The piano played like it had a heart of its own.
I lay in the empty bed listening to the melody drift through the manor, thin and mournful, the kind of music that sounded like someone remembering a love they had buried alive. The sheets beside me were still warm, holding the shape of Adrian as if refusing to let him go.
He hadn't woken me when he left.
That unsettled me more than the song.
I wrapped his shirt tighter around myself and followed the sound into the corridor. The house at night felt taller, breathing in slow wooden sighs. Lanterns burned without hands to tend them, guiding me like polite ghosts.
The door at the end stood ajar.
Beyond it, candlelight trembled.
Adrian sat at the piano with his back to me, bare shoulders golden in the glow. His fingers moved over the keys with a tenderness that made the music ache. He looked less like a mysterious heir and more like a man confessing to the dark.
"You shouldn't be awake," he said without turning.
"I could say the same to you."
The last note faded. Silence climbed onto the bench between us.
"I didn't want to disturb you," he murmured. "Sometimes the house asks for songs. It's easier to obey than argue."
I stepped inside. The room smelled of wax and old paper, intimate in a way the rest of the manor was not. My gaze found the carved door beyond the piano—the one he'd warned me away from.
"You left the bed," I said softly. "I thought maybe you were running from me."
At that he finally turned.
The expression on his face undid me.
"No, Mira. Never from you."
He stood and crossed the distance as though pulled by an invisible cord. His hands came to my waist with familiar certainty, thumbs brushing the thin fabric that separated us.
"I don't want doubts between us," he whispered. "Not after today. Not after everything we've shared."
"Then don't give me reasons."
The words were braver than I felt.
He searched my eyes for a long moment, as if weighing whether truth would break me or save us both. Whatever he found there made him nod.
"Come back with me."
---
We returned to the bedroom without speaking.
The air between us had changed—no longer playful, no longer lazy. It was heavy with intention, with the knowledge that something needed to be proven and believed.
Adrian closed the door behind us and rested his forehead against mine.
"I don't know how to do this perfectly," he admitted. "I only know how I feel."
"Show me that," I said.
He did.
His kiss was different from the others—slower, deeper, carrying the weight of a promise instead of the spark of discovery. I felt it travel through me, loosening knots I hadn't realized I was holding.
He guided me back toward the bed as if leading a dance only he could hear. Every movement asked permission; every touch waited for an answer.
There is a kind of intimacy that feels like being unafraid for the first time.
He brushed my hair from my shoulder, studying my face the way one studies a horizon before choosing to cross it.
"I want tonight to be about you," he murmured. "Not the house, not the past. Only you."
My heart betrayed me with its speed.
He proved his devotion in small, devastating ways: the careful way he removed the shirt I wore, as though unwrapping something precious; the way his hands warmed the places where I felt most ordinary; the way he listened to every breath like it mattered.
Desire rose between us, but it was wrapped in tenderness.
I had expected passion to be loud. With him it was a low flame that refused to die.
He kissed the silver mark on my wrist, then my palm, then the space just above my heartbeat.
"You are not a choice I regret," he said quietly. "Whatever you fear, don't fear that."
Emotion tightened my throat.
"Then stay," I whispered. "Stay with me completely."
---
Night deepened around the manor.
The world outside reduced itself to the crash of distant waves and the occasional rattle of leaves against glass. Inside, Adrian made a ceremony out of loving me.
There was no hurry.
He learned the language of my body the way a patient scholar learns a rare text—returning to difficult passages, smiling at unexpected verses. I found courage beneath his attention, answering with touches of my own that made him close his eyes and breathe my name like relief.
We were not reckless; we were deliberate.
At one point he pressed his forehead to my shoulder and laughed softly.
"You undo me," he confessed.
"Good," I answered, echoing his earlier words. "Undoing is honest."
The hours softened.
Intimacy became a conversation without sound, a rhythm built from trust instead of urgency. I felt cherished in ways I had never allowed myself to imagine.
When we finally lay tangled together, skin warm and hearts unguarded, the manor seemed to settle around us like a satisfied creature.
Adrian traced idle patterns along my back.
"Tell me you don't regret this," he said.
"I don't." The truth came easily. "I only regret not meeting you sooner."
He kissed my temple, and for a while we simply breathed in unison.
---
Sometime after midnight rain arrived, tapping polite fingers on the windows.
I lay half asleep, listening to the storm and the steady proof of him beside me. Contentment is a fragile animal; I held it carefully.
"Marry me," Adrian said into the dark.
The words were so gentle I thought I'd imagined them.
I lifted my head to see his face. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't teasing.
"You barely know me," I whispered.
"I know enough."
"That's madness."
"Perhaps." His thumb brushed my cheek. "But it's honest madness."
The proposal didn't feel sudden. It felt inevitable, like the final line of a story already written.
"I'm not the kind of girl who belongs in manors and legends," I said.
"You are exactly that kind of girl. You simply haven't been told often enough."
Rain gathered its courage and fell harder.
He reached for my wrist where the silver mark rested, glowing faintly in the dim light.
"This isn't a cage, Mira. It's a door. I'm asking you to choose it."
Emotion swelled until I could barely breathe around it.
"Yes," I heard myself say.
The word changed the air.
Adrian closed his eyes as if in prayer, then kissed me with a reverence that stole what remained of my doubts.
---
Sleep claimed us eventually.
I dreamed of walking through the manor dressed in white, of doors opening like flowers, of Adrian waiting at the end of a long aisle made from moonlight. The dream felt warm, safe.
But dreams in Blackthorne rarely stay kind.
Just before waking I saw Evelyn standing at the edge of the vision, her winter eyes fixed on the ring that had appeared on my finger. She whispered something I couldn't hear.
The candles blew out.
---
Morning arrived with the smell of rain and roses.
Adrian was gone again, though this time a note rested on the pillow:
I have errands in town. Don't run away before I return, my brave Mira.
I smiled despite myself.
On my hand the ring from the dream remained—delicate silver shaped like intertwined thorns and lilies. Impossible. Beautiful.
Proof.
Downstairs the piano waited in obedient silence. The forbidden door, however, was no longer closed.
It stood open a single inch.
Inviting.
The house seemed to hold its breath.
And I, newly promised bride, felt curiosity wake beside my love like a dangerous twin.