Chapter 15: Cold Fire
Bryant didn't speak to her after that night.
He didn't touch her.
Didn't look at her.
He simply vanished from her world.
And somehow—
That was worse.
The silence wasn't peaceful.
It was punishment.
A calculated coldness that stretched through the halls, choking the warmth from every room she entered.
The guards avoided her eyes.
The staff spoke in whispers.
The mistress? Still there. Still smug. Still dripping in perfume and privilege.
But Bryant?
He became a ghost.
And Evelyn?
She endured.
Until one night—
She found herself back in the observatory. Cloaked in moonlight. Barefoot again. But colder now.
She sat by the glass, fingers pressed to the frost.
And let the memory come.
> The dungeon had no windows.
No light.
No warmth.
Only her.
And the whispers of monsters above.
"You're cursed."
"You're a shame."
"You should've died with your mother."
She'd carved tally marks into the stone wall with her nails until they bled.
She'd once dreamed that someone would find her.
Not to save her.
Just to see her.
Now someone had.
And he was pretending she didn't exist.
—
A knock shattered the silence.
Evelyn turned.
Callan stood at the door.
He looked… hesitant.
"Someone delivered this," he said. "Bryant hasn't seen it yet."
He handed her a scroll.
Black ribbon.
Silver wax.
No crest.
No name.
But the moment she touched it—
Her scar pulsed.
Pain.
Memory.
Recognition.
She broke the seal.
Unrolled the parchment.
And read a single line:
> "You are not what he thinks you are. You are worse."
Her fingers trembled.
Because the handwriting—
She knew it.
She hadn't seen it since she was seven years old.
Her mother's blood had been fresh on the floor.
And that was the day they burned her name from the family books.
---
[End of Chapter 15]
—