The crypt was colder than the grave.
Alaric knelt before a tombstone, its inscription worn to ghosts.
"You returned in her image," he told the silence. "But you are not her."
Above him, a single thorned vine pulsed—the same one Celeste had brushed that afternoon. Its roots slithered deeper into the cracks of the estate.
Weakening.
Somewhere in the walls, the house breathed.