I should not have left the manor at the hour when candles guttered and servants slept. The walls whispered warnings as I slipped from the candlelit corridors, their shadows long and accusing. The chandeliers overhead dimmed, as if ashamed of my silence. Each step on the polished stone echoed too loudly, as though the house resented my departure.
The chandeliers swayed as if stirred by unseen breath, their crystals whispering against one another like teeth chattering. Curtains moved, though no wind passed, and I thought the walls themselves leaned closer to hear my trespass. The manor was not built to let me leave; it was a cage with velvet bars, each shadow sharpened into condemnation.
The portraits on the walls watched me pass, their painted eyes alive with accusation. My mother's likeness seemed to weep beneath its gilt frame, the varnish glimmering like tears. Even the air was perfumed with decay and roses, Elias's chosen scent—sickly sweet, impossible to escape. It lingered on my skin as though claiming ownership.
The air in that house was poisoned—every room a prison beneath my brother's shadow. He haunted the manor more effectively than any ghost could: a presence thick and suffocating, a weight pressed upon my chest until even my name sounded borrowed.
I had often wondered if the walls remembered laughter. Once, music filled those halls—my mother's piano, my father's baritone—but silence had devoured even memory. Only the ticking of the longcase clock remained, echoing like a pulse through the bones of the house. Every sound felt stolen, as though permission to exist must first be granted by my brother's will.
Snow murmured beneath my boots as I crossed the courtyard, begging me to turn back, to be dutiful—to be good. Obedient. But I had long ago learned that goodness was the first luxury stolen from a woman threatened by her own kin, from a woman who lives beneath the hand of a cruel man. They say twins share a soul; if that is true, he stole mine long ago—bartering my peace for his greed, leaving me with only fear and quiet defiance.
Elias—my twin brother, my curse—had left violet stains upon my pale skin, blooming like forbidden fruit, hidden where no one dared to look. Bruises lay hidden beneath my wool and lace; each one a debt collected in silence. I had become his ledger: my body, the paper upon which he wrote his rage. He traded my dignity for his power, his cruelty disguised as a birthright. Each mark was a debt paid with inheritance and silence.
Sometimes, when I dared look upon myself in the cracked mirror of my chamber, I saw a face still beautiful, yet marred by shadows not of my making. My eyes, pale and luminous, seemed carved from frost, boring the silence of winters unspoken. Beneath the fabric of my nightdress, I traced the bruises fading into yellow—blasphemous stains upon skin that might have been holy. I whispered apologies to them, as though my body had borne sins meant for another.
He called them lessons, those visits under candlelight. His voice was soft, measured, always polite as the blade that followed. "A lady must learn obedience," he'd say, his breath warm against my ear. And afterward, when silence swallowed the room, I would stare at the ceiling's cracks, tracing constellations to remind myself that the world was larger than the pain.
Once, I thought the bruises might fade, that perhaps a softer season would come. But they bloomed in silence, as relentless as winter roses, each one a secret garden of shame upon my body. And though no priest would hear my confession, I felt my skin had memorized every strike as though engraving scripture.
The gates rose before me like a monument to captivity, their frost-bitten teeth poised to bite. I half-believed they would close off their own accord, swallowing me back to my brother's dominion. My palm met the frozen bars, their sting branding me in silence—a benediction of exile, a final warning that freedom bears its own fangs, and no return could unmake it.
The wind moaned through the ironwork, sounding almost like the low wail of a mourning choir. Somewhere behind me, the manor's bells tolled midnight, each chime a farewell. I did not look back; I feared that if I glimpsed even one flicker of candlelight in the upper windows, the house would reclaim me.
And yet, even as I slipped from the gates, some part of me still hesitated. To leave was dangerous; to stay was unbearable. My breath fogged in the frozen air, a pale wisp of almost-freedom.
The endless night stretched before me was cruelly beautiful—it promised absolution. The white lands lead me farther from the manor. As if leading me toward some destiny I had never sought. I thought perhaps I might walk until I vanished—into snow, into silence, into the kind of forgetfulness that only cold could grant.
My breath clouded before me like prayers that could not find heaven. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf called, and I envied its certainty of voice. My footsteps left faint prints—proof, perhaps, that I had once lived.
But in that moment, the fog lifted its veil and revealed him.
A beautiful man. A stranger.
At first, I thought the fog itself had taken shape—an illusion wrought from exhaustion and despair—a cruel trick of night. Yet as he stepped forward, the air bent around him as though consecrating his form. Every flake of snow seemed reluctant to touch him. His very presence unmade the night's silence.
The fog parted as if fearing to offend him. He moved without haste, yet each motion carried the weight of ages. I could not hear his steps; it was as though the earth itself muted beneath him. Even the cold dared not touch his skin. In that silence, I understood that death could walk in beauty's disguise.
A figure carved from the moonlight itself, though not the kind of fantasy whispered in stories. He was flesh and bone, but impossibly striking. His tall frame seemed to belong to the night, the way shadows seemed to retreat at his approach. His long, pale hair shimmered like silver unraveling in the wind. His eyes—those merciless eyes—caught me in a hold I did not consent to yet could not break.
The path behind him burned with crimson roses where blood had fallen. I froze, for instinct told me what reason I already knew: such an event was not a myth. The scene was no phantom of my imagination. I was looking upon a man who had killed.
And yet I did not flee.
He regarded me as a cathedral, studying my face as if carved from stone, my body as if it contained some scripture he alone could read.
His gaze was not lust, nor cruelty—it was recognition, the way a collector studies a relic long sought. I felt stripped of pretense, a relic of flesh and trembling breath. If he had reached out then, I might have fallen to my knees, not from fear but from the unbearable weight of being seen.
His voice drifted toward me like smoke seeping beneath a door—ominous herald of the fire to come. He did not advance, yet the air grew heavier, pressing against my skin as though his very presence demanded entry. I wavered between crossing myself in prayer or baring my throat in surrender.
Somewhere deep inside, a memory stirred—of candlelight flickering over an open prayer book, of a girl whispering hymns she no longer believed. My hands twitched toward my collarbone, tracing the phantom outline of a cross that faith had abandoned. I wondered if salvation could still recognize me.
"Do you fear me?" he asked, though it was not a question.
I tried to answer, but my throat betrayed me. Fear was there, yes—but not of him. Rather than what part of myself would awaken under his gaze.
"Then perhaps," he murmured, stepping closer, "you fear what you recognize."
The moonlight thickened between us, making silence heavy. My heartbeat is too loud in the quiet, as if Elias might hear it from the manor windows and come to claim me back.
His eyes met mine, and for a moment, time seemed to have stopped. The night was no longer silent– It was roaring, trembling, like a thousand hushed prayers answered in a single look.
Finally, he spoke.
"You should not be out here alone at such an hour, my lady," he said. His voice was velvet wrapped around a knife, cutting even its gentleness. "The night devours those who wander."
"And yet," I whispered, "here you are."
He tilted his head. A flicker passed across his expression—amusement, perhaps, or sorrow. I had never seen grief made so beautiful, nor beauty so emptied of purpose. He was a man who carried ruin in his very posture. An angel without wings, with his halo fallen into the darkest depths.
I wondered then if ruin could ever be beautiful—if perhaps the divine had simply been misunderstood. Maybe angels, too, had been carved with fangs and sorrow.
And in that instant, I thought: perhaps Heaven and Hell were but mirrors facing one another, each reflecting beauty and sorrow until even angels forgot their place. If ruin was his crown, then I wanted to kneel beneath it.