The storm had spent itself down by dawn, leaving the woods hushed and dripping. Mist clung to the trees, coiling low across the fields, while the house stood battered and silent. Broken glass glinted in the fireplace's dying glow, and the air still smelled of smoke where the intruder had fallen.
Elena moved through the wreckage like one half dreaming. Every overturned chair, every scorched board whispered of the night before, but none of it explained what she had seen: a body that vanished into nothing, a scream that exhaled black smoke instead of breath.
Adrian sat at the table, a shadow against the pale morning light. His shirt was torn, his arm bandaged clumsily, his gaze fixed on the scarlet sealed letter that lay between them. He had not slept. Neither had she.
"You owe me the truth," Elena said. Her voice was steady, though her hands trembled.
Adrian's eyes lifted to hers. Exhaustion deepened the lines of his face, but the fire in his gaze had not dimmed. "The truth will not comfort you."
"Comfort?" She gave a sharp laugh. "Three strangers broke into my home, they bled smoke and disappeared into the storm. Comfort is not what I want." She leaned forward, finger splayed against the table. "I want to know why."
Adrian looked down at the letter, his knuckles whitening around the one he still carried. "The Seals are not letters. They are summons, once broken, they bind you, body and soul to the order."
The word hung in the air like a tolling bell.
Elena's breath caught. "The order?"
He shook his head, as though even naming them gave them strength. "You must never open it, Elena. Swear it."
Her chest tightened. She thought of the letter on her cloak, of nights spent staring at its unbroken seal, wondering." And if already have?" She whispered.
His head snapped up, eyes sharp. She almost smiled at the fear in his face, though she did not give him the truth, that she had never broken it.
Silence stretched. Then Adrian rose, wincing against the stiffness of his wound. "Come. We need to see where the body fell."
The woods beyond the house were sodden and silent, the earth soft underfoot. Adrian led her to the clearing where one of the attackers had collapsed. Elena expected a churned soil, some trail of retreat, but the ground bore only a blackened mark, scorched deep into the mud.
She crouched, running her fingers just above the earth. A shape revealed itself: a circle within a circle, etched with symbols she could not read, glowing faintly as if lit from beneath.
As she reached to touch it, she recoiled. "What is this?" she said as a mark appeared on her body.
Adrian stared at the mark on the floor and that on her body, his face hardening. He muttered something under his breath, a word she did not know, though the way he spoke it chilled her.
"Tell me what it means," she demanded.
He did not answer.
Her anger flared hot. "You come here, you bring them to my door, and you still think you can protect me by keeping me blind? You owe me more than silence, Adrian!"
His jaw tightened. "If you knew," he said softly, "you would never forgive me."
The admission stole her breath. For a moment, she forgot her fear and only saw him: the scarred boy she had once loved, now hardened into a man carved by war and secrecy.
"Try me," she whispered
He turned away.
They returned to the house as the sun dipped and clouds gathered, the storm had been prowling the horizon since noon, a bruise spreading across the sky, thunder pressed against the windows like a hand demanding entry. The old house seemed to hold its breath, some parts creaking with each gust of wind, the weight of unspoken words pressing heavier than their fatigue. Elena's eyes strayed to the cloak, to the letter waiting in the half-light. She could almost hear it whisper her name.
Her hand reached for it.
"Don't." His voice was sharp, and his hand closed over hers before she touched the seal. The warmth of him jolted through her, too close, too familiar. For a moment neither moved. Her pulse quickened, her lips parted, one breath away from his.
"Why?" she asked, her voice trembling not from fear.
Adrian's eyes searched hers. "Because once opened, you will belong to them. As I do."
He explained the order and the seals to her.
The words were confession and curse all at once.
--
The storm battered Blackthorn estate, its ancient walls rattling like a coffin in the earth. Elena sat alone in the library, the only light a flickering candle struggling against the draft. On the desk before her lay the crimson sealed letter. Its wax shimmered as though blood itself had cooled into the hardened crest. She had never broken it, not when it arrived years ago, not when loneliness begged her to.
Her father's warning echoed in her head: "Never open what was meant to remain shut."
Lightning slashed across the sky, throwing her reflection against the tall window, pale, restless, almost unrecognizable. She thought she saw movement behind her in the glass, but when she turned only shadows.
Then came the knock at the door. Three deliberate raps, slow, like the toll of a funeral bell.
Sleep abandoned her, lantern in hand, she wandered the darkened corridors. The air was cold, wet with storm-breath, and it smelled faintly of Ash. She paused when the carpet shifted under her step, rippling as if water swelled beneath it. She wanted to call for Adrian, but remembered he had left saying he had to prepare something.
Then came the whisper. Not wind, not storm – a voice, her name. Elena.
Heart hammering, she followed faint footprints down the hall way. Muddy, fresh, they led toward her father's portrait in the gallery. Lightning flared, and for a heartbeat she swore the painted eyes looked away. Behind the canvas, something scratched. When she pulled it forward, nothing. Only a black stone.
Yet when she turned, the footprints were gone.
The storm raged on long into the night. Elena moved like a ghost through the wreckage of her thoughts, Adrian's sudden return unraveling every fragile certainty she had built in his absence.
At dawn, silence replaced the storm, but unease lingered like smoke after fire. She searched the gallery. No footprints. No sign of last night's disturbance – except her skin still burned faintly where she had touched the wall.
The cellar offered no comfort. One the foundation stones, symbols spiraled outward in jagged lines, crude yet pulsing faintly with heat. She recoiled, clutching her wrist.
In the library she found a servant's journal, dusty and half-burned. One passage stood clear: "The Seal burns in her bloodline. The house itself is marked. We should never have stayed."
That night as she stared at the crimson letter a child's giggle echoed through the room.
The knock returned, this time louder Reluctant and trembling, Elena opened the door.
There he stood – Adrian. Mud clung to him like another skin
"They know you have it," he whispered, his voice raw. "And you are no longer safe here." By the fireplace she treated his wounds, His silence was heavier than the storm had been. When she demanded to know where he had vanished to all those years, he only muttered: "The order doesn't forgive. It doesn't forget."
That night, the woods did not rest.
Elena stood by the window, listening. Beyond the hush of leaves came another sound – distant, rhythmic, carried on the wind. It was not birdsong, nor the storm but something older, stranger. A chant.
She shivered. "Do you hear that?"