The halls were too quiet tonight.
Not the hush of a resting household, but a silence that pressed against the ribs until breathing felt like a risk. My steps whispered across marble, then vanished into velvet tapestries, swallowed whole. The Veylen estate was built for silence. For secrets. For obedience.
I did not hurry. To hurry was to betray nerves, and nerves had no place here. My father carved that lesson into me with words sharper than any blade; my mother with her silence, sharper still.
The lamps along the walls flickered within sconces shaped like outstretched hands. Open hands. Open hearts. Lies. Those hands were never open — only grasping.
Ahead, the ritual chamber waited. The black-wood door was veined like stone, its iron handle worn smooth by centuries of offerings. The air smelled faintly of iron, as if the walls themselves bled.
I pressed my hand against it. Cold. Too cold for the season. I wondered if the chill came from the Veil seeping outward… or from me, seeping inward.
When I pushed the door open, the chamber stirred with shadow. Candles burned low on iron stands. A mirror stood at the far wall, shrouded in black cloth. The iron bowl beneath it was crusted with old wax and something darker. The air felt wrong — thick, as though I had stepped not into a room but into lungs that did not belong to me.
I did not touch the mirror. The cloth rippled faintly, though no air moved. My pulse quickened, but my face betrayed nothing.
They wanted a vessel. They wanted a Bride. They wanted silence shaped into flesh.
I was still here.
And I would not break.