The note was a single line, scrawled in hurried ink:
Run to the greenhouse.Trust no one.
The words burned into her mind as she tore through side corridors and forgotten servant passages.
The manor stretched like a living thing—a maze stitched together by secrets and broken promises.
Behind her, the ballroom roared back to life.
The hunt had begun.
She could feel it.The shift.
No more false civility.
Now—they wanted blood.
Her blood.
She burst into the gardens, heart clawing at her ribs.
Moonlight painted everything in silver and shadow.
Ahead, half-buried in ivy and silence,she saw it—the greenhouse.
She ran.
Footsteps pounded behind her.
Not Ben.Not the wildfire man.
Someone worse.
She slammed into the greenhouse door and threw herself inside.
Glass cracked.Old wood groaned.
The air reeked of damp earth and forgotten summers.
And standing there—waiting for her—was a woman in a blood-red gown.
Too beautiful.Too sharp.
A queen without a crown.
"Found you," the woman said, voice like broken bells.
Liana backed away.
"No one leaves," the woman whispered, smiling with too many teeth."No one ever leaves."
She lifted a hand.
Liana didn't think.
She moved.
Grabbed a rusted garden spade from a toppled pot.
And swung.
Not graceful.Not strategic.Just desperate.
The metal bit into flesh.
A sharp cry—more rage than pain.
But it was enough.
Enough to make the woman stumble.Enough to make her bleed.
Enough for Liana to crash through the side door, tearing herself from the greenhouse like a wounded animal.
Enough to run.
Really run.
Behind her—the shattered glass glittered like fallen stars.
And somewhere, far back in the manor—
The storm-gray man smiled.
Liana ranuntil her lungs burnedand her legs screamed.
She didn't stopuntil she reached the iron gates at the far edge of the estate.
Locked.
Of course they were locked.
Panic scraped her throat raw.
She turned to find another path—
And walked straight into him.
The storm-gray man.
He wasn't running.Wasn't even breathing hard.
He was just...there.
As if he'd always been.Waiting.
He caught her shoulders before she could fall back.
His hands were iron.
But his eyes—
They weren't cruel.
They were...almost weary.
Like he was tiredof being the onepulling the strings.
"Enough," he said, voice low and final.
Liana struggled.He held her steady.
"Listen," he said again—so softly it almost sounded like a plea."If you keep running blind, they'll tear you apart."
She froze.
Because deep down—she knew.
"You're not prey anymore," he said, voice roughening."You're a player."
Then, before she could argue,he pressed something into her hand.
Cold.Heavy.
A ring.
Simple.Silver.Etched with that same endless serpent.
The mark of the true game.
The one beneath the petty huntsand blood-soaked dances.
Liana stared at it, heart pounding.
He stepped closer.Brushed a strand of hair from her face.
"You can still walk away," he murmured."But if you put that on—"
His storm-gray eyes locked with hers.
"You step into a war."
Behind him,the night pulsed with distant footsteps.
The hunt hadn't ended.
It had only changed shape.
Liana tightened her grip around the ring.
The greenhouse girl's sorrowful eyes flashed in her mind.
Ben's steady hands.The wildfire man's cruel smile.The red queen's broken laugh.
She could run.She could disappear.She could choose silence.
Or—
She could be a storm.
Slowly.Breathlessly.
She slid the ring onto her finger.
The storm-gray man smiled.
Not a cruel smile.Not a victorious one.
A sad, inevitable,almost tender thing.
"Welcome to the real game," he whispered.
And somewhere deep inside her—something old and powerfulfinally woke up.
The ring on Liana's finger felt heavier with every step.
Not in weight.
In gravity.In consequence.
She followed the storm-gray man through a maze of halls and staircases, deeper into the manor's heart.
The air grew colder.Thicker.
The laughter and music of the ballroom faded into hollow echoes behind them.
Finally, they stopped before a door.
Black.Iron-banded.Ancient.
He didn't knock.He simply pushed it open.
And inside—
A room that wasn't a room.
A court.
The true heart of the estate.
At the long obsidian table sat the others.
Not the partygoers.Not the hunters.
The real players.
There were no masks here.
Only faces—too beautiful,too terrible,too old.
Some smiled.Some didn't bother.
All of them turned to look at her.
And when they saw the ring on her finger—
A ripple.
Recognition.Amusement.Curiosity.
And, from a few—
Fear.
The storm-gray man guided her forward, toward the far end of the table.To the empty chair.
"Sit," he said, voice stripped of all warmth.
Not a command.A necessity.
Liana sat.
The chair felt like a throne made of ice.
One of the women — all crimson silk and diamond teeth — leaned forward.
"Name?" she asked, voice like dripping honey.
Liana opened her mouth.
And realized—
This was it.
The moment she stepped fully onto the board.
Not a piece.
A player.
She inhaled.Steady.Unflinching.
"Liana Adams."
The name dropped into the roomlike a stone into still water.
Ripples.Tension.Interest.
The man at the head of the table—older than mountains,sharper than knives—smiled.
"Welcome to the Circle," he said."And may the strongest hand win."
Behind his words, unspoken but thunderous:
And may the weak be devoured.
The Circle was not as united as it pretended to be.
Liana saw it immediately.
The way some players leaned away from others.The way glances darted like knives beneath brittle smiles.
This was no council.
It was a battlefield—woven from silk and venom.
And tonight,they were testing her.
The first move came from the woman in crimson.
She rose from her seat, gown spilling like blood across the floor.
"New blood," she purred, circling Liana's chair."So fragile.So soft."
The Circle chuckled.
Predators scenting easy prey.
Liana's heart pounded,but her spine stayed locked.
She would not break.
Not here.Not now.
The crimson woman leaned in, trailing a fingernail along Liana's shoulder.
"You'll last five minutes," she whispered.
Liana smiled.
Sweet.Deadly.
"I'll last longer than you think," she said,voice like velvet wrapped in steel.
A ripple moved through the room.
Interest.Caution.A few smiles—sharp and real.
The crimson woman's gaze narrowed.
But before she could strike again,another player spoke.
A man in a suit so dark it swallowed the light.
"Perhaps we should test her," he said lazily, swirling a glass of wine.
The Circle murmured in agreement.
The storm-gray man said nothing.
He just watched.
Waiting.
The dark-suited man turned his gaze to Liana, smiling thinly.
"There's a document," he said."In the old wing.Retrieve it.Bring it here.Alone."
A test.Or a trap.
Maybe both.
Liana hesitated—
Then caught it.
The faintest flicker in the storm-gray man's eyes.
Not warning.
Permission.
Challenge.
Her pulse thundered.
She rose.
Steady.Unbowed.
"I accept," she said.
The Circle chuckled again.
But this time,the sound had changed.
It sounded—almost nervous.
Because Liana didn't look like prey anymore.
She looked like a stormabout to break.
The old wing of the manor was a corpse.
Empty.Rotting.Forgotten.
Liana's footsteps echoed through the dust-choked halls,sharp against the silence.
The farther she went,the colder it became.
As if the walls themselves remembered thingsthe living world had tried to forget.
She tightened her grip on the dagger hidden in her sleeve.
A gift from the greenhouse girl.No words.Just a look.A warning.A promise.
Find the document.Get out.
Simple.
Except nothing herewas ever simple.
Halfway down the corridor, she heard it.
Whispers.
Not human.Not comprehensible.
They slithered through the cracks in the stone,curling around her ankles,her throat,her heart.
Still—she pressed on.
Past shattered portraits.Doors sagging on broken hinges.Mirrors that reflectedthings that weren't there.
And then—she found it.
A door at the end of the hall.
Sealed with black wax.
The serpent emblem again.
Her fingers trembledas she peeled the wax away.
The door creaked open.
Inside—
Not a study.Not an archive.
A shrine.
Walls covered in maps.Diagrams.Genealogies tangled like spiderwebs.
And in the center—
A pedestal.
Upon it—a single leather-bound book.
No title.Just the serpent, again,burned deep into the cover.
Liana stepped closer,heart hammering.
She opened the book—
And the world tilted.
It wasn't just names.It wasn't just history.
It was truth.
The Circle wasn't just a game.
It was a system.A machine.
One that had been guiding—and devouring—the town.The country.The world.
For centuries.
And now—
They wanted herto be part of it.
Or maybe—to be fuel for it.
Her fingers curled into fists.
No.
Not prey.
Not anymore.
She tore out a page—the one bearing the Circle's founding names.
And ran.
Behind her,the old wingbegan to whisper louder.
Screaming thingsshe didn't dareunderstand.