Tentu! Anda meminta Bab 1 lagi, yang sudah saya berikan sebelumnya. Berikut adalah teks Bab 1 yang telah disajikan, "A Canvas of Dust and Starlight":
🖤 Chapter 1: A Canvas of Dust and Starlight 🎨
The scent of turpentine and old paper was the air Elora Vance breathed. It clung to her charcoal-stained fingers and her favorite oversized sweater, a comforting, familiar musk that defined her existence. For two weeks straight, she'd been living inside Studio 3B, preparing for the dreaded mid-semester review. Her project, a large-scale oil piece titled 'Liminal Spaces,' was a frantic study of memory and absence.
Today, however, the silence of the studio was broken by the sharp, grating sound of a janitor's trolley outside. Elora frowned, carefully stepping back from her easel. Her focus had been shattered, and now she saw only the flaws: the clumsy layering of the Prussian blue, the stiffness in the subject's jaw.
She stripped off her apron, the late afternoon sun casting long, golden streaks across the worn wooden floor of the university's Fine Arts wing. This was her world: predictable, simple, and beautifully messy.
As she gathered her brushes, her gaze drifted to the small, silver locket resting against her collarbone. It was an involuntary gesture she'd never managed to break. Inside, nestled against the cool metal, was a faded photograph—a boy with mischievous, sea-green eyes and a smile that had promised forever.
Kaelen.
Kaelen Thorne. Her first love. Her only love.
It had been seven years since she last saw him, a lifetime away from the innocent, stolen kisses behind the old oak tree near her childhood home. They were just kids then, bound by whispered secrets and the shared, terrifying hope of a future together. But the future never came. Kaelen had simply vanished one summer, his family gone without a trace, leaving Elora with a locket and a deep, aching void that no amount of time or art could quite fill.
"Still staring at that ghost, Elora?"
The voice belonged to Liam, her studio neighbor and most irritating friend. He leaned against the doorway, munching loudly on an apple, his own watercolor sketches tucked haphazardly under his arm.
Elora quickly tucked the locket beneath her sweater. "He's not a ghost, Liam. He's… a very strong memory."
Liam rolled his eyes, taking another loud bite. "A strong memory who, if he were alive and well, is probably some greasy hedge fund manager living in a Manhattan penthouse, totally forgetting the girl with the charcoal hands."
She bristled, the words stinging more than she cared to admit. "Maybe he's an archaeologist now. Or a conservationist. He always loved old things."
"Right. And I'm going to win the Pritzker Prize next year. Come on, Elora. You need a life. We're celebrating the end of review prep with terrible pizza and worse horror movies tonight. My treat."
Elora managed a small, genuine smile. Liam was right. She spent too much time in the past. She needed to embrace the sweet simplicity of her current life—the quiet beauty of the campus, the camaraderie with her friends.
"Okay," she conceded, grabbing her worn leather satchel. "But if the pizza has olives, you're paying for two."
As they walked through the campus quad, the chill air of the approaching autumn evening was crisp. The ivy-covered brick buildings of St. Jude's University glowed softly under the streetlamps. It was a haven of academia, far removed from the sharp edges of the city's corporate heart, a place where Elora felt safe.
"Did you hear the news about the new endowment?" Liam asked, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Apparently, the Board secured a massive private donation. Billionaire-level stuff. They're calling the donor 'The Obsidian.' No one knows who he is, but he's funding the new Tech Arts wing and a ridiculous annual scholarship. We're talking 'instant-career' kind of money."
Elora shrugged, more interested in avoiding a puddle than in anonymous wealth. "Good for them. I prefer my art unfettered by billionaire whims."
Liam sighed dramatically. "Such an idealist. You know, whoever this Obsidian is, he's probably some old, bald guy. Totally boring."
They reached the main gate, where the old-world charm of St. Jude's met the modern, relentless pulse of the city. Elora paused, her hand gripping the strap of her bag.
Just then, a sleek, black Rolls-Royce Ghost—a vehicle so incongruous with their student lives it seemed to belong on another planet—pulled silently up to the curb, right beside their pizza parlor destination.
The back door opened, and a pair of polished, black leather shoes touched the pavement.
A man unfolded himself from the car.
He was tall, impossibly tailored in a dark charcoal suit that screamed power and expense. Every line of him was sharp, precise, and utterly ruthless. The setting sun caught the severe angle of his jaw and the perfectly sculpted darkness of his hair. He looked like the living embodiment of a corporate titan, cold and mesmerizing.
He turned, and the dying light hit his eyes.
Elora's breath hitched, the scent of turpentine suddenly replaced by the dizzying rush of adrenaline and shock. The sound of the city faded into a dull roar. The peaceful innocence of her campus life cracked, shattered.
The sea-green eyes were colder now, devoid of the boyish mischief she remembered, replaced by the calculating intensity of a predator. But they were undeniably the same.
He had promised forever. He had vanished. And now, he was standing five feet away.
Liam was still rambling about olives when the man—no, Kaelen—finally fixed his gaze directly on Elora. A slow, possessive smirk, dark and unnerving, stretched across his lips.
It was the first moment of seven long years. And Elora knew, with a chilling certainty that seeped into her bones, that the ghost she had been drawing was real. And he had come back to claim her.