized it with the ache of lost memory, a crest her mother had traced across her palm in whispered bedtime stories.
Of queens who bled in thorns.
Of dynasties rooted in moonlight.
Of a curse never meant to vanish.
The gates stood open. Not welcoming — but expectant. Waiting.
She stepped into the castle grounds, her boots silent on the overgrown path. Ivy clawed the walls. Statues of former queens stood sentinel beneath the rain, their stone faces worn down by centuries. They watched her, perhaps remembering. Perhaps mourning.
The air was thick with magic and silence. Elvira's hand clutched the key tighter. It pulsed again, and her vision blurred.
Visions flickered — her mother in chains, eyes hollow. Elijah's voice whispering in the shadows. Avegar watching her from across a candlelit table, the reflection of something ancient flickering in his gaze.
Inside, the castle breathed — walls exhaling dust and memory. The floors creaked beneath her as she moved through the halls. Torches lined the walls, flickering to life with a thought, responding to her presence like a living being.
A mirror near the entrance caught her reflection. She paused.
Her pupils — wide, black as the void — were no longer human. Her skin had paled, veins glowing faintly beneath the surface. Her heartbeat slowed to a rhythmic hum. Her nails had darkened to a shade of garnet.
I am changing.
The transformation was not violent, but it was powerful. Her senses sharpened. She could hear whispers in the stone, the heartbeat of the castle, the rustle of bat wings in the rafters. Power sang through her bones.
She trembled, folding in on herself. The power cracked through her — raw, jagged, electric. She knelt, hands pressed to the stone floor, and the castle's heartbeat pulsed through her veins. A golden thread of connection — the dynasty recognizing its new queen.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her hands, once soft and human, now glistened with the sheen of something more. The veins swirled with light, her eyes gleaming with silver.
She stood. Tall. Ready.
The door at the end of the corridor called to her. Crimson-arched, carved with the serpent and crown.
She stepped forward, and the door opened with a sigh.
Inside, torchlight pooled in corners, revealing a throne room drowned in silence and ruin. Velvet drapes hung in tatters. Gold leaf peeled from the walls. At the room's center, against a backdrop of ash and time, sat a figure.
The Queen.
Chains bound her to a decaying throne — silver, etched with runes that shimmered faintly in defiance. Her face was pale, her skin stretched thin over her bones. But her eyes — her eyes were fire.
Elvira's breath caught. "Mother?"
The woman stirred. "Elvira." Her voice cracked like old paper. "You came."
Tears stung her eyes. She ran forward, falling to her knees.
"I thought you were dead."
Her mother's hand reached out, trembling. "I was… nearly. But I had to stay hidden. For you."
Elvira grasped her hand. Power surged through their touch, a sudden warmth that ignited her veins.
"My star," the Queen whispered. "My child."
Elvira pressed her forehead to her mother's knee. "I stole the key."
Her mother closed her eyes. "Then it begins."
"What begins?"
"The end of them," she said. "And the beginning of you."
Elvira looked up, heart pounding. "I don't understand."
"I passed everything to you," her mother whispered. "All my power, all my blood. You are the true heir now. They can no longer use me. So they will come for you."
Elvira's world tilted. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were safer in ignorance. But that time has ended." Her mother's voice grew stronger, laced with sorrow and steel. "You carry what they want. My essence. My throne. My bloodline. The curse lives in you now. You are no longer just my daughter. You are the princess. But Elijah is not sure you're the princess, in my hidden book I told them my daughter is dead."
Elvira sat back, hands trembling. Visions crashed through her — ancient rites, veiled priestesses, the scream of sacrifice, the crown dripping with wine and blood.
She heard footsteps.
Heavy. Measured. Echoing through the cold stone corridors like the heartbeat of a stalking predator.
Elvira's breath hitched. Her eyes darted toward the looming doorway as a figure emerged from the shadows.
Elijah stepped inside with the silent command of a hunter. His gaze — sharp, cold, and calculating — flicked first to the chained queen, then to Elvira herself.
A sneer curled his lips. "Still playing princess, are we?"
Her mother's eyes burned with fierce pride despite her frail form. "Elijah, you know nothing."
"Oh, but I know enough," he said smoothly, stepping forward with an arrogance that filled the room. "There's a girl here who saw far too much. A mortal girl who witnessed a queen's fall and now carries dangerous secrets."
Elvira's heart slammed against her ribs. Mortal. That was what he thought she was — a fragile, helpless human meant to be silenced before she could speak what she knew.
From the shadows, Avegar stepped forward, a quiet storm. His gaze fixed on Elijah, and the tension thickened like a living thing.
Elvira had always seen Avegar as soft — delicate and feminine in the way he moved, with a gentle kindness that made her heart ache. But now, standing before Elijah, a darker, sharper edge revealed itself. His hands clenched tightly at his sides; his eyes burned with fierce, untamed fire. This was the part of him that fought in the shadows — rough, dangerous, utterly unyielding.
"Elijah," Avegar's voice was calm but resolute. "Let her go."
Elijah's lips curled into a mocking smile. "Still soft for her, aren't you? Still trembling when you think of what she means to you."
Avegar's jaw tightened, eyes never leaving Elijah's.
Elijah smirked and stepped closer. "You never stopped wanting me, did you? After all our battles, all those nights spent in silence and fire... you can't hide it."
Elvira's heart twisted painfully. Were those moments Avegar shared with her — the teasing, the warmth — real? Or had she been nothing but a pawn in their secret game? Her mind flooded with questions: Was their chemistry genuine? Or was she only a distraction?
Elijah's voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "Tell me, Avegar — did you ever love me? Or was I just a ghost you chased when you were lonely?"
Avegar's eyes darkened. "Enough."
Elijah's grin widened. "No? Then prove it. Prove you're not still my pet."
The predator in him surfaced as he lunged toward Elvira, baring his fangs in a cruel, hungry smile.
"I'm going to bite her," Elijah said. "If you don't do it first, I will."
Elvira's breath caught, her chest tightening with cold fear.
Avegar stepped between them, voice low but urgent. "You don't know who she really is."
Elijah cocked his head, eyes gleaming. "Isn't she just a mortal girl with dangerous secrets? Nothing more."
Avegar's gaze dropped to Elvira, heavy with knowledge he kept hidden. He remembered the café — that moment he looked deep into her eyes and saw the unnatural black pupils glowing softly, a silent truth. She was not mortal. But Avegar held this secret close. Revealing it to Elijah would be too dangerous.
"She's not mortal," he said softly, but only to Elvira's ears. "She's the Queen's bloodline. The true heir."
Elijah frowned, suspicion darkening his eyes. "What are you saying?"
"She carries something they want," Avegar said, voice barely above a whisper. "Not the queen."
Elijah's fingers curled like claws. "I'll kill her — silence her before she reveals everything."
Avegar moved like a shadow, shoving Elijah hard against the cold stone wall. His hands gripped with iron.
"Touch her again, you don't know what awaits you" he hissed.
Elijah laughed even as he struggled for air. "You always liked it rough... but you're soft inside."
Avegar's gaze flicked to Elvira — a softness mixed with fierce resolve.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I have to."
Elvira's heart hammered wildly as he stepped closer. His breath brushed her neck, warm and steady. His lips pressed against her skin with tender insistence before his fangs pierced her flesh.
Pain exploded like wildfire, sharp and searing — an intense fire crackling beneath her skin. Yet, beneath the sting, a strange warmth blossomed, an electric current weaving between them.
Avegar's hands cradled her gently, steady and protective as he drank deeply. The connection between them was a tempest — pain mingling with tenderness, fear with undeniable desire.
Elvira's body trembled, every nerve alight with the mingling of agony and comfort. She was fading and coming alive all at once.
When he finally pulled back, she sagged into his arms, breath shallow but her heart still beating fiercely.
Elijah's eyes widened in disbelief. "She should be dead."
Avegar met his gaze, unwavering. "She was never what you thought."