The Rosenthal name was spoken the way one might utter a prayer in a cathedral at midnight—half in reverence, half in dread. For centuries, their bloodline had sat upon endless wealth and sprawling estates, their black-rose crest embroidered into banners and etched into marble, a mark as eternal as it was ominous. Yet in every age, whispers followed: that no Rosenthal marriage had ever ended in joy, that love withered in their halls, and that the family was cursed by something older than stone or blood.
Servants told stories behind closed doors. A Rosenthal bride would go mad before her first anniversary. A Rosenthal heir would die young, his fortune swallowed by shadows. A Rosenthal child, even one born healthy, would never live to see gray in their hair. To outsiders, the Rosenthals were figures of fascination—opulent, tragic, always perched on the edge of some inevitable ruin.
And now, only one remained.
Lady Evangeline Rosenthal.
The last rose of a dying garden.
At twenty years of age, she presided over what remained of her family's grandeur: the vast Rosenthal estate with its high-arched windows and sprawling corridors, its manicured gardens where black roses bloomed even in winter, its grand chapel with cracked stained glass that scattered light in fractured hues across the marble floor. She had inherited more fortune than she could ever spend in a dozen lifetimes. Jewels glittered in velvet boxes. Oil paintings of long-dead ancestors stared down at her from gilded frames. And yet, the great mansion was silent, save for the creak of its timbers and the whispers of the wind that wound through its towers.
Silence was her inheritance. Loneliness her dowry.
She walked the halls as one might wander a mausoleum. Each chamber was filled with memories that were not her own—echoes of laughter that had long since been extinguished, ghostly traces of music that once filled the ballroom, now hushed beneath layers of dust. Even her own footsteps seemed subdued, swallowed by the velvet hush that clung to every surface.
Society knew her name, but never her heart. In the glittering parlors of nobles, she was called the "villainess of Rosenthal," a young woman as beautiful as she was untouchable, her midnight-dark hair and pale eyes likened to the roses that bore her crest. Suitors came and went, each one more cautious than the last, for though her fortune tempted them, the weight of her name drove them away. What man would wed a woman whose very blood was said to rot love from within?
And so Evangeline remained alone, adored from a distance but never held close.
Yet she had never truly been alone.
From the time she was a child, Evangeline had known—though she dared not say it aloud—that something lingered in the shadows of her life. It was not the curse, nor the malice of society's scorn. It was something else. A presence.
She had felt it in the nursery, when she wept in her cradle and the candles dimmed, though no nurse had come to comfort her. She had sensed it in the chapel, when sunlight through stained glass cast the figure of a man upon the floor beside her, though she stood alone. She had known it at night, when she turned her face against her pillow and felt the air stir as if someone brushed a hand against her cheek.
A companion. A sentinel. A shadow.
It had never spoken. It had never revealed itself. And yet, Evangeline could not remember a day when it had not been with her.
At times, she had thought herself mad, like the Rosenthal brides of old who had gone screaming into the night. At others, she had wondered if she was haunted, that her family's dead refused to release her. But deep within her soul, she knew it was neither. The presence was not cruel, nor unkind. It did not seek to frighten her. If anything, it seemed… protective. Watching, always watching, as if the curse that stalked her family was not a noose, but a tether.
And though she never dared admit it, there were nights when she welcomed it. When the loneliness pressed too heavily upon her chest, she would whisper into the dark, as though someone—something—might hear her. She would confess her fears, her sorrows, her longing for love. And though the room remained silent, though no reply ever came, the air would shift around her, and she would feel less alone.
Tonight was one of those nights.
Rain lashed against the windows of the Rosenthal estate, streaking the glass like tears. The storm made the manor groan and shudder, its timbers sighing as though weary of centuries. Evangeline sat at her writing desk in the library, a solitary candle flickering beside her. Letters lay half-finished, correspondence to nobles who would not answer, invitations to parties where she would not be welcomed. She had dressed herself in silks of wine-red and black, jewels glittering at her throat, though no one was there to see.
"Perhaps they are right," she murmured, her voice scarcely louder than the storm. "Perhaps I am cursed. Perhaps I was never meant to be loved."
The words fell into the silence. The candle guttered, nearly extinguished, though no draft stirred the room. Evangeline froze. She knew this feeling—the sudden stillness, the shift of the air, the subtle awareness prickling her skin.
"You are here," she whispered into the darkened chamber.
No answer came. There never was.
And yet she felt it: a weight behind her, a presence standing just beyond the reach of sight. Her heart quickened, not with fear, but with that strange, inexplicable comfort she had known all her life. For a moment, she imagined a hand upon her shoulder, unseen yet steady, as though something whispered without words: You are not alone.
She turned, as she always did, hoping to catch a glimpse. The library lay empty, its tall shelves looming with silent tomes. Shadows pooled in the corners, but nothing stirred.
Still, she smiled faintly, her lips curving with a sadness that was almost tender.
"You are cruel," she said softly, "to linger so close, and yet never let me see you."
The storm answered with a crash of thunder.
Evangeline returned to her desk, her quill scratching against parchment once more. Outside, the black roses in the garden bowed beneath the rain, their petals glistening like ink in the night. Inside, the candle flared, and for an instant—just an instant—the shadow of a man stretched across the wall behind her chair, tall and still, as if keeping vigil.
She did not turn. She had learned long ago that if she tried to catch it, it would vanish.
Instead, she wrote on, comforted by the certainty she would never admit aloud:
Even if the world despised her name, even if no man ever loved her, even if she walked through life as the last Rosenthal, cursed and alone…
She would never truly be without him.