The rain had followed her across the city, clinging to her like a curse she couldn't wash away. It dripped from the hem of her coat, gathered in her collar, and kissed her skin with cold teeth. Elara Veylon hunched deeper into herself as the bus rumbled away behind her, its exhaust coughing into the night, leaving her alone on the cracked pavement of Ironvale Street.
Ahead, the dormitory loomed like a cathedral that had been stripped of its saints—tall spires, stone gargoyles, windows that watched instead of welcomed. St. Rhain's University liked to call it heritage housing. Elara only saw a mausoleum.
Still, it was hers now. A new city. A new life. A chance to bury the estate where she'd grown up—where silence had rotted the walls and shadows whispered her name at night.
She adjusted the strap of her bag and told herself that freedom felt like this: cold, damp, and heavy.
But freedom didn't watch from the shadows.
She felt it before she saw it, a prickle crawling along the back of her neck, the way prey must feel the instant before the wolf breaks the brush. Her key slipped from her hand and clattered onto the wet ground.
Elara froze. The street behind her was empty. The lamps flickered in and out, their light too thin to hold back the dark. A single crow shifted on the telephone wire, wings rustling, eyes glinting.
"Get a grip," she whispered, scooping up the key. Her voice cracked against the silence. She shoved the door open and stumbled into the dormitory's entrance hall.
The lights inside hummed—fluorescent, sterile, too bright. She squinted, exhaling when the heavy door clicked shut behind her. No footsteps followed. No shadows slipped through. Just her, dripping onto the polished tile.
But her pulse wouldn't slow.
From the roof above, Kael Drosan watched her disappear inside. The rain slid down his face like baptism water, washing nothing clean. His muscles were still, carved into tension, eyes unblinking as he traced the curve of her shoulders, the way she hunched into herself like she wanted to vanish.
She hadn't. She couldn't.
Elara Veylon had carried the hollow house with her, and he was its shadow.
He adjusted the glove on his hand, flexing fingers scarred and inked with black scripture, words that no priest would dare write. His jaw tightened as he whispered her name like a vow.
"Elara."
The sound vanished into the rain. She would not hear it—not yet.
He had been patient for years. Watching. Waiting. Letting her believe she had escaped. But now she was closer. Within reach. Within arms that could crush or cradle, depending on what she demanded of him.
Kael's lips curved—something too sharp to be called a smile.
She thought freedom was hers. He would remind her that nothing she owned was ever hers.
Especially not herself.
---
Inside, Elara dropped her bag on the thin mattress. The dorm room smelled of dust and paint, like the ghosts of students who had come before and left nothing but sweat in the walls. She peeled off her wet coat, tossed it over the chair, and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.
For a moment, the silence was almost comforting. No grandfather clock ticking. No footsteps in corridors where no one should walk. No whispers clawing through keyholes.
She told herself it was better here. It had to be.
Still, when she turned off the light and lay down, she couldn't shake the weight pressing against her chest—the phantom heaviness of eyes that had followed her from the bus, to the street, to the very edge of this room.
Eyes that promised she wasn't alone.
And for the first time since stepping off that bus, she realized she wasn't sure if that thought terrified her… or anchored her.