The town of Greenmere held its breath that evening. Not out of fear, nor reverence, but in the gentle, suffocating stillness that belonged to gated estates and inherited silence. Light curled in lazy spirals through tall windows, painting gold across polished wood and aged brick.
Dorian Velhart stood on the balcony of his ancestral townhome, a clay cup balanced lightly in his hand. The tea had gone cold, but he hadn't noticed — its scent, subtle and earthy, reminded him of the hills near Norin, where the leaves were hand-plucked by families that had served the Velharts for three generations.
Below, the winding streets of Greenmere uncoiled like old veins. Lanterns had been lit, but none flickered. Even the wind moved like a gentleman — quiet, deliberate, never disturbing the peace.
From within the house, faintly, came the sound that always reached him first.
Scratch… scratch… scratch.
The rhythmic breath of charcoal on paper.
Elara.
He turned.
She sat in their private studio — a sun-washed chamber on the upper floor where vines curled outside the arched windows, where the dust smelled faintly of oil paint and rain-soaked parchment. She sat with her legs folded neatly on a wooden stool, posture elegant, fingers darkened by pigment. Her brow furrowed, not with frustration, but obsession.
She was sketching the world again. Not the one outside the window — but something deeper. She always said she drew not what she saw, but what lingered in what was seen.
Dorian crossed the room with the practiced quiet of someone raised not to disturb.
"Will you have finished before dinner?" he asked, his voice a thread of amusement as he set the cup down beside her.
Her hand didn't pause. Her eyes remained fixed to the page.
"I'll be done when it tells me I'm done," she murmured.
He tilted his head. "Who?"
"The drawing."
He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, loosely, like one might cradle a dream. His chin rested lightly on her shoulder. He felt her bones beneath skin, the gentle rise of her breath, the quiet rhythm of life.
The sketch was… strange. Familiar forms, yes — the trees outside, the road leading down the hill. But the lines were too dark in places. Twisted. There were shapes behind the trees — not men, not animals, but impressions. Like something half-remembered or not meant to be recalled at all.
"You're drawing shadows again," he whispered.
"They've been here longer than us," she said simply. "They deserve to be seen."
He said nothing. He kissed her temple. Then turned and left.
Twenty minutes. That was all.
Just enough time to walk through the garden, past the sleeping fountain and the hedge shaped like a lion. He had bent to pluck a Queen of the Night — her favorite — when something stopped him.
A weight in his chest.
Not a thought. Not a sound.
Just a pause, as though the world had momentarily forgotten how to move forward.
He straightened. The flower pinched delicately between his fingers.
By the time he returned to the studio, the door was open. Slightly.
He froze.
The breeze did not move the curtains. The light felt wrong.
Then he heard her.
A whisper, softer than silence.
"…Please. Don't."
He pushed the door open.
The flower fell. Crushed underfoot.
There, at the center of the room, stood a man.
Or something shaped like one.
Tall, cloaked in gray that didn't catch the light. No face could be seen beneath the hood. His hands — gloved — were outstretched toward Elara, who was backed against the far wall, cradling something against her chest. Her eyes met Dorian's.
And for a moment — an agonizing, shattering moment — he saw not terror in them, but guilt.
She was sorry.
He didn't understand.
Then the man struck her — not physically. No blade. No impact. Just… a shift.
A ripple in the air, like a cloth being torn in a vacuum.
The windows cracked outward, but there was no sound. The light she held flared suddenly, became spherical — a burning orb — and then vanished.
So did the man.
No footsteps. No noise. He simply was not there.
And Elara…
Her body crumpled. He ran — caught her before she hit the floor.
Blood stained his sleeves, warm and slow.
Her mouth moved. Her eyes — still focused on him — glistened with something that made his throat close.
"I'm so sorry, Dorian…"
Then she faded.
Not vanished. Faded.
Like chalk dust blown from the edges of a page. Like something never fully real to begin with. The curve of her shoulder. The fall of her hair. Her heartbeat. One by one, the elements of her being unwrote themselves in his arms.
Until only dust remained.
And the ring.
A simple gold ring, lying cold against the floor.
He did not remember how long he had stayed there.
The only thing that he knew was that the sun had moved when he next opened his eyes, and that his body hurt from how tightly he had clutched nothing.
He left the room. He searched.
He called for her.
Her name sounded strange in his mouth. Thin. Brittle.
He asked the staff.
"Elara, sir?" The maid blinked. "Your… fiancée?"
He stopped. "My wife."
"I didn't know you were engaged at all, sir."
His breath caught.
He went further. Neighbors. Friends. Those who'd visited for dinners, who had seen her paintings.
None remembered her.
None.
They remembered him. His family. His habits. But not the woman he had shared a life with.
Then the police.
They came. They searched.
No signs of blood. No sign of struggle. The studio was pristine. The art was gone. Not simply removed — erased. Canvases replaced. Sketches absent. Even the scent of paint was gone.
"No record of an Elara Velhart," said the sergeant, tapping his notes. "Not even a Sorell."
"But I—"
"The Sorells have no daughter, sir. We checked the family registry."
He stared at them.
"And the ring?"
The constable shrugged. "A ring's just a ring."
Four days passed.
He did not sleep.
He barely moved.
His desk piled with unread letters. Dust formed along the corners of his coat. The world turned, but without him.
Only the ring remained.
Resting on the side table, gleaming quietly. As though waiting.
He stared at it.
And then — a pulse.
Soft. Subtle.
Like the memory of a heartbeat against a once-shared pillow.
He picked it up.
Warm.
But more than that — alive.
He whispered her name.
Nothing.
Then, from somewhere inside — not sound, not voice, but intention — something stirred.
A feeling. A tether.
He stood.
"Lutger!" His voice cracked from disuse. "Prepare the carriage. I'm leaving for Norin."
The old butler blinked, but did not question him.
As the carriage cut through the fog-wrapped streets of Greenmere, Dorian sat motionless, the gold ring curled in his palm like a relic exhumed from a forgotten myth.
It pulsed again.
Not with warmth this time.
But with… intention.
As though it knew it was being held.
As though it had waited for him to be ready.
A whisper brushed against the back of his thoughts. Not a word. Not even a voice. Just a presence, pressing gently against the edges of his mind. Like fingers brushing across the skin of a dream.
He leaned back against the seat, breath shallow, his gaze drifted to the window. Shapes passed by — trees, lamps, distant silhouettes. But for a moment, he thought he saw a figure standing still beneath a lamppost as the carriage rolled past.
Tall.Cloaked.Unmoving.
"Forgive Me... " The figure whispered.
Dorian blinked.
Gone.
The ring pulsed once more.
Outside, the fog thickened. Somewhere far off, a bell tolled — slow, mournful, as though counting down something only it understood.
Dorian clutched the ring tighter.
This wasn't just grief.
Or madness.
Or memory.
Something had been taken. But not erased.
Something remained.
Not Elara, perhaps.
But something of her.
Something not meant to be left behind.
And far behind the carriage, in the studio Dorian had fled, the dust on the wooden floor shifted. A faint wind, though the windows were shut. The charcoal tray rattled once, then stilled. A smudge appeared on the canvas that had been blank just hours ago.
A shape.
No hand touched it.
No brush moved.
But line by line, the sketch began to redraw itself.
And in the silence of the empty house, a voice — faint, broken — whispered a name not meant to be heard again.